Reader question:
What is a lap dog, as in "you're just his lap dog"?
My comments:
A lap dog is a dog, a small pet dog, small enough to sit on its owner's lap.
And petted enough, of course, to be allowed to do so. The lap dog is docile and obedient. In other words it doesn't snarl at its master, let alone bite.
That's lap dog as a dog, and a good dog it is too.
Lap dog can be a person, someone who's totally subservient to his master. The lap dog as a person, however, carries derogative connotations. To label a person a lap dog is similar to calling them a poodle (another docile dog with curly hair – if you're somebody's poodle, you always do what the other person tells you to do), a lackey (a manservant who follows his master around, doing what he's told) or, in Mao's terminology, a running dog (The Great Chairman used to call his enemies "the running dog of imperialism").
Or a yes man (who answers "yes" to every command).
Or Sancho Panza, if you really want to sound hip and up to date. That's what commentators have been calling Sarah Palin, the running mate of John McCain for the White House. George Will first mocked Palin as McCain's "female Sancho Panza" (See example below). It stuck like a lipstick (see my previous column Lipstick on the Campaign Trail, September 23) and the term has since been picked up by commentators everywhere. Sancho Panza is Don Quixote's servant, body guard and apprentice.
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