I have a thing for words.  I love finding out the origins of funny words and sayings.  Mr. Zoe and I were talking about different tech terms the other day and how weird some of them are.  In particular, he was telling me how when he was in Asia, he kept using the phrase “eat our own dog food”.  Finally, a person in one of the presentations raised his hand and asked him to explain the phrase and what it meant.  Mr. Zoe went through the story and there were lots of funny looks and then with the dawn of realization, some pretty hardy laughs.

Apparently though there are many versions of this story ranging from Alpo stating that they wouldn’t sell a product unless their own dogs would eat it to they wouldn’t sell a product that they wouldn’t eat themselves.  Ew, people eating dog food.  Seriously?  I guess Evan told the version of the humans consuming the food :)

Anyway there’s lots of tech terms out there I use that I probably don’t understand the origins of, but nonetheless are part of my everyday vernacular.  And more are being created each day.  Just check out Wired Magazine’s jargon watch on a monthly basis; there are always some interesting terms in there (some now used in the mainstream, others more esoteric).  

Gretchen and I have referred to “eating our own dog food” recently in our own work.  I have to say I won’t think of it in quite the same way anymore…