Why do we write the sound of a dog barking as bow wow? Isn’t that noise more like woof, woof or arf, arf or ruff ruff? Surprisingly, the oldest of these is bow wow, or as William Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest (Bookshop|Amazon), bowgh wawgh. It’s...
In China, dogs say wang wang instead of woof woof. Wikipedia has a great list of such cross-linguistic onomatopoeias. Of course, we all know what the fox says. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Dog Says “Wang-Wang”” Hello, you...
Sell wolf tickets, also found as sell woof tickets, means to make loud, boastful threats without much behind them. In African American English, the companion phrase buy wolf tickets means to take those threats seriously. Geneva Smitherman, a...
