Sleeping dogs
Sleeping dogs are a phrase for a risk , a source of danger that is better not to be touched. In particular, it is about a dispute that has been settled but not resolved and should not be taken up again. The phrase goes back to the saying "One shouldn't wake sleeping dogs " ( English Let sleeping dogs lie ), which means something like: "Don't touch it (that causes a lot of trouble)", "let things be good". “One shouldn't grab the tiger by the tail”, the negation of the saying: “Grab the tiger by the tail” (dare to do something dangerous) has a corresponding meaning.
The saying is old and can already be found in Hans Sachs :
"Drumb like to press your mouth
and read the dog you want to sleep cheap."
Kirchhof , the German Baroque poet and Landsknecht, gives as an explanation:
" The dog is woken up by strangers and beggars : then while he ( the landsknecht ) tugs the bawren around to wake up the dog and collect a few sausages, he has to eat some useless words with under."
reception
The phrase is also used for several work titles
- Sleeping Dogs (film) , German title of the film Sleeping Dogs by Roger Donaldson (1977)
- Sleeping Dogs (TV series) , German TV series by Max Färberböck (1992)
- Sleeping Dogs (book) , Australian novel by Sonya Hartnett (1995)
- Sleeping Dogs (album) , concept album by the German band Janus (2000)
- Crime scene: Sleeping dogs , TV movie (2009)
- Sleeping Dogs (computer game) , video game by Square Enix (2012)
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. let sleeping dogs lie , Wiktionary (English)
- ↑ a b quoted from HUND, m. canis. 4) the dog is man's companion. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . 16 volumes in 32 sub-volumes, 1854–1960. S. Hirzel, Leipzig ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).