Words and Their Stories: Dog Talk
29 May 2010
Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
Americans use many expressions with the word
dog
. People in the United States love their dogs and treat them well. They take their dogs for walks, let them play outside and give them good food and medical care. However, dogs without owners to care for them lead a different kind of life. The expression,
to lead a dog's life,
describes a person who has an unhappy existence.
Some people say we live in a
dog-eat-dog world.
That means many people are competing for the same things, like good jobs. They say that to be successful, a person has to
work like a dog.
This means they have to work very, very hard. Such hard work can make people
dog-tired.
And, the situation would be even worse if they became
sick as a dog.
Still, people say
every dog has its day.
This means that every person enjoys a successful period during his or her life. To be successful, people often have to learn new skills. Yet, some people say that
you can never teach an old dog new tricks.
They believe that older people do not like to learn new things and will not change the way they do things.
Some people are compared to dogs in bad ways. People who are unkind or uncaring can be described as
meaner than a junkyard dog.
Junkyard dogs live in places where people throw away things they do not want. Mean dogs are often used to guard this property. They bark or attack people who try to enter the property. However, sometimes a person who appears to be mean and threatening is really not so bad. We say
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