ate my homework meme

Where Did The Phrase “The Dog Ate My Homework” Come From?

Dogs are known as man’s best friend. Dogs keep us safe, are hard workers … and can provide a handy excuse in a pinch. Maybe that’s why versions of the classic expression the dog ate my homework have been around for hundreds of years.

Today, the dog ate my homework is used as a stock example of the kind of silly excuses schoolchildren give for why their work isn’t finished. Very rarely do people say, “the dog ate my homework” and expect it to be taken literally; they use the expression as an example of a typically flimsy excuse.

So where did the phrase come from?

Forrest Wickman, a writer for Slate , describes the legend of the 6th-century Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise as the alleged first recorded “the dog ate my homework” story. According to the tale, Saint Ciarán had a tame young fox that would take his writings to his master for him. One day, the fox grew up and decided to eat the leather strap binding the writings together instead. Still, this tale is more Garden-of-Eden parable and less terrible schoolchild excuse.

The notion that dogs will eat just about anything, including paper, turns up in lots of stories over the centuries. An example comes from The Humors of Whist , published in 1808 in Sporting Magazine . In the story, the players are sitting around playing cards when one of them remarks that their companion would have lost the game had the dog not eaten the losing card. Good boy.

Some attribute the creation of the dog ate my homework to a joke that was going around at the beginning of the 20th century. In a tale found as far back as an 1894 memoir by Anglican priest Samuel Reynolds Hole, a preacher gives a shortened version of a sermon because a dog got into his study and ate some of the pages he had written. However, the clerk loved it because they had been wanting the preacher to shorten his sermons for years.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the first example of the dog ate my homework excuse in print can be found in a speech given by retiring headmaster James Bewsher in 1929 and published in the Manchester Guardian : “It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework.” The way this comment is phrased suggests that the whole dog ate my homework story had been around for some time before it was put in print.

When was the word homework created?

But in order for a dog to eat homework specifically, homework had to be invented (oh, and how we wish it hadn’t been). True, the word homework , as in what we call today housework , appears as early as 1653. But homework , as in school exercises to be done at home, isn’t found until 1852. Once we had homework , it was only a matter of time before the dog was accused of eating it.

How we use this phrase now

No matter the origin, sometime in the 1950s, the expression became set as the dog ate my homework . This inspired any number of riffs on the theme, like my cow ate my homework or my brother ate my homework . In the 1960s, the dog ate my homework continued to gain popularity. The expression popped up a couple times in politics over the years, like when President Reagan said to reporters in 1988, “I had hoped that we had marked the end of the ‘dog-ate-my-homework’ era of Congressional budgetry … but it was not to be.”

It seems unlikely that the dog ate my homework was ever used consistently or frequently by actual schoolchildren. In fact, it’s the unlikeliness of the story that makes it so funny and absurd as a joke. Instead, teachers and authority figures appear to have cited the dog ate my homework many times over the years as such a bad excuse they can’t believe students are really using it.

In the 21st century, students don’t spend as much time working with physical pen and paper as they once did. That may contribute to the decline in the use of the phrase. So, maybe soon we’ll see a new equally absurd phrase pop up. Come on Zoomers, you’ve got this.

WATCH: What's A Unique Homework Routine That Works?

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From Our Listeners

Sometimes the dog really does eat your homework.

Last week, we brought you the story of how the phrase "The Dog Ate My Homework" came to be and how it morphed into a palpably ridiculous excuse. Turns out, sometimes its not an excuse at all. Weekend Edition host Scott Simon has a few stories from our listeners that swear, honest, the dog did eat their homework.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Last week, we tried to trace the origins of that legendary excuse "the dog ate my homework."

FORREST WICKMAN: One of the first examples is this guy. Saint Kieran, who around the fifth century had this fox that he found. And he started taking the fox around and at some point, the fox ate his Psalms.

SIMON: That's Forrest Wickman, a writer for Slate Magazine, who researched one of the most palpably ridiculous phrases of all time. But as many listeners told us, sometimes even ridiculous things can be true. They can happen to you.

JACQUELINE MOSS: My name is Jacqueline Moss, and I'm from Cumberland, Maine. And my dog really did eat my homework.

SIMON: Her beloved Labrador, Dusty, turned out to have a taste for history.

MOSS: When I was in sixth grade, we had to make a project for ancient civilization, and it was a Sumerian brick. I made it, and I left it on the radiator overnight. I came downstairs in the morning, and it had disappeared. And my dog - my Labrador was looking very guilty.

SIMON: But reasonably healthy. As it turns out, the formula her teacher gave her for Sumerian brick, was more like a recipe for a historically big dog biscuit.

MOSS: Yeah, she was fine. (LAUGHTER) There was nothing bad in it. It was just food coloring and flour and oats, salt. (LAUGHTER) So it must have been like, what she dreamed of because it was the size of a loaf of bread, and there was nothing left.

SIMON: Her teacher accepted her excuse. Harry Atwood, a high school English teacher in Dayton, Virginia, says he's heard all sorts of excuses from unprepared students. But one stands out. One day some years ago, he writes, a student came to class with the excuse that his parents had burned his homework. The following day, the local newspaper reported that the boy's family was out for a winter's drive high up in the Allegheny Mountains, and had punctured their gas tank on a rock. Soon out of gas, out of cell phone range and in below-freezing temperatures, the boy's family had used the contents of his backpack to start a fire. Excuse accepted. And finally...

LINDA BECKER: Hi, this is Linda Becker from Williamstown, Massachusetts. My dog ate my students' homework.

SIMON: That wasn't an audio glitch. She explains.

BECKER: I came home from teaching one day, and left my bag on the floor in the kitchen; went about my business. When I returned to the kitchen, my puppy - with his little, needle-like teeth - had pulled some student papers out of my bag, and chewed them up. Imagine the embarrassment of having to tell students, my dog ate your homework.

(SOUNDBITE OF BARKING DOG MUSIC)

SIMON: Well, Ms. Becker, I'm sure they'll accept your excuse, just this once.

SIMON: This is NPR News.

Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

My Dog Ate My Homework

Screen Rant

Friends: 10 best mr. heckles memes.

Mr. Heckles offered some great moments in Friends, as he complained about the noise and was just plain weird. These memes capture his best moments.

Mr. Heckles often complained about the noise coming from  Monica's and Rachel's apartment in  Friends .  It wasn't until after he dies that the group realizes how noisy it really was in his apartment. Mr. Heckles was on the show briefly, but his character had an impact on the characters, especially Chandler.

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Several memes have been created to celebrate Heckles' personality and some memorable moments of his on the show. Whether he was complaining about the noise or stealing Ross's monkey, Marcel , Heckles had some unforgettable scenes that audiences remember to this day.

A Belgian Waffle In The Hall

Mr. Heckles was a strange guy. This moment from  Friends   is a perfect example of that. Usually, if someone wasn't ready to eat their meal, they'd save it in the fridge or maybe cover it up and leave it on the counter for a bit. Instead, Mr. Heckles decides to leave it out in the hall.

By doing that, he certainly risked the possibility of someone taking it, or worse, someone finding the perfect opportunity for a prank and sprinkling the waffle with hot sauce or something. Mr. Heckles certainly had his random moments.

When Phoebe Urged Heckles To "Go Into The Light"

Phoebe acted like  Ghost Whisperer's  Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) in this instance, as she urged Mr. Heckles to "go into the light." If anyone could feel Heckles' spirit lingering, it would be Phoebe.

If he was hanging around, it was probably to make sure that Rachel and Monica would keep it down in his absence. Or to perhaps keep an eye on Chandler for a bit.

The Old 'Dog Ate My Homework' Excuse

This meme is undoubtedly relatable for anyone, especially teachers, who have heard the age-old "the dog ate my homework" excuse for missing schoolwork. This meme makes fun of Mr. Heckles' "I could..." tendency and adds the hilarity of a neighbor kid calling out the kid using the excuse on their lie.

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While funny, it wouldn't get that kid anywhere, and they'd probably have to actually do their homework next time.

Making Up Stuff

Heckles was usually making up stuff regarding just how noisy he perceived Monica and Rachel to be, as shown in this meme. He doesn't have cats, but he says that he "could." It seems like Heckles usually just wanted to come up to see the girls just to complain, in general.

It didn't appear as though Heckles got out much, so maybe showing up to the apartment upstairs every so often gave him some interaction with other people. Either way, it's funny how he'd come up with different lies describing just how noisy he thought the girls and their friends were.

What Are They Up To?

This is a perfect picture capturing just what Mr. Heckles probably would've looked like, waiting for Rachel and Monica to make noise so he could rush upstairs and complain.

There were probably times when no one was even home that Mr. Heckles would listen and look at his ceiling, waiting for even the slightest bang or echo of voices so he could complain. It makes this particular meme pretty funny, as audiences can imagine Heckles doing just that.

The Time Phoebe Told Heckles To Keep It Down

One of the times that Heckles showed up to complain about the noise, Phoebe had the perfect response for him. When he mentions that he "could play the oboe," she tells him that she'll have to ask him to "keep it down" and promptly shuts the door on him.

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It was brilliant and undoubtedly sent Heckles for a loop to have his own words thrown back at him. It's one of the funniest Mr. Heckles' moments, as he gets a taste of his own medicine!

Mr. Heckles Was Gone Too Soon

This meme takes a funny moment between Ross and Phoebe, in which Ross wanted to counter Phoebe's beliefs with his own, and turns it into a way to recognize that Mr. Heckles was killed off much too soon.

Mr. Heckles was cranky and grouchy, but he was funny, and he held so much more potential for funny moments and quotes that could have become a major part of the show's pop culture. Ross would certainly be the best person to present why Heckles should've stayed around longer, especially with his "briefcase of facts."

I Could ...

When he made up lies as he complained about the noise, Mr. Heckles always said "I could..." He could have cats, he could be practicing the oboe, etcetera. It's something that was unique to Mr. Heckles' character that audiences often laughed about. He could say anything. He could have plans, he could have a dinner party, he could have anything, and who were the friends to contest that?

They usually dismissed him, but it wasn't until after he died that they figured out just how noisy they sounded from his apartment and his noise complaints made sense after all.

Chandler Finding Mr. Heckles In His Apartment

For whatever reason, Mr. Heckles decided to tell Chandler's new roommate at the time, Eric, that he himself was Chandler's new roommate. Eric walked away, definitely confused, and Mr. Heckles let himself into the apartment no problem, making himself right at home.

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Chandler's reaction was certainly on-point and his facial expression, priceless. Though, if not for Heckles doing this, Chandler never would've had Joey for a roommate. Sometimes things are just meant to be, even though Chandler was clearly disturbed by Heckles' presence in his apartment .

Chandler's Fear Of The Future

When Mr. Heckles dies, he leaves his earthly possessions to Monica and Rachel . While helping the girls go through Heckles' things, Chandler begins to find similarities between himself and Mr. Heckles and fears that he'll end up just like him. Chandler even finds himself banging on the ceiling with the broom that Heckles previously used to get the girls to quiet down at one point.

However, in the episode's conclusion, Chandler keeps Heckles' yearbook and bids a heartfelt farewell to him, reassured that he'll make his own destiny. Mr. Heckles impacted the lives of the friends one way or another, but Chandler, most significantly.

NEXT: Friends: Each Character's First & Last Line In The Series  

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My dog ate my homework