Sick as a Dog

Did you ever wonder where that phrase came from, "sick as a dog"? I looked it up, and got 2 slightly different answers. Both said the phrase dated back to the 17th century. One site said that since "dog" is also used in phrases with a negative connotation (dog wars, going to the dogs, dog tired) that it was meant to imply a negative connotation to being sick. The other site I looked at, which has a slightly cooler explanation, said that the phrase "sock as a dog" is a reference to how vehemently sick dogs get when they manage to eat something that doesn't agree with their system. Also, "sick" in Britain, implies vomitting, as opposed to how we view it here in the United States. Thus, "sick as a dog" essentially means being violently, vomitously ill. Don't you feel smarter now?

And why, you may be asking, did I look this up?

I was thinking of the phrase in reference to how sick my brother is, and so I became curious then as to what exactly the phrase meant. After finding the origin of meaning, however, I have determined that my brother is not as sick as a dog - he is sicker.

As I sit typing this, my baby brother is lying in a hospital bed with the worst case of mononucleosis I have ever heard of. Two days ago he had the coloring of a member of the Simpson family. This morning I learned that hepatitis does not necessarily mean type A, B, or C, but actually is a generic term for any time your liver is having severe problems. An important distinction to make when my family was informed he had mono with hepatitis. Now the infectious disease people think he may have pertussis (also known as whooping cough). Top it all off with the fact that he can't eat solid foods, and his head hurts so badly that the hum of the television makes it worse, and they can't even give him Tylenol because his liver won't metabolize it. At this point,the only thing that would be worse is if he literally was sick as a dog.

On a totally unrelated note, I have started reading Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. I've never read any Vonnegut before, but I've heard of him, and always thought he was one of those authors whose writings one "should" read. So far, I'm enjoying it. The narrator is a member of a made-up religion that is based on lies, and he is exchanging letters with the midget son of one of the men responsible for inventing the atomic bomb. The formatting is really cool too. I'm a sucker for formatting, I think it can do a lot for the text. The chapters in Cat's Cradle are very short (sometimes less than a page). This to me is a reflection of the narrator's thoughts a short spurts. That may not be the intention, but it's the feeling I get when I read. As I get more involved in the book I'll let you know how it's going. We'll see what this Vonnegut guy's all about.

(sidenote: very proud of the number of links used in this post)