Dot Wordsworth

Doggo lingo

issue 22 June 2019

Doggy sounds childish. ‘How much is that doggie in the window?’ asks the popular song. (The song title used the spelling doggie, being American, though Britain enjoyed a cover version by Lita Roza in 1953, the same year as Patti Page’s original.). Doggo sounds cooler (like daddy-o in hep talk), but in the strange world of internet image-sharing it goes with a sentimentality which would shame the nursery.

The internet has said ‘Aaah’ (or in America ‘Aaaw’) to cute cats, but people post pictures a-plenty of cute dogs. One Twitter account, WeRateDogs, has 8.13 million followers and simply tweets photos of dogs with a caption and a rating out of ten. Like the 110 per cent that employees are asked to give, its ratings exceed the maximum. So, under a picture of a dog in a mortarboard, a caption reads: ‘This is Pake. His parents just graduated and he was feeling a little left out. Not any more. 14/10 barkalaureate inbound.’

Worse, to my mind, are brave dogs at the vet’s: ‘This is Taíno. He was found on the side of a road in Puerto Rico. It’s possible he was hit by a car, as his front right leg is severely deformed. He’s having surgery to correct it.’ Sickening.

On Facebook, a group called Dogspotting also shares cute pictures. Members learn a common jargon, calling dogs doggos, or puppers if they are young. An overweight dog may be a loaf or fat boi.

Fluffy dogs are called fluffers or floofs. A bark is a bork and onomatopoeic words denote chop-licking (mlem) or tongue-lolling (blop). As an intensive (like very), heckin is used, sometimes spelled h*ckin. Heckin derives from another internet pastime: ‘interior monologue captioning’ of animal pictures.

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