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Today’s expression: Att bära hundhuvudet Posted by on Apr 5, 2011 in Culture, Swedish Language

Sometimes it works absolutely fine to directly translate Swedish expressions and idioms into English. But other times… well, let’s just say it doesn’t work at all. Att bära hundhuvet – to carry the dog’s head – is one who didn’t work, I tried it the other day and got a few raised eyebrows in response…

Anyway. Swedes use the expression “Att bära hundhuvudet” when they talk about the person who is given the blame for something, the scapegoat. In other words, the scapegoat is carrying around a dog’s head (lot’s of animals here) and the reason for this weird expression dates back to medieval Germany – when dogs were nothing but useless and dirty creatures. Apparently, noblemen who had committed a crime were forced to walk a certain distance while carrying a big dog in their arms – just to show the world that they basically were as useless as a dog. After a while, the punishment was reduced so that the nobleman “only” had to carry the dog’s head on a rope around the neck (not entirely sure that would be any better…) before he was free to go. The noblemen literally carried the dog’s head and this is how we use it in Swedish today – but please don’t try it in English!

Lena fick bära hundhuvudet efter den dåliga presentationen (Lena had to carry the dog’s head after the bad presentation)

Do you have any similar expressions in your language?

Photo: Elliot Erwitt

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Comments:

  1. Letícia:

    Haha, we do have a similar expression in Portuguese and guess what, it involves yet another animal! The expression is “pagar o pato”, which translates to “to pay the duck”, meaning that exact same thing, someone is taking the blame for something. I’m not sure about how that expression was coined, though. 🙂

    • jennie:

      @Letícia Well, I rather pay the duck then have a dog’s head around my neck 🙂 Funny though, how animals always are involved. Any sign of our beloved friend yet??

  2. Jerry Nelson:

    “Wait till the last dog is hung.” Meaning to wait around to be the last to leave or wait till the last minute. The internet has a few interesting ideas as to the origin (one mentions a hot dog maker, one mentions a Native American ceremony in which a dog is literally hung from a pole.) All I know for sure is that I grew up with the expression, hearing it from my father in reference to procrastinators.

    • jennie:

      @Jerry Nelson Dogs were certainly not popular back in the days…. hung, decapitated, carried around by criminals… poor things!

  3. NeMe:

    In Romanian, the scapegoat has to “pull the chestnuts out of the fire”. Culturally appropriate in a nation of chesnut eaters 🙂

    • jennie:

      @NeMe Haha, definitely! Would be “herring” in Sweden 🙂

  4. Letícia:

    Nej, Jennie, no sign of him yet. 🙁
    But I know a lot of people are having the same problem, packages from overseas are taking too long to arrive, but they eventually get to their destination, so let’s keep hoping!