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Dog's years

Posted by Smokey Stover on July 27, 2009 at 06:12

In Reply to: Dog's years posted by ESC on July 27, 2009 at 03:18:

: : My daughters recently heard the phrase "in dog's years" and asked me what it meant. I told them that it meant "a long time" but have been wondering about the origin ever since... could someone help me out on this?

: I haven't seen you in dog years. Or a dog's age. Means a long time. But I haven't found out why yet. How long does the average dog live?

No matter how this phrase is used, it's wrong. But one way of using it is to suppose that a human lives seven times as long as a dog on average--which is not supportable, but once was widely believed. Then a dog at the age of one will have lived "seven dog years," and at the age of 15 (old for a dog) will have lived 105 dog years.

Presumably, if I haven't seen you in a year, it seems like seven dog's years. But it obviously makes no sense to say "I haven't seen you in dog's years," unless you mean that it seems longer than it actually has been, which is not what's meant, as far as I can tell. Rather, it seems to be taken to mean "many years."

There are many colorful expressions that are essentially meaningless, but to which some substantial number of people have attached a meaning. Others have had to decipher without much to go on--or more likely, have just had to learn how the expression is used. This is the case here.
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