"Dog's bollocks"
A usage with a positive (albeit still vulgar) sense is "the dog's bollocks".[17] An example of this usage is: "Before Tony Blair's speech, a chap near me growled: ‘'E thinks 'e's the dog's bollocks’. Well, he's entitled to. It was a commanding speech: a real dog's bollocks of an oration".[18] Sometimes the phrase is shortened to just "the dog's" or "the bollocks" (see below). There are also several broadly synonymous substitute phrases that are sometimes used for humorous effect, including "the mutt's nuts", "the dog's danglies", "the badger's nadgers" etc.
Although this is a recent term (the Online Etymology Dictionary dates it to 1989[17][19]), its origins are obscure:
* Etymologist Eric Partridge and the BBC believe the term comes from the printers' mark of a colon and a dash;[20]
* Another theory suggests it is a compound word of 1950's Meccano sets called "box, deluxe", in much the same way that their "box, standard" set name was corrupted to "bog standard".[21] However, this explanation is not currently supported by evidence.
* "The dog's bollocks" fits in with several rhyming reduplications of positive meaning which were popular during the 1920s ("the bee's knees", "the cat's pajamas").
This phrase has found its way into popular culture in a number of ways. There is a beer brewed in England by the Wychwood Brewery called the "Dog's Bollocks",[22] as well as a lager c--ktail.[23] There is an Australian political blog called The Dogs Bollocks, with the motto 'Truth is like a dog’s bollocks - pretty obvious if you care to look – but most of us prefer to avert our gaze, or have them permanently removed'. In a derivative word-play, fans of Chelsea F.C. are known to refer to players Michael Ballack and Didier Drogba as "The Drog's Ballacks".
