Nerdful Things – Idioms – Dog’s Bollocks

Here in the UK, we have a number of risque and crude phrases but the saying that always had me wondering was “the dog’s bollocks”.  I mean, how did we come to use that to mean something let alone something good?

Given that we say “that’s bollocks” or “a complete load of bollocks” to refer to things that are rubbish or disappointing, what makes the mutt’s nuts so special?  Out of all the testicles in the country, why are dogs’ held high above all else?

There’s speculation that it’s tied to the fact that dogs’ genitals ‘stand out’.  Perhaps the outstanding nature of their bits became a reference point for anyone who was exceptional or something was done particularly well.  There’s no evidence to support this theory, however.

The word ‘bollocks’ goes back to some point in the 18th Century and only came to be used to describe something bad/negative in the mid 20th Century.  As for the first documentation of the dog’s testes, Eric Partridge recorded it in Edition 3 of ‘A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English’ in 1949 stating: “Dog’s ballocks, the typographical colon-dash (:-).”

The term, which was a phrase used by printers, had no links to meaning something of excellence and the true origin is likely to remain a mystery.  Perhaps it stems from dog breeding and the value the males had as a vital part of the breeding business?  In the breeding world, the male is just referred to as a ‘dog’ and the female is a ‘bitch’.  It’s not too much of a stretch considering we pilfered the word ‘bitch’ to be used in a derogatory fashion…

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