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Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Monday, October 20, 2008

i always wondered about dandie dinmont

Every so often I bring up VitaminQ, the unparalleled trivia site that became Infowisps. I could always rely on something one leg outside the box, like "what men and women smelled of in the '50's." So I'm not surprised that even a list of dog breed names would suddenly became punchy with the Q treatment . . .

Pug – probably from its ape-like face; pug, a word for a goblin, was a common dialect name for a monkey.
Boston Bull – developed in New England from various breeds, including the bull terrier.
St Bernard – bred by Bernardine monks in Switzerland to haul carts.
Pharaoh Hound – although this breed is found on Mediterranean islands, its ancestors are thought to be the wild wolf-like dogs which can be seen in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Corgi – Welsh for watchdog.

Here's the full post.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would like to meet a Monkey Biter!

curator said...

HA HA HA!! They'd have to be very fast!

parlance said...

I love the origin of the name Dandie dinmont. I've always wondered how they worked out what dog the character was breeding, seeing it wouldn't have already been called a Dandie Dinmont, if you get what I mean.