Is it a dog eat dog world or doggy dog world? Here’s What to Do Next

The expression dog eat dog does not refer to canine cannibalism but to an intensely competitive situation: one in which people are willing to hurt each other in order to gain an advantage or win.

The pain inflicted in such a situation usually isnt physical, though; you&ll often hear the expression dog eat dog used to describe a particularly cutthroat business like investment banking or entertainment. Check out these examples to see how dog eat dog is used in cases where one must fight to survive or get ahead:

If youre still barking up the wrong tree, try to visualize the that dog eat dog evokes (yuck!) and you wont forget that it means “competitive and cutthroat.” Who says you cant teach an old dog new tricks?

Doggy dog is a simple mishearing of dog eat dog. It may owe some of its popularity to the chorus of Snoop Doggs 1993 debut single “Whats My Name,” which repeats the phrase a number of times. The cartoonish, singsong quality of doggy dog sounds silly and playful, though, conveying the opposite meaning of dog eat dog, which evokes a cruel and selfish struggle.

Doggy dog is not common in print, but does show up in speech and student writing fairly frequently. The examples below highlight some misuses of the phrase.

Melissa’s insistence that the term is actually “a doggy dog world” and Josh’s insistence it’s so not is based on real conversation that happened between “Schmigadoon!” co-creator Cinco Paul and his wife, Amy.

When Josh first hears Melissa say it the incorrect way, he goes: “Hold on, hold on. Doggy dog? Oh, Mel, you just put me in a really difficult position because I need you to keep saying doggy dog, but it’s my obligation to tell you that the expression is ‘dog eat dog.”

“It means like it’s a rough world. You can be brought down so low, a dog would have you for a pet. You’d be doggy to a dog,” Melissa replied.

“Schmigadoon!” fans learned it’s a ruff — er, rough, world out there on this week’s episode of the Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key-led musical comedy series, as now-split couple Melissa (Strong) and Josh (Key) have still yet to reunite with each other in the show’s titular town ahead of next Thursday’s Season 1 finale. Their inability to see eye to eye in Episode 5, titled “Tribulation,” was mirrored in a flashback to the earlier days of their relationship, when confusion over the phrase “dog-eat-dog world” sparked a huge fight between the two.

But Melissa is certain that “dog-eat-dog” doesn’t make sense because “dogs don’t eat dogs, that never happens.”

Mariana Aguilar Ramírez Mariana is a Pedagogy and Research summer associate at Voxy completing her Master’s degree in Learning, Media and Technology at UMass Amherst with a Fulbright- García Robles grant. She is passionate about instructional design, educational technology and has been teaching ESL in Mexico for many years. She has studied foreign languages all her life and is now tackling German. She loves to travel and spends a lot of time in the kitchen perfecting her ice-cream making skills.

To “weasel out” of something can mean two things: 1. that you are trying to avoid an obligation, duty or job like in “I weaseled out of helping my mom with the laundry!”. 2. That you are literally squeezing your way out of something as in “my little sister got stuck under the bed but she weaseled her way out.”

An idiom is a combination of words that have a symbolic meaning. Understanding and using idioms is tricky because an idiom’s meaning is different from that of the words that comprise it. We know it’s hard, but we’re here to help!

Can you think of other idioms with animals and their uses? Share more examples with us!! Don’t be shy, or cat got your tongue?

Alright, lets begin with “dog-eat-dog”. This expression refers to a place or situation that is highly competitive. In a dog-eat-dog world, people will do whatever it takes to be successful, even if that means harming others. Here’s an example: “The music industry is dog-eat-dog; one day you’re on top and the next, everyone forgot you!”

Snoop Dogg ft. The Dogg Pound & The Dramatics – Doggy Dogg World (Official Video) [Explicit]