Jo Ann lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia, but grew up in England. She remembers that when her brother was mopey during family trips to visit their grandparents in Devon, their grandfather would tell him “Get that black dog off your back!” For hundreds of years, the term black dog has been used to mean “a dark mood” or “depression” or “a funk.” The black dog has long been associated with Winston Churchill, although he rarely used the expression himself. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Black Dog of Dark Mood and Depression”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Joanne from Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Welcome, Joanne. What can we do for you?
Well, I had a question. I grew up in England, and every summer we would go to Devon to visit my grandparents, and my mother and father, and my brother and myself.
And when my brother was in a bad mood, he would get very mopey.
And my grandfather would say to him, get that black dog off your back.
And, you know, I’ve wondered about that phrase forever and ever.
And my husband seems to think it comes from Winston Churchill time, maybe the First World War.
My grandfather was actually a veteran from the First World War.
He lost his leg.
So, but he was very active.
So black dog for a bad mood is how it was used in your family.
Well, their family, we never used it.
Their family, gotcha.
Black dog has a long history of several hundred years being used to refer to a depression or a funk or a dark mood or this unsolvable pessimistic outlook on life.
And in the modern times, it has been associated with Winston Churchill, who often would lock himself away in dark rooms with the curtains pooled.
Although apparently one source claims that he rarely used the phrase that was used in reference to him himself.
And there was one letter, I think, a private letter.
It was only finally published in the 90s where he used it.
But we have printed citations for it back into the 1700s.
And one source, although I don’t have the citation for that, credits the idea of a black dog meaning a depression or a funk back to the Roman poet Horace back to 50 BC.
But again, I haven’t seen it.
So it’s got a long, long history.
Why a black dog?
I don’t know.
I think we may be talking about the idea of a dangerous animal, something that’s a burden to you, something a dog on your back is just not something that you want.
They’re not easy to carry.
When the dog is just sort of upset with something, he’ll slurk around or, you know, not be very happy.
Yeah, I think the Horace reference, some people mistranslated the term into black dog when it should have been something more like dark companion.
There we go.
In any case, so it’s got a couple hundred years.
So it’s all about this depression.
There have been a wide variety of films and books and poems and movies, and it’s often a touchstone.
And throughout European culture, by the way, not just in English, throughout all the different languages of Europe, the black dog is often a character in folklore and mystery.
And I think the Hound of the Baskervilles is an indirect reference to the idea of the black dog as a figure of fear and a figure of the ghostly things in the thin places of the world.
As someone who used to live for many years with a black Labrador retriever, I think we need to stop and say black dogs can be great.
They’re the most difficult to adopt out from shelters.
And black dogs can be fabulous.
I’ve loved some black dogs in my life.
Well, good.
Well, thank you for sorting that out for me.
Our pleasure, Joanne.
Pass it on to the rest of my family.
Call us again sometime, all right?
All right.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Take care.
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