I was reminded on father’s day that my dad used to say this often. I grew up playing games. We played Gin, Hearts, Blackjack, Chess, and Backgammon. Briefly, and unsuccessfully, he also tried to teach us Bridge. While I rarely won these games, I regularly enjoyed playing.

So it goes that during my dad’s visit to Chicago this weekend that a priority of mine was to break-in my new Backgammon board with the man that taught me how to play. Usually accompanying our games are good conversation and a playful, competitive spirit. This held true as I was reminded of something valuable. A familiar idiom. The reminder was as simple as a bad roll for him that prompted him to say, “that dog won’t hunt.” I laughed.

Generally speaking, the idiom means that a person or idea is not good enough and/or something isn’t going to work out. The interweb informed me that this phrase was used often by President LBJ and Waylon Jennings wrote a song with the same name.

I’m not sure if this idiom will make my lexicon, but I like it.

Photo taken by: http://winsomeness.tumblr.com/

(I hope this will be an ongoing segment to my blog where I can share idioms and how I come across them.)