# dog's breakfast, dog's dinner, pig's breakfast



## audiolaik

Hello,

What is the origin of this saying? 

In other words, what is the connection between a dog's dinner and the fact that somebody is wearing very formal/decorative clothes?  

Source

Thank you!


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## Thomas Tompion

audiolaik said:


> Hello,
> 
> What is the origin of this saying?
> 
> In other words, what is the connection between a dog's dinner and the fact that somebody is wearing very formal/decorative clothes?
> 
> Thank you!


Not much.  I think the alliteration is all here.  A dog's dinner is BE slang for a mess - he made a complete dog's dinner of the negotiations.

I've not heard the expression used to indicate smart dress, though I see there are eight Google hits for it.  It only merits an entry in the Urban Dictionary for its meaning as a mess.


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## xqby

It's AE slang for the same thing (a mess). I'd never heard the phrase used in the manner you found, Audiolaik.


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## Loob

Well, the OED relates it to a (now old-fashioned) use of "dog" to mean pretentiousness:

[] *to put on dog*: to assume pretentious airs. _colloq._ Hence _dog_ (ellipt.), pretentiousness, ‘side’. [] *like a dog's dinner*: used of someone or something dressed or arranged in an ostentatiously smart or flashy manner. _colloq._ 

Now you're going to ask why dog should have meant pretentiousness, aren't you? 



PS Is your next question going to be about "dog's breakfast", or "the cat's pyjamas"?


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## audiolaik

Loob said:


> Now you're going to ask why dog should have meant pretentiousness, aren't you?




Why should dog have meant pretentiousness? 




Loob said:


> PS Is your next question going to be about "dog's breakfast", or "the cat's pyjamas"?



No. It is going to be about a bear with a sore head!


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## cuchuflete

I've never come across the term in AE.  _Dog's breakfast _is understood to mean... whatever that other thread says.


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## Salvage

Loob said:


> Well, the OED relates it to a (now old-fashioned) use of "dog" to mean pretentiousness:
> 
> [] *to put on dog*: to assume pretentious airs. _colloq._ Hence _dog_ (ellipt.), pretentiousness, ‘side’. [] *like a dog's dinner*: used of someone or something dressed or arranged in an ostentatiously smart or flashy manner. _colloq._



This is more or less the sense I would take "dressed up like a dog's dinner."
I'd add that the dresser-upper is unaccustomed to the finery.  The clothes don't fit well, they aren't his, they are rented, a little overdone.


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## Loob

audiolaik said:


> Why should dog have meant pretentiousness?


 
I don't know!


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## Cagey

audiolaik said:


> Why should dog have meant pretentiousness?



The Etymological Dictionary ventures this suggestion: 


> Phrase_ to put on the dog_ "get dressed up" (1934) may refer back to the stiff collars that in the 1890s were the height of male fashion, with ref. to dog collars.


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## ewie

audiolaik said:


> Why should dog have meant pretentiousness?


 
*dog *_n.6 _[mid-19C+] ostentation, showiness, style, esp. if affected or pretentious [cf. PUT ON DOG]. [congratulatory phr. _You old dog_, which has implications of the subject's swaggering around]

_The Cassell Dictionary of Slang_ (as usual).

Now where did I leave my bone?


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## cuchuflete

If I were a dog (Shhhhh! ewie and loobie) I might see things differently, but anyone who has ever thrown a stick or ball for certain retriever breeds will have noticed what happens when they fetch the object.  The tail goes erect, the object is held high, with the snout at about a 45º angle above the horizontal. They prance back to the thrower.  That's what's called 'folk etymology', and it's not to be trusted for a second, unless you agree with it.


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## Loob

Personally, myself, I don't trust it.

Not for a second.


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## audiolaik

Thank you for all your kind replies!


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## ewie

Loob said:


> Personally, myself, I don't trust it.
> 
> Not for a second.


Nor me.  The retriever's habit of holding its stickies so high is because it was used to fetching large animals (antelope, orang utans, that kind of business) and was trained not to draggle them through the African mud.  *Verified fact*.  Loob sent me a link from her Wiskipedia thingy.


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## panjandrum

Thomas Tompion said:


> Not much.  I think the alliteration is all here.  A dog's dinner is BE slang for a mess - he made a complete dog's dinner of the negotiations.
> 
> I've not heard the expression used to indicate smart dress, though I see there are eight Google hits for it.  It only merits an entry in the Urban Dictionary for its meaning as a mess.


As I understand it, there are two very different idioms involved here.  The dog's dinner is a sartorial comment, the dog's breakfast is a mess.   
The point about the dog's dinner comment is that the person dressed like a dog's dinner is over-dressed in a manner that is flashy, ostentatious, pretentious - and looks a mess.
I assume this comes from the fact that the dog's dinner consists of scraps from the family dinner.  Scrapings of smoked salmon, the tougher bits of the tournedos, the spotted dick that cousin Clive threw at Grandma, all washed down with the dregs of the Veuve Cliquot.
It's perhaps not surprising that the one is merging with the other.

Edit: To add the reference for my comment about "dog's dinner":


> *colloq. like a (or the) dog's dinner  : (of dress, etc.) ostentatious, flashy, or over-elaborate; (also) in an ostentatiously smart or flashy manner.*
> OED


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## audiolaik

panjandrum said:


> I assume this comes from the fact that the dog's dinner consists of scraps from the family dinner. Scrapings of smoked salmon, the tougher bits of the tournedos, the spotted dick that cousin Clive threw at Grandma, all washed down with the dregs of the Veuve Cliquot.


 
Thank you, panjandrum, for your comprehensive explanation!


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## Thomas Tompion

I'm not at all clear that the dog's dinner is usually a sartorial comment, Panj. There are 23,000 Google hits for it and a lot are like this one. The Urban Dictionary contributes this. There is clearly an expression _to be dressed up like a dog's dinner_, which is obviously sartorial, and pejorative - the person has tried to look smart and not succeeded, and not very current, but I don't agree that the dinner is sartorial and the breakfast a mess. Many of those google hits for dinner are using it to mean a mess.

I would agree that the breakfast seems a bit more popular than the dinner to mean a mess. Here's Urban Dictionary on it; it gets 58,000 Google hits, many of which are for a Canadian film with the title The Dog's Breakfast.


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## Loob

Thomas Tompion said:


> I don't agree that the dinner is sartorial and the breakfast a mess. Many of those google hits for dinner are using it to mean a mess.


 
As panj said, 





panjandrum said:


> It's perhaps not surprising that the one is merging with the other.


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## ewie

_Dog's dinner_ sounds quite smart to me ~ heaven only knows why, perhaps because it's _dinner_ rather than _tea. Dog's breakfast _(along with the more 'explicit' variant _pig's breakfast_) sounds like a much messier affair ... maybe because when a dog gets up in the morning, having not eaten for several hours, its table manners are not at their best.
I'm getting terrible déjà vu with all this ...


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## Thomas Tompion

I'm sorry, Loob, I didn't make myself clear.





			
				Panj. said:
			
		

> The dog's dinner is a sartorial comment.


I'm disagreeing with this statement by Panj. I'm saying it's not usually, or even often, a sartorial comment. (8 Google hits is a low tally - for "dress like a dog's dinner": that's a very low fraction of the use of the phrase on the web, on this evidence). 

I think both mean a mess, but that the dinner seems to have joined those phrases, which amuse some people, to suggest excellence or the opposite, like the cat's whiskers, the bee's knees, the cat's pyjamas, the bee's roller-skates, the eel's ankle, the elephant's instep, and the snake's hip, to mean, in this case, a botched attempt at excellence, a mess which is attempting to be something else. We shouldn't forget, perhaps, the etymology of _mess_.


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## panjandrum

The earliest and most recent recorded examples of each of these from the OED:
*1934* ‘C. L. ANTHONY’ _Touch Wood_ II. ii. 66 Why have you got those roses in your hair? You look like the dog's dinner. 
*1954* J. TRENCH _Dishonoured Bones_ II. iii. 57 Tarting up my house and the gardens like a dog's dinner.

*1937* PARTRIDGE _Dict. Slang_ 231/2 *_Dog's breakfast_, a mess: low Glasgow (~1934). *
1963* _Times_ 22 Feb. 12/3 The warders..are very angry and have rejected the latest War Office offer as totally unacceptable. They feel the offer is a bit of a dog's breakfast.

The Urban Dictionary entry for _dog's dinner_ is more of a _dog's breakfast_ than most.


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## Thomas Tompion

Thank you for that, Panj.

The Trench example is interesting in that it is clearly using the expression in the botched-attempt-at-smartness sense.  I was surprised to see it used in that way in the fifties.


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## ewie

Thomas Tompion said:


> the bee's roller-skates, the eel's ankle, the elephant's instep, and the snake's hip


You wouldn't be _making these up_, would you, TT?  (They're pretty good if you are.  Mind you, they're pretty good if you _aren't_ too)


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## Loob

He's not making them up, ewie


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## Cagey

Re: a dog's dinner

A popular children's book titled "The Dogs' Dinner Party" was published in Britain in 1865, or thereabouts.  (I find other dates elsewhere.) Gutenberg has the text. It was published in the US at about the same time as "The Dogs' Grand Dinner Party".   In the story, all the guests behave like ladies and gentleman, except for Mr. Bull-dog, who reverts to doggy behavior. 

The moral of the story:Poor Mrs. Blenheim! she was, indeed, much to be pitied, to have her
nice dinner-party disturbed by so vulgar a creature. This shows how
careful we should be in avoiding low company.​One of Gutenberg's versions apparently includes the illustrations, but I couldn't download it.  I did, however, find this illustration. 

It seems likely that the saying and the book are related, though in which order is a question.

Added: A link to all the Gutenberg versions of the story.


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## lemmers

I can remember this expresion from the 1950's. at that time it definatly refered to dressing up. It was in origin I think a working/lower middle class term used of middle/upper class persons who dressed formally for dinner, (hence the 'dinner' element), and by extension for flashy dressing. 
When used in reference to people one disliked or did not know well it usually had an element of contempt in its expression. however it could be used affectionatly to a person one knew well who was dressed for something special, (not neccessarily formal). It did not I think refer to poorly fitting or inappropriate clothing. The expression stood in contrast to dog's breakfast which was a more general term for a mess of any kind. At this time the term dog's dinner was to my knowledge never used to mean 'mess', this appears to be a more recent development, and is I think based on a confusion of the two terms


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## oatkins

Complete guess here, but couldn't this be a Bible reference to Queen Jezebel?  2 Kings 9:30, 36—Jezebel 'Paints her eyes with black paint and makes herself up beautifully', then is thrown out of an upstairs window and her body is eaten by dogs.


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## cantabile

Could someone help with the expression "you look like a pig´s breakfast"?
Many thanks in advance!


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## Momerath

Could this be a variation of "dog's breakfast", which means "a mess"?


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## Man_from_India

But as far as I know "dog's breakfast" is used to the person who is doing a lot of task, and looks terribly exhausted, and tired. 
So is it the variation or not may depend on context.


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## Inglip

It means ugly, horrible, disgusting.

A pig eats sloppy, messy, disgusiting left overs and rubbish. So it's food isn't pleasant to look at.


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## Inglip

Man_from_India said:


> But as far as I know "dog's breakfast" is used to the person who is doing a lot of task, and looks terribly exhausted, and tired.
> So is it the variation or not may depend on context.


 
I think you mean, dog tired. 'I worked so hard today, I'm dog tired'


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## Momerath

According to the Urban Dictionary, “dog’s breakfast” is British slang for “a complete mess”. It suggests that it originally referred to a  badly prepared dish that was only fit for a dog. For more information see: 

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dog%27s+breakfast


I've never heard "pig's breakfast" before. It could be an original coinage with the meaning attributed to it by Inglip, in which case it would be extremely insulting.


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## panjandrum

Pig's breakfast is a conflation of "pig's ear" and "dog's breakfast".

In a pig's ear


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## ewie

The term _pig's breakfast _is (to me, anyway) a perfectly acceptable ~ but even messier ~ variant of _dog's breakfast._


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## cantabile

Well, Thank you, everybody!  
I´m surprised not even the native speakers had heard the expression before. It is used in "Fair Game," by Elizabeth Young.


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## ewie

cantabile said:


> I´m surprised not even the native speakers had heard the expression before.


(I have, Cantabile ~ I use it regularly  See post #8.)


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## Inglip

I don't use it, but I have heard it before. Maybe I hear it less living in a Muslim country ha ha.


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## whi

hi, US friends, do you use this idiom, in which form? what is the American equivalent [colloquial but not vulgar]?


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## ride7359

People use "dog's breakfast" it in the US. At least it is familiar to me. If referring to a person, we also say, "You look like something the cat dragged in."  

I have never heard "the dog's dinner."  Apparently it means something different.  See here.


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## wildan1

I don't hear _dog's breakfast_ or _dinner _used by AE-speakers who don't have some special connection or experience with British English. I think other AE-speakers would be left a bit unsure of the meaning if they heard it.

_X looks like something the cat dragged in _is especially applied to people; a description of a badly executed piece of work or project would be_ a big mess, a total wreck, a botch job. 
_
None of these terms are vulgar in AE, but all are somewhat informal.


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## whi

ride7359 said:


> People use "dog's breakfast" it in the US. At least it is familiar to me. If referring to a person, we also say, "You look like something the cat dragged in."  I have never heard "the dog's dinner."  Apparently it means something different.  See here.


sorry to contradict you, OALD says they are synonyms. UK friends can help here
"cat dragged in" refers only to a person, I was looking for a "juicy" informal equivalent for "a mess"  not as vulgar as "ballsup"or "fuckup" etc


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## ewie

*Moderator note: *Today's thread has been merged with a couple of earlier ones on the same subject ~ plenty more answers above


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