9/12/2023 0 Comments The dog ate my homework![]() ![]() Donald McPherson was a leading member and also a leading deacon in an old church in Scotland, whose old minister had for many years inflicted on his congregation very long and tiresome sermons. ![]() In my efforts to make my annual address as brief as possible it reminds me of a Scotch story. For example, the following version is from the President’s Address, in the Proceedings of the Forty-second Annual Meeting of the Fire Underwriters’ Association of the Northwest Held at the Hotel La Salle, Chicago, Illinois, October 4 th and 5 th, 1911 (Printed by order of the Association, 1911): This story has often been repeated, and elaborated on, since 1894. ![]() “Oh, sir,” said the clerk, a bright beam of hope on his countenance, “do you think that you could spare our vicar a pup?” ![]() One of these tedious preachers went away for his holiday, and the clergyman who took his duties in his absence apologized one Sunday to the clerk in the vestry, when the service was over, for the shortness of his sermon: a dog had been in his study, and torn out some of the pages. Unhappily, the speakers, whom this virtue would most gracefully become, do not seem to be aware of its existence like Nelson, they put the telescope to the blind eye, when signals are made to “cease firing.” They decline to notice manifest indications of weariness, yawns, sighs, readjustment of limbs, ostentatious inspection of watches and they seem rather to be soothed than offended by soft sounds of slumber, as though it were music from La Somnambula. There is one adjunct of a sermon, which nearly all who hear admire, and which all who preach may possess if they please-brevity. The earliest mention that I have found of a person blaming a dog for their own unpreparedness is from More Memories: Being Thoughts about England spoken in America (London: Edward Arnold, 1894), by the English Anglican priest Samuel Reynolds Hole (1819-1904): – for any failure to do or produce what was expected. – for failing to hand in school homework, The phrase the dog ate my homework and variants are used as, or denote, an unconvincing or far-fetched excuse: ![]()
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