A related tangent: Bogged Down…as in so enburdened that something is providing sub-par performance… is etymologically related, yes?
I really think they are talking about a swamp like area there.
Fascinating thread.
I suspect ‘bog standard’ may just refer to the unspectacular dreariness of a bog/marsh. It’s always used in a slightly perjorative way.
Wouldn’t be so sure. I use ‘bogged down’ regularly, mainly to indicate that I’m too busy to take on additional tasks. Definitely related to getting your foot stuck in a bog and therefore being tied up.
Not the first time this question has been asked, and the definitive answer seems to be “nobody knows”. My favourite explanation (and one that is quite plausible) is that it’s a corrupted reference from the children’s Meccano constructor sets (the closest US analogue to Meccano is Erector), the kits of which came in two flavours - Box Standard, and Box Deluxe. The former morphed into the phrase bog standard, while the latter became dog’s bollocks, which means something that is very good indeed, even better than the bee’s knees. Cite.
We’ll never know for sure, but I like to think that I live in a world where there’s an educational children’s toy that is the source of both the phrases bog standard and dog’s bollocks.
Sounds pretty unlikely to me. Meccano was never labelled Box Standard or Box deluxe.
You are quite right, it seems that the tale is just plain old bollocks: https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/43/messages/1022.html
Shame about that, it’s otherwise a great yarn.