Re: OT - DOGS

John Montgomery wrote:
> 
> I have been curious for some time regarding the practice of referring to
> "junk" seedlings as DOGS. Please note this is not a complaint or an attempt
> to whitewash the language but simple curiosity. Do hybridizers have an
> historic anathema toward dogs? Did Mr. Dykes get bitten by a dog while
> making a cross? Why are the ugly ones not HIPPOS ar WARTHOGS? I wonder what
> dog breeders call their diaappointments. Are they Tulips?
> 
> As someone who seems to need to have a couple of dogs around to make the
> world go as it should, it would never occur to me to call an ugly plant a
> dog. On the other hand, our Siberian Huskies wouldn't care, I don't think,
> because they really do not consider themselves to belong to the dog
> species. Intheir minds, they are rather in a special niche, more or less
> parallel and equal to humans but perhaps a little smarter and certainly (in
> their minds) more handsome and charming.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> John Montgomery
> Vernon  BC
> monashee@junction.net   Whose wife just presented me with a monster box of
> Crayola crayons. ( But no coloring book)

Well, John, with full knowledge that I am stepping onto "terra infirma",
I would say that, for all of their endearing qualities, there is still
something about dogs that evokes a pejorative connotation when compared
with whatever is favored. Witness the Cheyenne -- a proud and resilient
people, yet described to Europeans by their neighbors, the Sioux, as
"les chiens" -- "dogs". (Similarly, the Snakes, Flatheads, Blackfeet,
etc.) Much depends on who is doing the describing. Being a dog owner for
more than five decades, I can report that there has always come a time
in a dog's life when I have had to inform it that it was a dog -- they
never took it well. Try it. You'll see the reaction.

Congratulations on your Crayola bonanza!

Griff Crump, along the tidal Potomac near Mount Vernon, VA 
jgcrump@erols.com
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