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Hector's Pup
Guest
1
2015/04/15 - 7:53am

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.

 
On a Good Dog
 
O, my little pup ten years ago
was arrogant and spry,
Her backbone was a bended bow
for arrows in her eye.
Her step was proud, her bark was loud,
her nose was in the sky,
But she was ten years younger then,
And so, by God, was I.
 
Small birds on stilts along the beach
rose up with piping cry.
And as they rose beyond her reach
I thought to see her fly.
If natural law refused her wings,
that law she would defy,
for she could do unheard-of things,
and so, at times, could I.
 
Ten years ago she split the air
to seize what she could spy;
Tonight she bumps against a chair,
betrayed by milky eye!
She seems to pant, Time up, time up!
My little dog must die,
And lie in dust with Hector’s pup;
So, presently, must I
 
As much as Ogden Nash's poetry has always been able to make me smile, this one poem is the first to ever bring me to tears (and still does).
 
Is there a different reference here?
 
Thank you,
Rachel 
Guest
2
2015/04/15 - 2:05pm

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

and this:
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?

 

Guest
3
2015/04/15 - 2:13pm

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.

deaconB
744 Posts
(Offline)
4
2015/04/15 - 4:06pm

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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