Saeha Lee_TB(the proverbial dog with a bone)

In the context of the exact from Tony Blair's political memoirs, what is meant by the proverbial dog with a bone?

 

Tony Blair, in his political memoirs, was stating about his learning on how to think, looking back on the days he had been trained as a pupil by Derry Irvine. Comparing most people who can easily believe that their solutions are the best, Tony described Derry as 'the proverbial dog with a bone'. The meaning of the quoted expression would be interpreted in this context.

 

According to the canine conversation, which is the website and includes explanations of dogs in metaphors and idioms, 'Be like a dog with a bone' is used when someone is illustrated as a committed, tenacious, stubborn, determined, or single-minded person. The free dictionary defined the expression as 'to refuse to stop thinking about to talking about a subject.'

 

In Tony Blair's memoirs, there are some sentences that also help us understand the expression.

He (Derry Irvine) would gnaw at it, examine it, turn it over, bury it, dig it up, step back and stare at it. But he wouldn't stop or reflect until he had got every bit of meat there was off it, had extracted its essence and mastered it.

These sentences imply how Derry devoted himself to his work. He was literally committed to handling a legal problem. Tony also added, "He never accepted the conventional analysis just because it was conventional…," meaning that Derry did not let the problem he faced go easily for his convenience.

 

Based on the above sources and the sentences ahead of the expression in the Tony's memoirs, it can be said that Tony depicted Derry as a person who grasped his work like a dog grasps his bone, using the expression in order to underscore Derry's dedicated attitude toward his work.