Words: Going to the dogs, a curmudgeon and a churl

Thanks, Walt! Once again, my new words come from your blog, from a post entitled Going to the dogs
How come I had never heard or read the expression Going to the dogs?

When I first read Walt’s post, I immediately saw that there was more to the title than met the eye. But I really wasn’t sure what it was, since Walt and Ken have a border collie, named Callie and Callie is quite a recurrent theme in their blogs.

So I googled: explain going to the dogs, and clicking the third entry, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms – Google Books Result yielded page 267 of the AHDI, where going to the dogs said to look up going to pot, which didn’t help me much as it was also a new expression for me. But thence came the light 😉

deteriorate, decline, come to a bad end

OK! There I was! I had the title right;)

Then came the first sentence:

I have to say, I’m becoming a curmudgeon. An old fart. A churl. A grumpy old guy. And I’m not even old. Yet.

Well, I thought, don’t worry about not being old. Yet. Time is working for you 😉

Now the curmudgeon bit was easier to find.
Merriam-Webster online said

a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man

which explained Walt’s comment about not being old, yet.
I had a hunch about the meaning of churl, because I knew the word churlish, but checked with Merriam-Webster and obviously, given the context, it couldn’t be a medieval peasant, but

a rude ill-bred person

All that sleuthing work, just for the blog title and the first sentence? But this is what I love about learning a language. You are never done!
Now you want to go read that post, because besides having my new words, it is really enjoyable.