On the dog come

on the dog come is guessed/advised a phrase with the meaning “in bad (expresses or health) circumstances”. It possibly refers to the war cash, which were carried for the payment of the mercenaries during the war actions. In the lower part a wood small box (the dog) was, in which the “contingency reserve” was kept. If one came, were thus on the “dog” the war cash nearly empty.

Another version states that on the soil of the cash chest a dog - symbol for a guard - was up-painted. If so little money was in the chest that one could see the dog, one had come “on the dog”.

The phrase is used jokeful also in positive sense for dog friends.

Another version from the upper German means that bride people as if control a chest of full textiles got. If these were thus not filled up in the course of the marriage less and less, again, one came ever more on the reason of the chest, the dog (dogs in the Swabian dialect identically to down).

In the miner language the truck, the Förderwagen, is removed is thus called with which the ore or the coal, also dog. Who no longer enough was strong to work than Hauer for truck pushing one degradiert, which meant clearly smaller wages.

literature

• Lutz rawsmell: Encyclopedia of the proverbial phrases, Freiburg 2003
• Duden - the origin s-word book; Mannheim 1989; S.295