The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that a 1929 reference establishes that schoolchildren had at some time earlier than that offered it as an excuse to teachers. Īs an explanation for missing documents, it dates to a story about a Welsh minister first recorded in print in 1905. In 2022 a teacher posted to Reddit a picture of what was left of her students' homework after her dog chewed it up before she could grade it. However, although suspicious, the claim is not absolutely beyond possibility since dogs are known to eat-or chew on-bunches of paper John Steinbeck was once forced to ask his editor for additional time due to half the manuscript of Of Mice and Men having been eaten by his Irish Setter. The claim of a dog eating one's homework is inherently suspect since it is both impossible for a teacher to disprove and conveniently absolves the student who gives that excuse of any blame. The phrase is referenced, even beyond the educational context, as a sarcastic rejoinder to any similarly glib or otherwise insufficient or implausible explanation for a failure in any context. ' The dog ate my homework' (or ' My dog ate my homework') is an English expression which carries the suggestion of being a common, poorly fabricated excuse made by schoolchildren to explain their failure to turn in an assignment on time. Music homework purportedly partially eaten by a dog

I did do my homework