With ‘must love dogs’ embedded in my LinkedIn profile, you might guess that I am rather distressed to learn that the origin of the word ‘doggerel’ originates from a time when people thought dogs were less than honorary human beings.
Can you just imagine living in such a heartless age, with “mean, contemptible” associations of dog in Middle English dating as far back as the 1600s?
Dogs as humans
Luckily, we’ve learnt that dogs are better humans than humans themselves and we all live happily together.
A dog is right up there with a book among the things that I cannot live without. Therefore the level of distress in uncovering the origin of the word is enormous!.
However, doggerel means trashy poetry or attempts at poetry where the rhyming is so forced it is instantly recognisable as a case of trying-too-hard.
And thinking little of dogs as they did in the 1800s, they added ‘rel’ some sources say to display a negative quality, while others suggest a diminutive use, hence doggerel. But there is no argument about the ‘dog’ reference to the origin of the word.
No such doggerel
To add insult to injury, a published poet encouraged me to write ‘doggerel’. Not impressed, I gave him a strange look, using amounts of restraint to hold off telling him my words are always intelligent and carefully chosen and would never be used to compose doggerel.
Days later, I thought about it again and reminded myself that my true nature is to take up any challenge that is presented. So here is my doggerel. It’s not that hard after all. To a writer, the blank page is the blank page offering equal amounts of challenge and discomfort whenever it confronts. At least I learnt something and I hope you did too.
Groundhog Day: origin of idioms
Not my circus, not my monkeys. Idiom usage