This phrase dates back possibly as far as the 1500s. It’s a shorter version of the full expression ‘I’m going back for the hair of the dog that bit me’. It was once thought that if a person was bit by a rabid dog they could cure themselves of any future illness by taking a hair of the dog that had bit them and placing it in the wound, whether they were bit again when they went back for the hair is unknown. This expression translates over well to the concept of having an alcoholic drink to cure a hangover. But this doesn’t actually cure a hangover, just delays it (in case you were wondering). (I actually thought that the ‘hair of the dog’ was a general hangover cure (alcoholic or otherwise) until I was 21. Which isn’t exactly right but isn’t terribly wrong. :-))
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Unstuck Monsters 