Meaning & Analysis
A dog that is sufficiently hungry will overcome its natural aversion and eat spoiled, foul, or otherwise unpalatable food, such as a ruined sausage or offal pudding.
Insights
Desperation Forces Compromise
When people are in a state of severe need or desperation, they will accept solutions, opportunities, or relationships that they would otherwise consider beneath them or unacceptable.
Necessity Lowers Standards
This proverb serves as a commentary on how necessity lowers one's standards. The 'hunger' can be for anything—food, affection, power, or employment—and it compels the acceptance of a 'dirty pudding,' or a deeply flawed option.
The Absence of Choice
It highlights a situation of having no good alternatives. The choice to 'eat dirty puddings' is not made from preference but from a complete lack of better options, reflecting a state of profound constraint.
Historical Food Scarcity
The proverb reflects the harsh realities of historical food scarcity, where 'dirty puddings' (spoiled or offal-based sausages) were a plausible, if unappealing, source of sustenance. This grounds the metaphor in a tangible, visceral reality of survival.
Primacy of Survival Instinct
Psychologically, the proverb illustrates how fundamental needs, like hunger, can override higher-order judgments like disgust or preference. It speaks to a primal level of motivation where survival instincts eclipse social or aesthetic standards.
Social and Class Commentary
The proverb carries a subtle social critique, implying that poverty and desperation compel people to accept conditions, jobs, or relationships that those in more fortunate positions would scorn. The use of 'dogs' can carry a pejorative connotation, reflecting a class-based view of the desperate.
Taboo and Desire
As noted in the 1666 citation by Torriano, the phrase was often interpreted 'obscenely,' suggesting that intense sexual desire or loneliness ('hunger') could lead individuals to pursue partners or relationships considered socially undesirable ('dirty').
Rhetorical Devices
Animal Metaphor
Using 'dogs' to represent humans in a state of desperation is a powerful metaphor that reduces the subject to their most basic, instinctual level, stripping away higher faculties of judgment.
Visceral Imagery
The phrase 'dirty puddings' creates strong, repulsive imagery that effectively contrasts with the driving force of the hunger, making the proverb's point more impactful and memorable.
Hyperbole
The proverb uses hyperbole to emphasize its point. While not literally true in all cases, the exaggeration effectively communicates the extreme compromises that desperation can force.
Transcription
Quotations
Ranke loue is full of heate, Where hungry dogges lacke meate, They wyll durty puddynges eate, For wante of befe and conye.
For suche hongrye doggs will slabbe vp sluttishe puddinges.
Those which feede grossly and homelie, refusing nothing that is set before them: according to our common saieng, Hungrie dogges eate durtie puddinges.
A hungrie dogge will eate dirtie Puddinges, as the Irish man saith.
A hungry dog eats dirty puddings.
To him thats hungrie any bread seemes good; we say, hungrie dogs loue durtie puddinges.
(loue).
Two hungry meales makes the third a glutton.
(love).
To have a good Stomack, viz. to fall upon any Carrion, as Birds of prey do; often taken obsceanly; the English says, Hungry dogs will be glad of dirty puddings.
An hungry dog will eat dung.
A hungry dog is fain of a dirty pudding.
(Scornful dogs).
Cross References
- See St., no. 937.
- M789 Two hungry (ill) meals make the third a glutton.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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