The dog ate my homework

The earliest known variation[3] on the idea that written work might be adversely affected by the tendency of some dogs to chew on paper came in a 1905 issue of The Cambrian, a magazine for Welsh Americans. William ApMadoc, the journal's music critic, related an anecdote about a minister temporarily filling in at a country church in Wales. After one service, he cautiously asked the clerk how his sermon had been received, in particular whether it had been long enough. Upon being assured that it was, he admitted to the clerk that his dog had eaten some of the paper it was written on just before the service. "Couldn't you give our wicar a pup o' that 'ere dawg, sir?" was the punchline, in Welsh dialect. ApMadoc applied the lesson to some overly long musical compositions, but wondered whether the dogs might suffer indigestion from consuming paper.[4]

Six years later, the president of the Fire Underwriters' Association of the Northwest was recorded repeating the anecdote at the organization's 42nd annual meeting. He describes it as Scottish in origin, and some of the details vary. The visiting minister speaks instead to a younger member of the congregation, who complains that the sermon was too short. In his telling, the dog was not his but one in the street who ate some of the papers after a wind blew them out of his hand. This elicits the same response, rendered in Standard English rather than dialect.[5]

The excuse for the brevity of the document did not become the punchline for another 18 years. The first use of the phrase recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1929, in an essay in the British newspaper The Guardian: "It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework." This suggests it had been in use among students for some time prior to that.[3]

External video
Video of a dog eating alleged homework

It was first reported in an American context in 1965. Bel Kaufman's bestselling comic novel, Up the Down Staircase, published that year, includes two instances where the protagonist's students blame their failure to complete their assignment on their dogs. In a section written as drama early in the book, one student refers to "a terrible tragedy ... My dog went on my homework!"[6] Later, a list of excuses includes "My dog chewed it up" and "the cat chewed it up and there was no time to do it over."[7]

The phrase became widely used in the 1970s.[8] Young adult novelist Paula Danziger paid homage to it with the title of her 1974 debut, The Cat Ate My Gymsuit.[9] Two years later Eugene Kennedy described Richard Nixon as "working on the greatest American excuse since 'the dog ate my homework'" in the Watergate tapes,[10] and the following year John R. Powers had a character in his novel The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice-Cream God reminisce about having used that excuse as a student.[11] Lexicographer Barry Popik, who called it "the classic lame excuse that a student makes to a teacher to cover for missing homework", found citations in print increasing from 1976.[12]

During the next decade, personal computers became more common in American households and schools, and many students began writing papers with word processors. This provided them with another possible excuse for missing homework, in the form of computer malfunctions. Still, "the dog ate my homework" remained common. In a 1987 article on this phenomenon, one teacher recalled to The New York Times that once a student had given him a note signed by a parent saying that the dog had eaten his homework.[13] The following year President Ronald Reagan lamented Congress's apparent failure to pass that year's federal budget on time, "I had hoped that we had marked the end of the 'dog-ate-my-homework' era of Congressional budgetry", he told reporters on canceling a planned news conference to sign the bills, "but it was not to be". His use showed that the phrase had become more generalized in American discourse as referring to any insufficient or unconvincing excuse.[14]

Memetic use of the phrase to promote search engine optimization

Use of the phrase in printed matter rose steadily through the end of the century. It leveled off in the early years of the 2000s, but has not declined.[15] During the 2012 United States presidential campaign, Barack Obama's campaign used it to rebuke Mitt Romney for not participating in Nickelodeon's "Kids Pick the President" special. "'The dog ate my homework' just doesn't cut it when you're running for president."[16]