YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD DOG DOWN
Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart now has time to contemplate his costly outburst on Saturday night after Canberra went down to an undermanned Penrith side at home. In a shocking broadside, Stuart labelled Panthers five-eighth Jaeman Salmon a “weak gutted dog” for lashing out with his boot at Canberra’s Tom Starling.
Stuart then went on to say he has history with Salmon, intimating that such behaviour was not out of character. The eruption saw ‘Sticky’ get fined 25 thousand dollars and banned for one match. While some scribes went looking into the background between the pair, more scholarly types asked an important question – why is the word “dog” considered such an insult?
It is common cultural practice to use the term in a derogatory manner.
John Archibald, head of the University of Calgary's linguistics department, said it's found in Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, Afrikaans, Chinese and Turkish. But why is not clear? "Before they were domesticated, dogs were considered quite dirty," Archibald suggests.
In 17th-century New England, to call someone a dog was an insult of the highest order, as dogs were believed to be used by sorceresses to carry out evil commands.
Even William Shakespeare hopped on the bandwagon in Timon of Athens, Act 1 Scene 1: APEMANTUS: He wrought better that made the painter, and yet he’s but a filthy piece of work. PAINTER: Y’are a dog.
In ancient Greece, ‘dog’ was used in a derogatory way to paint someone as sub-human.
Also, in the Old Testament’s Book of Ruth, Ruth starts out as a low member of society and exhibits a very dog-like action sleeping at the feet of the landowner Boaz.
But given the popularity of cute puppy pictures on the world wide web, perhaps it’s time we employ the word ‘dog’ as a term of endearment.
WHAT’S IN AN F1 CONTRACT?
When former F1 World Champion Alan Jones joined Matt White this week on SEN 1170, he noted that when it comes to Formula 1, there’s always more happening off the track than on it.
AJ was of course referring to the contract saga going involving Oscar Piastri, Alpine and McLaren, and how it stands to squeeze the beloved Daniel Ricciardo out of his seat at Woking.
Sport is a brutal business. But here’s a ray of light for Danny Ric fans. None other than Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost (twice), Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikonnen have all had contracts end prematurely. There are 10 world championships between them. They say a change is as good as a holiday, and while Ricciardo has been enjoying his mid-summer break in Montana, USA, it has been reported he is seeking a $21 million payout for early termination of his contract. That may ease the sting of being dumped.
PREMIER LEAGUE SUPERSTITIONS
They say sports people are among the most superstitious on the planet. The English Premier League got underway on the weekend, with newly promoted Fulham coming away with a point against powerhouse Liverpool.
Cottagers and Republic of Ireland defender Shane Duffy by now would have scouted the cubicles at Molineux Stadium, home to Wolverhampton Wanderers, who they meet next game. You see, Duffy can lay claim to one of sport’s more peculiar superstitions – a lucky toilet.
Duffy picks a cubicle when he arrives at an away dressing room, and then ensures he only uses that one for the remainder of the day.
He told the Mirror back in 2019, “If there are three cubicles and somebody is in my one, I have to wait. Sometimes I’ll move people across and say, ‘get out of there’, even though the other ones are empty”.
Duffy is adamant his teammates know about it and are generally accommodating. Thankfully, there aren’t more who share the same superstition, or that could present a wee problem.
Former South African cricket Neil McKenzie famously had to have all the toilet seats down before he went out to bat. In a competition between him and Duffy, who will come out number 1 and who will be number 2?!
STAT OF THE WEEK
Our stats of the week are thanks to Tom Decent from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, who was in Birmingham reporting on the Commonwealth Games.
Of all the 72 countries and territories that competed at these Commonwealth Games, 43 teams won a medal.
Only 36 per cent of countries (26 of 72) won a gold medal.
Per capita, the Island nation of Niue came out on top, winning a medal for every 1800 people.
Australia, with a population of almost 26 million, won a medal for every 144,601 people, while our cousins across the ditch, New Zealand, claimed one medal per 104,530 citizens.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"It appears to the court that the LIV contracts, negotiated by the players and consummated between the parties, were based upon the players' calculation of what they would be leaving behind and the amount the players would need to monetize to compensate for those losses," U.S District Judge Beth Labson Freeman ruling on Tuesday that three golfers who joined Saudi-backed LIV Golf will not be able to compete in the PGA Tour's postseason.