Dogfood semiotics
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A couple of days ago, the package room in the Quad sent me a notice of a FedEx delivery. I figured it was the antique toilet flush valve that I'd ordered, but when I went to pick it up, I discovered that someone had sent me a large, heavy carton of canned dogfood, maybe 70 pounds worth.
I don't have a dog, and had never visited the web site of the company that sent the order. But the order had my full name, correctly spelled, and my correct street address and zip code. So it didn't seem likely that I had ordered this stuff by mistake, nor that it had been delivered in error. A quick phone call to the company — amazingly, a real person answered immediately — verified that someone other than me had placed the order, using an apparently valid credit card associated with an address in Pittsburgh.
Internet fraudsters can be ingenious, and so I briefly wondered whether some convoluted identity theft scheme might be in play, maybe somehow part of mark.liberman.121's machinations? And then I thought of the horse-head-in-the-bed scene from The Godfather — the head for that scene was supplied by a dogfood company — did someone think that a FedEx delivery of the finished product would serve as a euphemistic version of a similar message? Nah, way too subtle to be effective.
But still, I wondered, is there some message that a large carton of canned dogfood, delivered by FedEx, could plausibly convey? And is there someone who would want to convey that message to me? Reflection on the contextual pragmatics of canned dogfood left me no wiser.
I soon learned the much more prosaic truth. A friend of one of my children lives in a city apartment building where there's no way for a delivery to be left when the occupant is out. So they asked if stuff could be delivered to me, for them to pick up whenever. I said "sure", and then I forgot the whole thing — until the carton of dogfood brought it back to my attention.
So sometimes, dogfood is just dogfood.
maidhc said,
February 4, 2015 @ 5:28 am
We have a friend who comes to stay with us from time to time, and because she lives a half hour drive up a one-lane dirt road, she puts in her Amazon orders when she comes here. So we got an email that we had to be home because a dangerous lithium device was being delivered and they would not leave it. It's the battery in her new Kindle.
Adam Funk said,
February 4, 2015 @ 5:41 am
I guess if it's not your own dog food, you don't have to eat it.
Philip Cummings said,
February 4, 2015 @ 6:38 am
The only mention I can find of dogfood through a search of your site is this one below. Start your detective search there?
John Cowan said,
February 23, 2011 @ 10:25 pm
"Blawg".
Also the idiom "to eat your own dogfood". Any actual dogfood manufacturer who made its employees do such a thing would be speedily go out of business.,
[(myl) I thought of the peculiar but widespread "eat our own dogfood" idiom, but I couldn't think of any plausible way to apply it to myself, at least that would constitute a plausible message to me from someone else.]
Victor Mair said,
February 4, 2015 @ 8:31 am
Did you ever get your antique toilet flush valve?
[(myl) Yes, it arrived the next day. And by "antique", I mean that it fits a tank installed maybe 50 years ago, but anyhow old enough that the institution's facilities department doesn't have any parts to fit, and hasn't managed to find any over the past four months or so.]
Bfwebster said,
February 4, 2015 @ 8:46 am
OK, so I'm lying in bed, in the dark, iPad in hand, avoiding getting up to shower, shave, etc. i think, "I'll go read Language Log to see what clever, esoteric linguistic discussion is there!"
This post was even better than what I had imagined I would find.
Q. Pheevr said,
February 4, 2015 @ 10:01 am
"Get a dog"? (Sha na na na, sha na na na na.)
Joe said,
February 4, 2015 @ 12:50 pm
@Philip Cumings: I first encountered "eat your own dogfood" in the 90s when dealing with software vendors (eg, Microsoft). To show that they have at least one company with thousands of employees globally using a new software product, they would tell potential customers that they use it in Microsoft (eg, "we eat our own dogfood"). This was a common expression, strangely, used to prove that the product can scale to thousands of users globally.
KWillets said,
February 4, 2015 @ 7:18 pm
"Dogfood" is a verb now at Microsoft, although there are some efforts to reduce the practice these days and use other popular products.
Mark S said,
February 4, 2015 @ 10:32 pm
@Philip Cummings: Any actual dogfood manufacturer who made its employees [eat their own dogfood] would be speedily go out of business.
Actually, I heard an interview with a dog-food employee whose job was to do just that. Dog food has to conform to the same hygiene standards as human food and it's human-edible. He was a quality tester.
Mike Maxwell said,
February 4, 2015 @ 10:51 pm
Are you sure it wasn't addressed to mark.liberman.121?
mike said,
February 5, 2015 @ 2:04 pm
"Dogfooding" as a verb is well established in software, and its use seems unlikely to be diminished by decree. That said, some companies make a point of using alternative phrases, like "drink our own champagne," presumably both because the image of dogfooding is unappealing tho it certainly conveys what it's like sometimes to use prerelease software, bleah) and because "we don't use Microsoft talk here."
The metaphoric message of receiving a case of dogfood seems more to me like getting a fish wrapped in newspaper: "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes." Not a threat per se, but a notification message.