Music on Boydog

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. This is Kate. How are you?

Hi, Kate. I’m doing well. How are you? And where are you?

I’m in San Antonio, Texas.

Oh, welcome to the show. How can we help?

My father-in-law has an expression that he uses that I love because it’s so colorful, but I’ve just never heard it from anybody else and wondered where it came from.

So the expression is boy dog, B-O-Y-D-O-G.

Boy dog.

Boy dog.

And he uses it when something needs to be turned up to the nth degree, like put that pot on boy dog and get the water boiling, or turn the music down. You don’t need to have it on boy dog.

So it’s the highest level? Is that what you’re saying?

It’s the highest level. It’s like 11.

A boy dog.

Wow.

Like 11.

Yeah, turning up to 11.

He’s from Beaumont, Texas, so I thought maybe that was part of the expression.

Why, did I speak funny in Beaumont?

Well, yeah. I mean, they’re kind of close to Louisiana, and they’re close to Galveston, so a lot of immigrant population in the turn of the century.

So I wondered if it was from somewhere else. But I’ve asked several friends that we have from Louisiana, one from Lafayette and one from Houma, and they both looked at me like I was crazy. They said, we don’t say that in Louisiana. I’ve never seen it before in my life, nor heard of it.

Boy dog.

No.

Now, it reminds me of boy howdy.

Yeah, it reminds me of boy howdy.

But boy dog, do you know something about this, Martha?

The only place I’ve ever seen boy dog is in Indiana. It is sometimes used to mean mosquito, like a big mosquito.

Yeah, but that’s…

Like a big one.

Yeah, yeah.

That’s a boy dog.

A boy dog, yeah.

But it’s not the same thing. And that’s rare to begin with, and it’s far away, and it’s very different in terms of denotation. That’s the only, only thing I’ve ever seen like that.

It reminds me of boy dog. It reminds me just of boy as an exclamation of surprise or amazement.

Boy, that’s a big whatever.

Yeah, boy dog.

Well, and it’s the opposite of a girl dog.

Yeah, okay.

Right.

I don’t know if it’s a euphemism. This is a big dog, yeah.

Kate, I’ve got to tell you, this could be original to your father. It really could be.

That would be great. He’d love that.

But the thing is, when you talk about something like this on national radio, there’s two things that happen. One, you get a lot of email and phone calls from people saying, oh, no, I know that. You know, we use that. Or you also spread the term.

Well, I’m a fan of spreading language all over the place.

There we go. I do it every day.

Okay. So we’re going to put the word out, Kate, and see if other people know about boy dog being used this way to mean the highest level. Say, turn the stove up to boy dog means up to 11 or turn the music up.

I’ve heard it most often with cooking.

Cooking, okay.

We’ll find out what our callers have to say, and we’ll get back to you.

Oh, that’s great.

Thanks so much.

Yeah, sure.

Take care.

Pleasure to talk to you. I’m a huge fan of the show.

Oh, yay.

Thanks.

Thank you, Kate.

Bye, Kate.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

If you know something about boy dog used as an exclamation or in an exclamatory way, let us know, 877-929-9673. Email us, words@waywordradio.org. Find us on Facebook and groups and pages, or try us on Twitter, W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.