Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Dog in the manger

In the late 1990s, when I was doing research for my first book SILVER LIES, I ran across the phrase dog in the manger in an 1879 letter.*** It appeared in a passage regarding the (in)famous Colorado railroad war, in which  two railroad companies "battled it out" to see who would be first to reach the silver-mining boomtown of Leadville.

Here's the phrase, in context:

The AT & St Fe RR [Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad] would have reached Leadville by the Middle of September if it had not been for the interference of the D & R G RR [Denver & Rio Grande Railroad], the latter road has been playing the part of the 'Dog in the Manger'. There is a strong feeling growing against the D & R G RR and its whole course has been a matter of condemnation for months back....

I had absolutely no idea what dog in the manger might mean, and this was long before I could just turn to the internet or a bookshelf of "slang dictionaries" to look it up. Ah, but that was then, and this is now...

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According to The Idioms, dog in the manger has several meanings:

• one who prevents others from enjoying something despite having no use for it
• spiteful and mean-spirited someone who keeps something that they do not want in order to prevent someone else from getting it
• a person who selfishly keeps something that he or she does not really need or want so that others may not use or enjoy it

World Wide Words also has an entry for this phrase and describes its origins harken waaaay back:

... The allusion is to one of Aesop’s fables, written about 600BC, in which a dog was taking a nap in a manger. When an ox came and tried to eat the hay in the manger, the dog barked furiously, snapped at him and wouldn’t let him get at his food, food that, of course, was useless to the dog. At last the ox gave up and went away muttering, “Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves”.

But wait a minute! The Phrase Finder digs deeper into the origins of dog in the manger and ascertains that this particular story was not one of Aesop's originals, but was added in a 1460 collection. Even so, the entry continues, it's an old tale:

... While not being included by Aesop, the story itself is ancient, having been cited in several early Greek texts and in English in John Gower's Confessio Amantis, circa 1390:
Though it be not the hound's habit
To eat chaff, yet will he warn off
An ox that commeth to the barn
Thereof to take up any food. 

I'm still not clear on why the D&RG would have been considered as the dog in the manger in this particular disagreement, but at least I am now well-schooled in what the phrase means, thanks to all the wonderful resources at my (keyboard) fingertips!

And so ends this Slang-o-rama dog tale/tail... 😉
Public Domain, Link

*** You can read more about this letter and the inspiration I draw from the past in a Blood Red Pencil post titled: I Can Use This: Inspiration from the past.

https://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2023/02/i-can-use-this-inspiration-from-past.html