Bark at a Knot

I came across an expression the other day that describes the action of doing something really futile or really foolish, and it’s barking at a knot.

Do you know this one?

No, I don’t. Barking at a knot.

At first, when I read this barking at a knot, which I found in a dictionary of old cowboy slang, I can picture this. You know, a dog looking at a knot, wanting to untie it, and just barking in utter futility.

Oh, like as a chew toy kind of thing.

Yeah, just some kind of, like, there’s no way you’re going to untie a knot by barking at it.

But it’s not the rope?

Well, after some—

It’s the tree.

Yes, after some—

Because the dog is imagining the knot as, like, a raccoon gets been treed.

That’s it.

But it took me a while to figure that out. I finally found a letter by James Wyatt Oates from 1914 where he talks about as foolish as a pup barking at a knot hole.

And that’s when I realized that it’s not a tied knot.

Oh, gotcha.

In a tree.

Because he thinks there’s something up the tree, but there isn’t.

Or maybe there’s something in the hole.

I don’t know.

But just standing there barking and barking and barking.

So it’s about futility, doing something. There’s going to be no result no matter how hard you try.

Yes.

It sounds like a video you might watch on YouTube for a while. You know, this dog just cannot succeed.

Well, it reminds me of the ones that have made the rounds. There’s a really well-known one of a little kid, maybe two or three, trying to drink from a hose.

And he holds the hose and every time he bends his head down to drink the water his hand moves it just out of the way and he comes back up and the hose goes back into place and he goes down the hose is gone and he just you can’t you can’t coordinate his head and his hand to get that water in his mouth.

So what phrase are we going to take from that? Well, language is rich and deep and wonderful. Call us about your parts of it 877-929-9673.