To bark at a knot means to engage in foolish or futile activity, like a dog yapping at a knothole on a tree. This is part of a complete episode.
My dogs are barking means “My feet hurt” or “My feet are tired.” As early as 1913, cartoonist Tad Dorgan was using the term dogs to mean “feet.” If your “dogs” in this sense are “barking,”...
A Zionsville, Indiana, man recalls that when his mother issued a warning to her kids, she would add for emphasis: “And that’s the word with the bark on it.” The bark in this case refers to rough-hewn wood that still has bark on...
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.
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...
A woman who grew up in India says she was baffled when someone with aching feet complained, “My dogs are barking.” The answer may lie in a jocular rhyme. This is part of a complete episode.