Talk:Andiron

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.

Contents 1 Image request 2 Etymological nuance

[edit] Image request

This page should have an illustration.--Prosfilaes 18:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Etymological nuance

Yes, andirons are sometimes called dogs, dog irons, or firedogs, but that fact was not caused by the fact that they sometimes have sculptures of canines cast into them (although the sculptures do play on the dual meaning of the word dog), and there was no literal-to-figurative extension of meaning from earlier canine-sculptured andirons to later non-sculptured ones. They are called dogs for the same reason that bench dogs, lathe dogs, clutch dogs, or feed dogs are called dogs—because they are dogs in the inanimate-object sense, that is, the engineering sense (see Dog (engineering)). Although that engineering sense itself most likely came from the analogy to a canine dog biting and holding on, I think it is clearly folk etymology to say that the name dog was applied to andirons only after, and because of, a canine decoration. It is most likely that the figurative extension of canine dog to inanimate-holder-or-blocker dog came about linguistically before anyone made a playful decoration based on the dual meaning. The decoration is because of the name, not vice versa. I will edit the article shortly. — ¾-10 19:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. — ¾-10 19:41, 21 March 2008 (UTC)