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Tom Taylor’s play Our American Cousin
- The tail wagging the dog is a metaphorical expression for a minor part directing the actions of the whole. The metaphor is rather obvious, but unlike many such expressions, this one has a definitive origin. It comes from Tom Taylor’s play Our American Cousin, which was first performed in New York on 15 October 1858.
www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/tail-wagging-the-dog
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Where did the idiom wagging the dog come from?
Where did the phrase 'the tail wagging the dog' come from?
What does 'tail wagging the dog – the' mean?
What does waging a dog mean?
Would the tail wag the dog if he wasn't the tail?
Does the management Wag the dog?
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.
Oct 2, 2024 · The management wags the dog when it comes to the sales department. 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.
What's the origin of the phrase 'Tail wagging the dog – The'? This expression originated in the USA. There isn’t a specific incident that it refers to that can be located there but there are many instances of it in print in US publications from the 1860s onwards, whereas there are none that come from any other country until well into the ...
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).
Origin of Tail Wagging the Dog. This expression first appeared in the 1800s. Obviously, it comes from the idea that a dog wags its tail when it’s happy. Sometimes, a dog will be wagging its tail so much that it makes the dog’s entire body move, as if the tail is actually wagging the dog.
Jul 30, 2021 · The tail wagging the dog is a metaphorical expression for a minor part directing the actions of the whole. The metaphor is rather obvious, but unlike many such expressions, this one has a definitive origin. It comes from Tom Taylor’s play Our American Cousin, which was first performed in New York on 15 October 1858.
