# "The dog it was that died." **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 14, 2023, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234 "2023-01-14T20:41:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/1 "2023-01-14T20:41:53Z")
No cheating nor looking it up. Does this phrase, exactly as written, mean anything to you? If so, what do you remember about it? Please spoiler your explanation so others can come at it fresh. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/2 "2023-01-14T20:43:18Z")
No, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/3 "2023-01-14T20:44:52Z")
Well, i’ve heard of it… but i don’t remember where it comes from. Eta; just googled it. That explains it. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/4 "2023-01-14T20:49:21Z")
It’s such an odd word order that I’m mentally searching through Southern writers… which, with my track record, means it’s probably a Saskatchewan dialect. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/5 "2023-01-14T20:53:06Z")
It’s a [Tom Stoppard radio play](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dog_It_Was_That_Died). ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/6 "2023-01-14T21:29:54Z")
It makes me think “I know I’ve read that somewhere, but where?” I can’t even think of any context. It’s just familiar. – and I’m not entirely sure whether it’s familiar in that exact form, or whether it’s just the general format, and whatever it’s reminding me of was a line about something/somebody other than a dog dying. (Now to go back and read the blurred bits of posts --) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/7 "2023-01-14T21:33:54Z")
Having read back and then googled: > [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > It’s a [Tom Stoppard radio play It’s older than that. [A Short Analysis of Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog’ – Interesting Literature](https://interestingliterature.com/2019/01/a-short-analysis-of-oliver-goldsmiths-an-elegy-on-the-death-of-a-mad-dog/) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/8 "2023-01-14T22:00:48Z")
I don’t recognize it as a reference, but I do read it as having meaning: The listener already knows that someone died, but the speaker is clarifying that it was just the dog, not, say, the father. And of course the word order is odd-- Possibly Yiddish-influenced? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/9 "2023-01-14T22:45:08Z")
I remember it as the title of an Alan Coren humor collection. He was British not Yiddish. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/10 "2023-01-14T22:50:27Z")
_Old Yeller_ as told by Yoda? ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/11 "2023-01-14T23:52:23Z")
In addition to the two correct specific answers so far, there are two others (related to each other) that I know of. Mostly-forgotten golden-age and beyond British mystery writer E. C. R. Lorac had one mystery by that title, and in another a direct reference to the original meaning: “It’s another case of ‘the dog it was who died,’ said the inspector.” from Bats in the Belfry, referring to the unexpected and unintended person who died while the other survived. It was this last that niggled at me and influenced me to look it up (I didn’t know either). eta: I haven’t encountered the Alan Coren humor collection, so that’s a fifth one. I’m sure there are others, the original being a relatively well-known work. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2023, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/12 "2023-01-15T00:08:05Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I’m sure there are others Yes, I tripped over several others after I found the original. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2023, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/13 "2023-01-15T00:15:27Z")
Interestingly (perhaps), there’s an extended gag in the Stoppard play involving the phrase “bats in the belfry.” ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2023, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/14 "2023-01-15T06:29:29Z")
Yes. It’s the last line of a short humorous poem about a man who IIRC was so nasty that instead of him dying from the dog bite… ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2023, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/15 "2023-01-15T15:54:25Z")
@rowrrbazzle, I think you’re the first one in the thread to remember the original reference without having had to look it up first. Congratulations! ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2023, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/16 "2023-01-15T16:30:06Z")
What I think is in four parts 1. It’s the title of a play or novel or something. 2. It’s a quote from some earlier literary work. 3. It’s a fragment of a longer sentence, which runs approximately: “The man who was bitten recovered, the dog, it was, that died.” 4. It describes a folk-medicine cure where “hair of the dog” is used as a cure for infected dog bites. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2023, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/17 "2023-01-15T16:33:39Z")
It feels like it should’ve been the punchline to a rambling story told by Colin Farrell in _In Bruges_. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2023, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/18 "2023-01-16T00:57:01Z")
Where it came from: Oliver Goldsmith. I was reading it just the other day. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2023, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/19 "2023-01-20T06:55:34Z")
I originally read it decades ago in a print copy of _The Silver Treasury of Light Verse_ which my family had. It’s actually a nice collection, although the compiler padded it a bit with the entire “Hunting of the Snark”. You can now borrow it from [archive.org](http://archive.org) at [The Silver Treasury of Light Verse : Oscar Williams : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/silvertreasuryof0000osca/mode/2up?view=theater). ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dog-it-was-that-died/978234/20 "2023-01-27T13:41:57Z")
I’m hearing it in Jud Crandall’s voice “The dog it was that died. Sometimes dead is betteh”