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I enjoyed last week's discussion about the origin of "Hector's pup" and its uses. I had been wondering about it for over 35 years. However, it didn't quite address the source of my curiosity: a poem by Ogden Nash.
Thank you Rachel for the lovely poem! As the aging subject of an ancient pup I know the feelings. (As an aside, I have to wonder if Bob Dylan heard this poem, or something like it, when he wrote "Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now" from the song "My Back Pages")
I just listened to the episode, and what I didn't hear was any mention that Hector was a pretty common name for a dog three or four (human) generations ago. AWWW links to WorldWide Words http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sin1.htm; here's some other references:
“Hector may refer to the Trojan hero who lived around 1200 b.c. and whose mother Hecuba was, according to Euripides, turned into a dog (hence Hector could be regarded as her pup); it may also reflect the popularity at various times of Hector as a dog’s name.” We’re inclined to think the latter explanation is more likely to be the origin of a 19th-century colloquialism. The literature of the 19th century—both fiction and nonfiction—is full of dogs named Hector. http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/06/since-pluto-was-a-pup.html
I wouldn't be surprised if heroic names from classical history and myth were more popular for pets three (human) generations ago than they are now, because education was different then. There's humor in "since Hector was a pup" if construed as referring simultaneously to the Greek figure of long ago and to the bow-wow Hector of right now. http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/17/messages/1009.html
The phrase "since Hector was a pup" is quite a bit different from the "Hector's pup" of the Ogden Nash poem. (It does make a nice curse, as the caller from Carefree, Arizona mentioned.) "Dead as Hector's pup" (in quotes) yields 10 entries on Google, and quite a few of these are from the 1910s. Perhaps just a natural confusion of the terms?
farsomeness said: I wouldn’t be surprised if heroic names from classical history and myth were more popular for pets three (human) generations ago than they are now, because education was different then.
Indeed. We had to take one semester of classic mythology back in high school. That was the late 60s early 70s. When I used the expression "You might be opening Pandora's box" to a teenager a couple years ago, I was met with a confused expression and had to explain myself. I'm not even sure if classic mythology is an elective at that level these days.
In House episode 20 ("House Training"), Wilson asks House to temporarily care for his dog Hector. The dog is untrained and apparently untrainable, and it's revealed that Wilson's wife gave the dog that name because "Hector Does Go Rug" is an anagram for "Doctor Greg House".
Until the middle of the twentieth century, I'm told, it was extremely common for black dogs to be call "Nig", for the latin word "niger", from which "Nigeria and the Niger River get their names, and because so many dogs are black, it may have been the most common oif all dogs' names. These days, of course, it's considered impolite to use the unrelated word "niggard" in the "tightwad/cheapskate" sense. I'm sure, to, that there was probably some racism in giving that name to a dog. There could be a psychology thesis about the naming of sons, daughters,pats - and in an earlier time, cars.
It's still not uncommon for a family farmer with beef cattle to have a solitary Guernsey or Jersey to provide milk for the family, but none of them seem to get names these days. In the 1950s, as a rule, one didn't name animals you're going to eat, but a milch cow should be nameable.
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