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...
To sell woof tickets, or wolf tickets, is African-American slang meaning “to threaten in a boastful manner.” Geneva Smitherman, a professor at Michigan State University who’s studied the term, believes it has its origins in the idea of a dog barking...
