ANSWERS: 3
  • It's about 'horse traders' or gypsies and possibly originated because of some dodgy dealing involving cash and no questions asked. That's why people will say this when they don't want to say the actual truth of what they're up to.
  • TO SEE A MAN ABOUT A DOG (OR HORSE) - "Although in the late nineteenth century, to 'see a man about a dog' meant to visit a woman for sexual purposes, it now means to go to the bathroom. It is, of course, a traditional answer to the questions Where are you going or What's your destination? The variations on these expressions are endless and include: Go see a dog about a horse, go and see a dog about a man, go and shoot a dog, go and feed a dog, go and feed the goldfish, go and mail a letter and go to one's private office." From the "The Wordsworth Book of Euphemism" by Judith S. Neaman and Carole G. Silver (Wordsworth Editions, Hertfordshire, 1995). And on an old blues recording I have, the performer said he had to "go see a man about a horse" and he meant he was going to go do some drugs. A little play on "horse" for heroin. http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/441.html : According to Eric Partridge, "A Dictionary of Catch Phrases American and British," this phrase has had three meanings during its history: "I must visit a woman--sexually: late C19-20. Hence, I'm going out for a drink: late C19-20. In C20, often in answer to an inconvenient question about one's destination: I must go to the water-closet, usu. to 'the gents', merely to urinate." : And the following is my opinion, not Partridge's: "See a man about a dog" has an old-fashioned and rural flavor. It calls up an image of life in a community where buying and selling dogs, trading dogs, consulting with men about dogs, were routine errands, perhaps because dogs were essential for hunting or herding. When someone says that they are going to see a man about a dog they really mean that they are unwilling to reveal the true nature of their business. The expression comes from the long forgotten 1866 play 'Flying Scud' in which one of the characters uses the words as an excuse to get away from a tricky situation. This is the only thing that seems to have survived from the play. http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/9/messages/439.html http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/9/messages/824.html Idioms: see a man about a dog Excuse oneself without giving the real reason for leaving, especially to go to the toilet or have an alcoholic drink. For example, Excuse me, I have to see a man about a dog. This euphemistic term dates from the Prohibition days of the 1920s, when buying liquor was illegal, and, after repeal, was transferred to other circumstances. http://www.answers.com/SEE%20A%20MAN%20ABOUT%20A%20DOG This has been a useful (and usefully vague) excuse for absenting oneself from company for about 150 years, though the real reason for slipping away has not always been the same. Like a lot of such colloquial sayings, it is very badly recorded. However, an example turned up in 1940 in a book called America’s Lost Plays, which proved that it was already in use in the US in 1866, in a work by a prolific Irish-born playwright of the period named Dion Boucicault, The Flying Scud or a Four-legged Fortune. This play, about an eccentric and superannuated old jockey, may have been, as a snooty reviewer of the period remarked, “a drama which in motive and story has nothing to commend it”, but it does include our first known appearance of the phrase: “Excuse me Mr. Quail, I can’t stop; I’ve got to see a man about a dog”. I don’t have access to the text of the play itself, so can’t say why the speaker had to absent himself. From other references at the time there were three possibilities: 1) he needed to visit the loo (read WC, toilet, or bathroom if you prefer); 2) he was in urgent need of a restorative drink, presumed alcoholic; or 3) he had a similarly urgent need to visit his mistress. Of these reasons — which, you may feel, encompass a significant part of what it meant to be male in nineteenth-century America — the second became the most common sense during the Prohibition period. Now that society’s conventions have shifted to the point where none of these reasons need cause much remark, the utility of the phrase is greatly diminished and it is most often used in a facetious sense, if at all. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-see1.htm To see a man, to see a man about a dog, or to see a man about a horse is an English language colloquialism, usually used as a smiling apology for one's departure or absence - generally as a bland euphemism to conceal one's true purpose. The phrase has several meanings but all refer to taking one's leave for some urgent purpose, especially to go to the bathroom or going to buy a drink. The original non-facetious meaning was probably to place or settle a bet on a race, thus dogs or horses. During Prohibition in the United States, "to see a man about a dog" often meant to go meet one's bootlegger. The earliest confirmed publication is the 1866 Dion Boucicault play Flying Scud, in which a character knowingly breezes past a difficult situation saying, "Excuse me Mr. Quail, I can't stop; I've got to see a man about a dog." During a 1939 revival on the NBC Radio program America's Lost Plays, TIME magazine observed that the phrase is the play's "claim to fame". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_a_man_about_a_horse
  • When ever my parents were going out to a party My mom would say we are going to see a man about a dog. I remember thinking she was a little bit off. She was Appellation, so it evidently is an old rural saying. I think today it just means "none of your business"

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