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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origin 69. The word origin today or we

  • actually have two words was top dog and underdog. Okay. Good

  • if we say that someone is a top dog. Today, we mean that he is that he or she

  • is the leader. Someone in charge, especially in a competition or some type

  • of business. Somebody is the top dog. Top dog in the company. Number-one person in

  • the company. In competitions, the one considered most likely to win can also

  • be called the favorite. I think favorite is more common, if we think somebody is

  • likely to win. We're more likely to say the word favorite than top dog but you

  • could say top dog too. Okay. Let's continue. An underdog is a person, team or

  • group in competitions that most people think is not likely to win the game,

  • competition, election etc. Then we say somebody is the underdog. Okay. Both terms

  • are believed to come from the activity of dog fights in the 1800s. So they used

  • to have dog fights a lot. The winner was often referred to as the

  • upper dog , over dog or top dog. Okay. The first two terms seem to have faded away.

  • So we don't really hear upper dog or over dog anymore. Although you, you could

  • imagine that upper dog sounds very likely to be the opposite of underdog.

  • Okay. And do remember, I don't know if anybody does remember the very , very old

  • cartoon and they used to have a dog that was like a Superman dog. He was called

  • underdog. It's kind of strange in a way but it was it was kind of a funny little

  • cartoon way, way back and I don't know though 1960s 1970s something like that.

  • But it was a cute cartoon. But it really was just very much the same ideas like a

  • Superman, but it was called "Underdog. " Okay. Let's continue. The first two terms. Yeah.

  • it seemed to fade away. The loser was known as the underdog. So that's why we still

  • use that term today as the one that we think is least likely to win. So we would

  • say this underdog. So it really all comes back to dog fights that used to be very

  • common in the eighteen hundreds. And here's just a couple of examples of how

  • we may use it today. Example number one. Many people like to cheer for the

  • underdog. Yeah. We often hear this. The one that they think is less likely to win

  • and you know somehow it makes it more interesting if the underdog could pull

  • it out sometimes.. All right. And number two. He is the top dog in the company. Yes. So

  • we definitely use top dog to always to ... you know, often to mean like the

  • number one person or the person in charge. Okay. Anyway, I hope you got it . I hope it

  • was clear. Thank you for your time. Bye= bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origin 69. The word origin today or we

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