We’re transcribing some oral histories of musicians in North Carolina. The speaker is talking about music he listened to as he was growing up. He says “Let’s see, there was not much music when I was growing up that was easy to get access to. I’m sure some of you who are my age know that that was—you know—the television had just a little bit; radio had some. But I didn’t like stuff like, How Much is That Doggie in the Window?”

The transcriptionist researched the song (which is exactly what she’s supposed to do). She found that the original title of the song was “That Doggy in the Window.” It is cited as “(How Much is) That Doggy in the Window.”

Wikipedia says this: ”(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” is a popular novelty song written by Bob Merrill and first registered on September 25, 1952, as “The Doggie in the Window”. On January 27, 1953, its sheet music was published in New York as “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window”.[1]

The song was first recorded by Patti Page in December, 1952, and has been re-released many, many times. But it’s best known as “How Much is That Doggie in the Window?”

In this usage, though, he’s not citing the exact title of the song—either “That Doggie in the Window” or “The Doggie in the Window.” The song has been released so many times, it’s become a colloquialism. Oxford Languages defines a colloquialism as a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation.

The (How Much Is) in parentheses would just distract from the conversation, so we decided to use the popular title, “How Much is That Doggie in the Window.”

What do you think?

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We’re transcribing some oral histories of musicians in North Carolina. The speaker is talking about music he listened to as he was growing up. He says “Let’s see, there was not much music when I was growing up that was easy to get access to. I’m sure some of you who are my age know that that was—you know—the television had just a little bit; radio had some. But I didn’t like stuff like, How Much is That Doggie in the Window?”

The transcriptionist researched the song (which is exactly what she’s supposed to do). She found that the original title of the song was “That Doggy in the Window.” It is cited as “(How Much is) That Doggy in the Window.”

Wikipedia says this: ”(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” is a popular novelty song written by Bob Merrill and first registered on September 25, 1952, as “The Doggie in the Window”. On January 27, 1953, its sheet music was published in New York as “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window”.[1]

The song was first recorded by Patti Page in December, 1952, and has been re-released many, many times. But it’s best known as “How Much is That Doggie in the Window?”

In this usage, though, he’s not citing the exact title of the song—either “That Doggie in the Window” or “The Doggie in the Window.” The song has been released so many times, it’s become a colloquialism. Oxford Languages defines a colloquialism as a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation.

The (How Much Is) in parentheses would just distract from the conversation, so we decided to use the popular title, “How Much is That Doggie in the Window.”

What do you think?

Subscribe now

When I look to my left and see my dog deep into his fifth nap of the day, I cannot help but wonder how the “dog days” expression came to mean something other than the most desirable kind of days. Dogs have come a long way from the time this idiom was coined, but did you know it initially had a different meaning? Read on and find out!

Grammarphobia

Dog days: Are you pooped?

Pat and Stewart

Dec 11

Q: How did the expression “dog days” change from meaning the hottest time of the year to a period of sluggishness or stagnation?

A: When “dog days” first appeared in English in the 16th century, it referred to the hottest part of summer in the Northern hemisphere, a period once considered unhealthy and evil.

Because of the lethargy caused by the heat or fears of malignant influences, the term came to mean a period of stagnation and inactivity. Here’s the story.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes “dog days” as “the hottest part of the summer, associated in ancient times with the heliacal rising of the Dog Star in the Mediterranean area, and formerly considered to be the most unhealthy period of the year and a time of ill omen.”

The expression has its roots in Greek mythology, where Sirius is the name of the hunter Orion’s dog. In the Iliad (Book XXII), Homer refers to the star as κύν᾽ Ὠρίωνος (kun Orionos, Orion’s dog).

English borrowed the phrase from the post-classical Latin caniculares dies (dog days), which was borrowed in turn from the Hellenistic Greek κυνάδες ἡμέραι (kunades hemerai, dog days).

When the phrase first appeared in English the 16th century, it referred to the hottest days of summer. The earliest OED example, which we’ve expanded, is from The Dictionary of Syr Thomas Eliot Knyght (1538):

“Canicula, a lyttell dogge or bytche. Also a sterre, wherof canicular or dogge days be named Dies caniculares.”

The dictionary says the phrase soon took on the figurative sense of “an evil time; a period in which malignant influences prevail.” The earliest citation for this sense is from a letter by a Protestant clergyman (and later martyr) to a fellow inmate at Newgate Prison in London:

“Neither that any giddy head in these dog-days might take an ensample [example] by you to dissent from Christ’s true church” (from a 1555 letter by John Philpot in The Examinations and Writings of John Philpot, 1842, edited by Robert Eden).

The OED says the evil figurative usage is seen “now (in weakened sense): a period of inactivity or decline.”

It’s not uncommon for the sense of a usage to strengthen or weaken over time, as we note in a 2021 post. A linguist might refer to weakening as “semantic loss” or “semantic reduction.”

It’s unclear when the weakened sense of “dog days” first appeared in English, though this Oxford citation may be an early sighting or a perhaps an indication of things to come:

“What then shall wee now expect in these dogge-dayes of the worlds declining age?” (Achitophel; or, the Picture of a Wicked Politician, 1629, three sermons by the philosopher and Anglican clergyman Nathanael Carpenter).

The dictionary’s first clear example of the weakened sense, which we’ve expanded, is from a July 12, 1992, article in The New York Times about mid-level bosses being laid off in troubled economic times:

“One possibly beneficial byproduct of the managerial dog days may be that it will prepare younger people for the job- and career-jumping likely to be their lot.”

And here’s the OED’s most recent example: “In the dog-days of The Beatles, one of Paul’s plans for holding it all together had been for the world’s most fabled band to just go out and play” (“The Beatles: Stoned, sloppy—shelved!” Mojo, February 2002).

Oxford notes that “the dog days have been variously reckoned, as depending on either the Greater Dog Star (Sirius) or the Lesser Dog Star (Procyon), and on either the heliacal rising or the cosmical rising (which occurs at an earlier date).”

The heliacal rising of a star occurs when it first becomes visible above the eastern horizon at dawn just before sunrise. The cosmical rising occurs when it rises in the morning at the same time as the sun.

“The timing of these risings depends on latitude, and they do not occur at all in most of southern hemisphere,” the OED says, adding that “very different dates have been assigned for the dog days,” with their beginning “ranging from 3 July to 15 August, and their duration varying from 30 to 61 days.”

In the Calendar of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, the dog days run from July 7 to Sept. 5. In current calendars, Oxford says, “they are often said to begin on 3 July and end on 11 August (i.e. the 40 days preceding the cosmical rising of Sirius at the latitude of Greenwich).”

The dictionary says the usage “arose from the pernicious qualities of the season being attributed to the ‘influence’ of the Dog Star; but it has long been popularly associated with the belief that at this season dogs are most liable to go mad.”

When I look to my left and see my dog deep into his fifth nap of the day, I cannot help but wonder how the “dog days” expression came to mean something other than the most desirable kind of days. Dogs have come a long way from the time this idiom was coined, but did you know it initially had a different meaning? Read on and find out!

Grammarphobia

Dog days: Are you pooped?

Pat and Stewart

Dec 11

Q: How did the expression “dog days” change from meaning the hottest time of the year to a period of sluggishness or stagnation?

A: When “dog days” first appeared in English in the 16th century, it referred to the hottest part of summer in the Northern hemisphere, a period once considered unhealthy and evil.

Because of the lethargy caused by the heat or fears of malignant influences, the term came to mean a period of stagnation and inactivity. Here’s the story.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes “dog days” as “the hottest part of the summer, associated in ancient times with the heliacal rising of the Dog Star in the Mediterranean area, and formerly considered to be the most unhealthy period of the year and a time of ill omen.”

The expression has its roots in Greek mythology, where Sirius is the name of the hunter Orion’s dog. In the Iliad (Book XXII), Homer refers to the star as κύν᾽ Ὠρίωνος (kun Orionos, Orion’s dog).

English borrowed the phrase from the post-classical Latin caniculares dies (dog days), which was borrowed in turn from the Hellenistic Greek κυνάδες ἡμέραι (kunades hemerai, dog days).

When the phrase first appeared in English the 16th century, it referred to the hottest days of summer. The earliest OED example, which we’ve expanded, is from The Dictionary of Syr Thomas Eliot Knyght (1538):

“Canicula, a lyttell dogge or bytche. Also a sterre, wherof canicular or dogge days be named Dies caniculares.”

The dictionary says the phrase soon took on the figurative sense of “an evil time; a period in which malignant influences prevail.” The earliest citation for this sense is from a letter by a Protestant clergyman (and later martyr) to a fellow inmate at Newgate Prison in London:

“Neither that any giddy head in these dog-days might take an ensample [example] by you to dissent from Christ’s true church” (from a 1555 letter by John Philpot in The Examinations and Writings of John Philpot, 1842, edited by Robert Eden).

The OED says the evil figurative usage is seen “now (in weakened sense): a period of inactivity or decline.”

It’s not uncommon for the sense of a usage to strengthen or weaken over time, as we note in a 2021 post. A linguist might refer to weakening as “semantic loss” or “semantic reduction.”

It’s unclear when the weakened sense of “dog days” first appeared in English, though this Oxford citation may be an early sighting or a perhaps an indication of things to come:

“What then shall wee now expect in these dogge-dayes of the worlds declining age?” (Achitophel; or, the Picture of a Wicked Politician, 1629, three sermons by the philosopher and Anglican clergyman Nathanael Carpenter).

The dictionary’s first clear example of the weakened sense, which we’ve expanded, is from a July 12, 1992, article in The New York Times about mid-level bosses being laid off in troubled economic times:

“One possibly beneficial byproduct of the managerial dog days may be that it will prepare younger people for the job- and career-jumping likely to be their lot.”

And here’s the OED’s most recent example: “In the dog-days of The Beatles, one of Paul’s plans for holding it all together had been for the world’s most fabled band to just go out and play” (“The Beatles: Stoned, sloppy—shelved!” Mojo, February 2002).

Oxford notes that “the dog days have been variously reckoned, as depending on either the Greater Dog Star (Sirius) or the Lesser Dog Star (Procyon), and on either the heliacal rising or the cosmical rising (which occurs at an earlier date).”

The heliacal rising of a star occurs when it first becomes visible above the eastern horizon at dawn just before sunrise. The cosmical rising occurs when it rises in the morning at the same time as the sun.

“The timing of these risings depends on latitude, and they do not occur at all in most of southern hemisphere,” the OED says, adding that “very different dates have been assigned for the dog days,” with their beginning “ranging from 3 July to 15 August, and their duration varying from 30 to 61 days.”

In the Calendar of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, the dog days run from July 7 to Sept. 5. In current calendars, Oxford says, “they are often said to begin on 3 July and end on 11 August (i.e. the 40 days preceding the cosmical rising of Sirius at the latitude of Greenwich).”

The dictionary says the usage “arose from the pernicious qualities of the season being attributed to the ‘influence’ of the Dog Star; but it has long been popularly associated with the belief that at this season dogs are most liable to go mad.”

February 23, 1998

Coronary Artery Disease in WomenA Historical Perspective

Joan L. Thomas, MD; Patricia A. Braus, MPh

Author Affiliations Article Information

Arch Intern Med. 1998;158(4):333-337. doi:10.1001/archinte.158.4.333

Abstract

Knowledge about the natural history of coronary heart disease in women was limited until recent years. Few studies included women, despite the fact that heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in women older than 50 years and the cause of about 500000 deaths annually. Over the past decade, knowledge has increased owing to a combination of greater participation of women in medical studies, improved medical technology, and political pressure. While much remains to be learned, researchers have found that coronary artery disease in women typically follows a different course than it does in men. Women’s risk factors also differ from men’s, in part owing to the key protective role played by estrogen. Increasing knowledge about women and heart disease can provide new tools for physicians caring for women at risk of heart disease.

Women’s health issues that did not concern reproduction received little attention and little research funding prior to 1986. This was particularly unfortunate in the area of heart disease, which was long considered to be a greater threat to men than to women. Researchers have found more recently that, while men typically develop heart disease earlier in life than women, women have a worse prognosis than men once they have had a myocardial infarction.1 Women also face a worse prognosis than men following surgical therapy for coronary artery disease (CAD).2,3 In addition, African American women face mortality rates from heart disease that are double those of white women, leaving CAD to be the leading cause of death in African American women aged 30 to 39 years.4 The delay in addressing heart disease in women as a distinct condition resulted in years of treating men and women at risk of heart disease equally, overlooking women’s special needs.

Until a decade ago, men were the model subjects in most funded biomedical studies. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Md, the major source of research funding in this country, had no policy about the inclusion of women in large trials addressing heart disease, cancer, and stroke.5 It was then assumed that whatever the findings, the results would hold true in women. Since then, it has become apparent that this generalization was incorrect in many situations.6

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy through the early 1990s prohibited women in their childbearing years from participating in phase 1 drug trials, which test the efficacy, safety profiles, and dosages of new drugs.7 Guidelines also limited women in their childbearing years from participating in the more advanced phase 2 trials. Also, the US General Accounting Office found that in the more advanced phase 2 and 3 trials, adequate analysis of the data looking at sex differences of safety and effectiveness occurred only 50% of the time between 1988 and 1991.7 However, once a new drug was approved and on the market, physicians prescribed these drugs to women as well as men, assuming that women and men would require similar dosages, that the efficacy would be similar, and that side effects would be the same.

Guidelines of the FDA not only prevented women in their childbearing years from participating in clinical trials, but also prevented women who were unlikely to become pregnant, such as women using birth control, women who were sexually inactive, or those with partners with vasectomies, from participating.7 In excluding women from these early clinical trials, researchers risked missing sex-related differences in adverse effect profiles and in appropriate dosing of drugs. As a result, phase 3 trials often were not designed to account for these differences.

Women were excluded from drug trials during their childbearing years for 2 reasons. There was concern about birth defects after the well-publicized thalidomide tragedy in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, there was concern that women who were postmenopausal, who had undergone a hysterectomy, or who were using estrogen replacement therapy would show variations in estrogen and progesterone levels that would affect the efficacy of the trial drugs.7

February 23, 1998

Coronary Artery Disease in WomenA Historical Perspective

Joan L. Thomas, MD; Patricia A. Braus, MPh

Author Affiliations Article Information

Arch Intern Med. 1998;158(4):333-337. doi:10.1001/archinte.158.4.333

Abstract

Knowledge about the natural history of coronary heart disease in women was limited until recent years. Few studies included women, despite the fact that heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in women older than 50 years and the cause of about 500000 deaths annually. Over the past decade, knowledge has increased owing to a combination of greater participation of women in medical studies, improved medical technology, and political pressure. While much remains to be learned, researchers have found that coronary artery disease in women typically follows a different course than it does in men. Women’s risk factors also differ from men’s, in part owing to the key protective role played by estrogen. Increasing knowledge about women and heart disease can provide new tools for physicians caring for women at risk of heart disease.

Women’s health issues that did not concern reproduction received little attention and little research funding prior to 1986. This was particularly unfortunate in the area of heart disease, which was long considered to be a greater threat to men than to women. Researchers have found more recently that, while men typically develop heart disease earlier in life than women, women have a worse prognosis than men once they have had a myocardial infarction.1 Women also face a worse prognosis than men following surgical therapy for coronary artery disease (CAD).2,3 In addition, African American women face mortality rates from heart disease that are double those of white women, leaving CAD to be the leading cause of death in African American women aged 30 to 39 years.4 The delay in addressing heart disease in women as a distinct condition resulted in years of treating men and women at risk of heart disease equally, overlooking women’s special needs.

Until a decade ago, men were the model subjects in most funded biomedical studies. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Md, the major source of research funding in this country, had no policy about the inclusion of women in large trials addressing heart disease, cancer, and stroke.5 It was then assumed that whatever the findings, the results would hold true in women. Since then, it has become apparent that this generalization was incorrect in many situations.6

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy through the early 1990s prohibited women in their childbearing years from participating in phase 1 drug trials, which test the efficacy, safety profiles, and dosages of new drugs.7 Guidelines also limited women in their childbearing years from participating in the more advanced phase 2 trials. Also, the US General Accounting Office found that in the more advanced phase 2 and 3 trials, adequate analysis of the data looking at sex differences of safety and effectiveness occurred only 50% of the time between 1988 and 1991.7 However, once a new drug was approved and on the market, physicians prescribed these drugs to women as well as men, assuming that women and men would require similar dosages, that the efficacy would be similar, and that side effects would be the same.

Guidelines of the FDA not only prevented women in their childbearing years from participating in clinical trials, but also prevented women who were unlikely to become pregnant, such as women using birth control, women who were sexually inactive, or those with partners with vasectomies, from participating.7 In excluding women from these early clinical trials, researchers risked missing sex-related differences in adverse effect profiles and in appropriate dosing of drugs. As a result, phase 3 trials often were not designed to account for these differences.

Women were excluded from drug trials during their childbearing years for 2 reasons. There was concern about birth defects after the well-publicized thalidomide tragedy in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, there was concern that women who were postmenopausal, who had undergone a hysterectomy, or who were using estrogen replacement therapy would show variations in estrogen and progesterone levels that would affect the efficacy of the trial drugs.7