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The tail wagging the dog is an idiom that usually refers to something important or powerful being controlled by something less so. Its earliest use is in the 1858 play Our American Cousin. The 1997 film Wag the Dog shortened the phrase and added the additional meaning of "superfluous (military) action in order to distract from domestic scandal."
- Where Did The Expression Wag The Dog Come from?
- When Did Wag The Dog Become Political?
- How Do You Use Wag The Dog in A sentence?
Wag the dog comes from the longer expression the tail wagging the dog.The tail wagging the dog is an American idiom that dates back to at least the 1870s. Research by Gary Martin for the UK-based website Phrase Finder first finds the expression in an 1872 local newspaper, The Daily Republican: “Calling to mind Lord Dundreary’s conundrum, the Baltim...
Wag the dog went on to develop its own specialized political meaning. In 1997, a film called Wag the Dog came out, based on a 1993 novel of the same name by Larry Beinhart. The plot revolved around efforts to distract attention from a presidential scandal by fabricating a war. The story intruded into real politics not long after its release. In 199...
Wag the dog can be used as a verb or an adjective. A strategy can be referred to as “a real wag the dog tactic,” or you can say that “The prime minister is wagging the dogwith this accusation.” It can also be used as a hashtag to call attention to a person’s use of this strategy.
May 30, 2020 · Addeddate 2020-05-30 14:03:01 Identifier the-oxford-dictionary-of-slang Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s21sm9k9xvm Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11.0 (Extended OCR)
Mar 1, 2018 · Wag the dog comes from the longer expression the tail wagging the dog.. The tail wagging the dog is an American idiom that dates back to at least the 1870s. Research by Gary Martin for the UK-based website Phrase Finder first finds the expression in an 1872 local newspaper, The Daily Republican: “Calling to mind Lord Dundreary’s conundrum, the Baltimore American thinks that for the ...
Wag the Dog. The phrase “wag the dog” refers to a strategy where a political leader engages in diversionary tactics—often involving military action or another high-stakes maneuver—to distract the public from a pending or existing scandal, crisis, or failure. The term gained mainstream prominence from the 1997 film of the same name ...
Wag the dog is a political term for the act of creating a diversion from a damaging issue usually through military force. It stems from the generic use of the term to mean a small and seemingly unimportant entity (the tail) controls a bigger, more important one (the dog).
Oct 2, 2024 · Origin. There is a popular saying which goes “a dog is smarter than its tail, but if the tail were smarter, then the tail would wag the dog “. The phrase in discussion is the shorter version of the same. The phrase is also the tittle of a black comedy film from 1997. Share your opinions 3 Opinions.
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