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

Letters: Windows to the past (Part 3)

As I will be out of town for a few days, I'm going to try to set up posts to roll out automatically while I'm gone. We'll see if it works, or if they suddenly appear all at once!

Since some folks expressed interest in further excerpts of letters from Leadville, circa 1879, I thought I'd continue along that path for now. Here's a great bit that pretty much sums up the ambience of Leadville during these times, written by George Elder, a young man of about 22 and a recent arrival to town. The letter was written to his mother and is dated September 24, 1879:

. . . We had several dare devil murders the last few days so that some of the inhabitants are bound to keep the excitement up. Murders occur in such a terribly reckless manner that it is uncertain who will be the next victim. Pistols are drawn so quickly and most of them are these self-cockers that are almost as dangerous to the owners as to his enemies. I have lost all fear and it seems to me that a man cannot help becoming like the country out here. I carry my revolver about me in the night time and I do not think the small amount of Quaker blood in me would be any hindrance to my swift and immediate use. No man dare flourish a revolver and threaten to shoot as it is the invariable rule to fire at once and count the cost afterwards. A murderer is safer in Leadville than a Horsethief. . . .

I love to quote this passage in response to the general question of "What was Leadville really like?" Reading this section aloud has its own pleasures as well, in the cadence, the easy way the words roll along, and that wonderfully short, energetic concluding statement (which is oh so "Wild West"):

A murderer is safer in Leadville than a Horsethief.

Now that's something to ponder. As in the passage I quoted in Letters: Part 2, it seems pretty clear that, if young George has the pulse of the town aright, one could easily "get away with murder." Or, to put it another way, the turmoil and upheaval of Leadville during its boom days give an amateur sleuth, such as my protagonist, Inez Stannert, some leeway for exploring crimes that the law—and others of the town—would simply ignore or consider no big deal, i.e., "Who was murdered? No horses were stolen? Well, then, who cares?"

Of course, Leadville wasn't all murderers, con artists, foot-pads, and disreputable women. It had its high society, its opera house, its high-profile visitors, its schools, hospitals, and so on. And that's part of what makes this such a fascinating place and time: people from all walks of life, from all over the world, came to Leadville thinking to strike it rich. And, as we know from the dot-com, real-estate, and stock-market boom-bust cycles, not all get rich. And even those who do, may not hang onto it for long.

Too, when the haves, with money burning holes in their pockets, are rubbing shoulders daily with the have-nots, in a country where simply "getting by" is expensive, where weather is extreme, and everyone is consumed with silver-fever . . . As George noted, "a man cannot help becoming like the country out here." It's no wonder there was occasional casual murder in the streets and numbing desperation and despair in some minds.

Letters: Windows to the past (Part 2)

In my last post, I quoted a bit from the letters of George Elder, a young man who ventured to the silver boomtown of Leadville in 1879 to make a future as a lawyer.

Regarding money and crime (two topics of endless fascination to me in the pursuit of veracity in fiction), George had some interesting comments in his November 16, 1879, letter to his mother:

. . . Last night two-foot-pads held up the hands of a man who had a long Navy self-cocker in one of them and they were both killed. Every-body says "serves them right" and I do not think the man who killed them will be hung as foot-pads are the most dangerous enemies of our people here. I am glad some of them are meeting with their desserts. Most men here carry sums about them varying from $50 up to the hundreds of dollars so that the field is a very lucrative one for the highwaymen. . . .

Okay, what treasures we can glean from this little gem? First things first: Money. Today, $50 hardly buys you groceries. First thing I wondered in reading this passage: How much was $50 back in 1879?

Thanks to the very neat-o little website Measuring Worth, which includes a little calculator that computes the relative value of U.S. dollars from 1774 to 2007, I was able to figure this out. So, hold on to your seat for this:
$50 in 1879 had the same "purchase power" as $1072.09 in 2007.

Now, think of those "several hundred dollars." Let's pick, oh say, $300 and see what we get. Back in 1879, that $300 stuffed into pockets or satchels equates to $6432.53.

Yes, I can see where robbery would be a lucrative business in old-time Leadville.

What else can I harvest from this letter? How about terms and slang? "foot-pad," "highwaymen," "serves them right," "just desserts." I can, without qualms, now use these words and terms in my fictional exploits with the knowledge that they are current to the times.

What else? How about the fact that "Navy self-cockers" were being carried and employed, the fact that the criminals were stupid enough to shout "raise your hands high" to someone who was actually carrying a gun in one of them, and that the person shot them and will probably receive no punishment?

And, I could go on.

Not the least question that occurred to me: He wrote this to his mother?? If I were young George's mother and had received this letter, I'd be sending him a ticket on the first stage home! But, back then, a 22-year-old son was considered a man, ready to take up the challenges and rewards, fully capable of making his own way, far from home. An attitude not quite as common today, where many 22-year-olds are viewed and treated as just slightly older teenagers. Authors of historical fiction, myself included, have to be conscious of our own suppositions, expectations, and beliefs, and do a little "mind-travel" when creating our worlds of the past.

So, perhaps this will give you some insight into my thinking and why I value these letters and the folks who so generously shared them with me, so very highly.

What about you? Do you see some other things in this passage that shed light on the past?