my dog ate everyone's homework

Where Did The Phrase “The Dog Ate My Homework” Come From?

Dogs are known as man’s best friend. Dogs keep us safe, are hard workers … and can provide a handy excuse in a pinch. Maybe that’s why versions of the classic expression the dog ate my homework have been around for hundreds of years.

Today, the dog ate my homework is used as a stock example of the kind of silly excuses schoolchildren give for why their work isn’t finished. Very rarely do people say, “the dog ate my homework” and expect it to be taken literally; they use the expression as an example of a typically flimsy excuse.

So where did the phrase come from?

Forrest Wickman, a writer for Slate , describes the legend of the 6th-century Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise as the alleged first recorded “the dog ate my homework” story. According to the tale, Saint Ciarán had a tame young fox that would take his writings to his master for him. One day, the fox grew up and decided to eat the leather strap binding the writings together instead. Still, this tale is more Garden-of-Eden parable and less terrible schoolchild excuse.

The notion that dogs will eat just about anything, including paper, turns up in lots of stories over the centuries. An example comes from The Humors of Whist , published in 1808 in Sporting Magazine . In the story, the players are sitting around playing cards when one of them remarks that their companion would have lost the game had the dog not eaten the losing card. Good boy.

Some attribute the creation of the dog ate my homework to a joke that was going around at the beginning of the 20th century. In a tale found as far back as an 1894 memoir by Anglican priest Samuel Reynolds Hole, a preacher gives a shortened version of a sermon because a dog got into his study and ate some of the pages he had written. However, the clerk loved it because they had been wanting the preacher to shorten his sermons for years.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the first example of the dog ate my homework excuse in print can be found in a speech given by retiring headmaster James Bewsher in 1929 and published in the Manchester Guardian : “It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework.” The way this comment is phrased suggests that the whole dog ate my homework story had been around for some time before it was put in print.

When was the word homework created?

But in order for a dog to eat homework specifically, homework had to be invented (oh, and how we wish it hadn’t been). True, the word homework , as in what we call today housework , appears as early as 1653. But homework , as in school exercises to be done at home, isn’t found until 1852. Once we had homework , it was only a matter of time before the dog was accused of eating it.

How we use this phrase now

No matter the origin, sometime in the 1950s, the expression became set as the dog ate my homework . This inspired any number of riffs on the theme, like my cow ate my homework or my brother ate my homework . In the 1960s, the dog ate my homework continued to gain popularity. The expression popped up a couple times in politics over the years, like when President Reagan said to reporters in 1988, “I had hoped that we had marked the end of the ‘dog-ate-my-homework’ era of Congressional budgetry … but it was not to be.”

It seems unlikely that the dog ate my homework was ever used consistently or frequently by actual schoolchildren. In fact, it’s the unlikeliness of the story that makes it so funny and absurd as a joke. Instead, teachers and authority figures appear to have cited the dog ate my homework many times over the years as such a bad excuse they can’t believe students are really using it.

In the 21st century, students don’t spend as much time working with physical pen and paper as they once did. That may contribute to the decline in the use of the phrase. So, maybe soon we’ll see a new equally absurd phrase pop up. Come on Zoomers, you’ve got this.

WATCH: What's A Unique Homework Routine That Works?

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early history of the phrase ‘the dog ate my homework’

The phrase the dog ate my homework and variants are used as, or denote, an unconvincing or far-fetched excuse: – for failing to hand in school homework, and, by extension: – for any failure to do or produce what was expected.

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):

There is one adjunct of a sermon, which nearly all who hear admire, and which all who preach may possess if they please—brevity. 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. 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. “Oh, sir,” said the clerk, a bright beam of hope on his countenance, “do you think that you could spare our vicar a pup ?”

This story has often been repeated, and elaborated on, since 1894. 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):

In my efforts to make my annual address as brief as possible it reminds me of a Scotch story. 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. One Sunday the old minister was invited to fill the pulpit of a church in an adjoining parish, and Donald’s congregation, thinking this was a good chance to get a much younger man, got one to fill the pulpit for that day. After the services, and as the young minister and Donald were walking home together, the minister naturally asked: “Well, Mr. McPherson, how did you enjoy the sermon?” Donald replied: “Well, minister,” he said, “I think it sounded kind of disconnected, but I liked it awfully well because it was brief.” The young minister was a little frustrated at the frank expression or criticism and replied: “Well, Mr. McPherson, there was perhaps a reason for it being brief and disconnected.” Donald replied: “And what was the reason?” “Well, sir,” the minister stated, “in coming to church this morning, I had occasion to change my manuscript from one pocket to the other, and while doing so, unfortunately, a sudden gust of wind came along and blew several of the pages down the street, and a dog seeing the flying papers got after them, and really, Mr. McPherson, what he didn’t destroy he practically eat up.” Donald, on hearing the excuse, replied: “And so, Mr. Minister, the reason your sermon was brief was because a dog ate it.” “Well,” replied the minister, “yes, Mr. McPherson, that is practically true.” “Well, well,” says Donald, “I will tell you, I am willing to forgive you, and so is all of the congregation, if you will only send a pup of that dog to our old minister.”

The earliest recorded mention of the excuse consisting for a schoolchild in telling that a dog ate their homework is from a speech that, on his retirement from the headmastership, James Bewsher gave on Tuesday 30 th July 1929 to the pupils of Colet Court, London—speech published in The Manchester Guardian (Manchester, Lancashire , England) of Wednesday 31 st July 1929 (Bewsher remarked that the phrase had long been in usage):

“I think that the boys are no worse than they used to be,” said Mr. Bewsher, “in fact I think sometimes they are better. It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework . (Laughter.) We have trained the young boys to accept some responsibility and to achieve the power of rising to the occasion when crises happen.”

Frank Fletcher (1870-1954), headmaster from 1911 to 1935 of Charterhouse, a ‘ public school ’ (i.e. a private fee-paying secondary school) in Godalming, Surrey , mentioned a similar excuse in After Many Days: A Schoolmaster’s Memories (London: Robert Hale and Company, 1937):

He kept a dog, and taught us Greek prose and verse. The two facts are connected in my memory by his occasional apology when he got behindhand with his work, “I’m very sorry, but my dog’s eaten your Greek prose .”

In American English, the phrase must have been already popular in the mid-1950s, since the final exclamation probably alludes punningly to it in the following instalment of Etta Kett , a comic strip by Paul Robinson (1898-1974), published in the Daily Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, Pennsylvania , USA) of Wednesday 26 th December 1956:

– Mom!! Where’s that fudge pie I whipped up? – With boys around, that’s a silly question! – Oh, no!! Not my whole pie !!! – After the way I slaved! – You dizzy creeps!! I baked that to take to domestic science class tomorrow!! – You ate my homework !!

A similar punning allusion to the phrase occurs in Restaurant School: What Cooks? Students Do , by William Boldenweck, published in the San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California, USA) of Monday 12 th December 1960:

“ My little brother ate my homework .” The excuse has not been tried yet, but it could happen in City College of San Francisco’s hotel and restaurant course, a unique series of classes in which students cook and serve 5,000 meals each school day, punch a time clock and in which part of the “final” is a semi-annual banquet.

A yet similar punning allusion occurs in the following instalment of Blondie , by Murat Bernard ‘Chic’ Young (1901-1973), published in several North-American newspapers on Friday 26 th August 1966—for example in The Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada ):

– What happened to the cupcakes I made for my cooking class? – I ate those cupcakes – Boo-hoo, Mommy – Daddy ate my homework !

Donna Schwab mentioned a variant of the phrase in Underestimation of “Culturally Deprived” Youth , published in New Teachers in Urban Schools: An Inside View ( New York : Random House, 1968), by Richard Wisniewski:

Any teacher gullible enough to fall for the inevitable story, “ my little sister ate my homework ,” without demanding a new version of the same, deserves the reputation she will soon have to live with.

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Where did that doggone phrase come from?

'The dog ate my homework,' which has been a catchall excuse for more than 100 years, is on its last legs.

By FORREST WICKMAN, Slate

When did "my dog ate my homework" become known as schoolchildren's favorite excuse?

Delinquent schoolchildren and adults have been blaming their shortcomings on their pets for more than a century, but it wasn't until the 1970s that "my dog ate my homework" came to be considered the No. 1 likely story.

One of the first sad sacks who was said to blame his dog for his own ill-preparedness was a priest. In this anecdote, which appeared as early as 1905, a clergyman pulls his clerk aside after a service to ask him whether his sermon seemed long enough. The clerk assures him that it was very nice, "just the right length," and the priest is relieved. "I am very glad to hear you say that," he says, "because just before I started to come here my dog got hold of my sermon and ate some of the leaves." The story was repeated again and again.

The first citation of the excuse in the Oxford English Dictionary is a 1929 article from the Manchester Guardian, which reads, "It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework." In Bel Kaufman's best-selling 1965 novel "Up the Down Staircase," a list of students' excuses for not having their homework includes "My dog went on my homework" and "My dog chewed it up." Even in 1965, however, it was still just another excuse.

"My dog ate my homework" became known as the quintessential far-fetched excuse in the next decade, when the phrase was used over and over. In a 1976 account of the Watergate tapes, E.C. Kennedy describes listening to President Richard Nixon "working on the greatest American excuse since the dog ate my homework." A 1977 article from Alaska's Daily News-Miner describes the difficulty students faced in coming up with a new excuse since "'My dog ate my term paper' is no longer acceptable."

The excuse was alluded to more throughout the 1980s. A 1982 Time magazine column on excuses suggested that "the dog ate my homework is a favorite with schoolchildren," while a 1987 New York Times column about how students were starting to blame malfunctioning computers and printers quoted one teacher as saying she recently received "a note from a student's mother saying the dog ate his homework."

Even the president picked up on the trend: When Congress pushed spending approval to the last minute in 1988, Ronald Reagan complained to reporters, "I had hoped that we had marked the end of the 'dog-ate-my-homework' era of congressional budgetry ... but it was not to be." After that, the phrase was all over television, including shows such as "The Simpsons" and "Full House."

Between 1990 and 2000, the phrase continued to grow in popularity. The New York Times wrote articles with headlines such as "Beyond 'Dog Ate My Homework' " and "Homework Help Sites (Or, the Dog Ate My U.R.L.)." The New Yorker described one criminal's accounts of his wrongdoings as having "a decided my-dog-ate-my-homework quality."

Not to be outdone, children's books tried to capitalize on the trend, with titles like "A Dinosaur Ate My Homework," "Aliens Ate My Homework," "Godzilla Ate My Homework" and even "My Teacher Ate My Homework."

While such book titles have continued into the 2000s, the phrase seems to finally be losing steam.

That means schoolkids will have to come up with a new, improved excuse.

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Strange News

Can the dog still eat your homework.

It may be the best known bad excuse for being unprepared: "The Dog Ate My Homework." But where does the phrase come from and how has it changed over the years? Weekend Edition host Scott Simon talks with Forrest Wickman, a reporter with Slate Magazine , who has the answers.

Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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My Dog Ate My Homework

From the book The Biggest Burp Ever

My dog ate my homework. That mischievous pup got hold of my homework and gobbled it up.

My dog ate my homework. It’s gonna be late. I guess that the teacher will just have to wait.

My dog ate my homework. He swallowed it whole. I shouldn’t have mixed it with food in his bowl.

 — Kenn Nesbitt

Copyright © 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Reading Level: Grade 1 Topics: Animal Poems , School Poems Poetic Techniques: Irony , Narrative Poems Word Count: 60

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