Introduction
An important question as to nomenclature matters is to when and where the term ‘houndstooth’ or its near relation terms ‘hounds-tooth’, ‘hounds tooth’, ‘hound’s tooth’ and synonyms, such as ‘dogtooth’, and its own numerous variations and the synonyms ‘chicken’s foot’ and ‘pied de poule’ (from France), first appeared in print, and as a natural follow-on to this how it spread to select other countries. However, despite seemingly a relatively simple task, this is not a straightforward task as may otherwise be thought!
Frequently, what people consider houndstooth is seemingly at a whim! I have seen designs, typically in black and white, described as houndstooth, seemingly only so described due to a tentative jagged or colour connection. Further, what is houndstooth to one person is another's dogtooth, chicken’s foot, pied de poule, puppytooth or pepita. And then there is a whole host of other descriptions, notably of shepherd’s check, and others too. Typically, the association is not made clear, with images, but is instead simply in text, along the lines of ‘houndstooth, or shepherd’s check….’. Statements are all too frequently made without the source being quoted, even by supposed authorities, never mind the hobbyist or blogger. And indeed, there is just plain slipshod research. Indeed, even in such a respected body as the Merriam-Webster dictionary gives incorrect dates for the instigation of houndstooth, namely 1936. Correct is 1925. There must be well over 100+ references before 1936, in a variety of countries. What is going on, Merriam-Webster? Excuse the pun, words fail me…. What an absolute utter shambles all round! In short, vagueness and uncertainty rule. To this end, I thus attempt to bring a degree of order and clarity, with fully referenced attributions that can be verified. Primarily, this involves newspaper archive searching of various countries, which, in modern times, has been made practical by the Internet. Further, to a much lesser extent, but not through a lack of desire, but rather due to convenience, I also examine journals and books.
Below, I discuss the various archives and background matters, followed by an extensive listing of the equivalent of a 53-page document!
The Newspaper Archives
To this end, in the course of my newspaper archive searching, I have ventured further from an obvious UK search, given its supposed (or at least widely stated, although doubts have now emerged) UK source, with the British Newspaper Archive (BNA), United Kingdom Press Online (UKPO) with others nationalities, namely Trove (Australia), Chronicling America (USA), Gallica (France), Papers Past (New Zealand), Delpher (Netherlands) NewspaperArchive.com (US) and Newspapers.com (US). Note that NewspaperArchive.com and Newspapers.com are not always of the same degree of accuracy as the others above; incorrect listings infrequently show up at times (as with the OCR reading dates incorrectly, such as 1921 as 1971, and filters still show undesired terms), although not to the detriment of the study rendering these unusable. Specific UK national papers of some standing and substance include: The Guardian (from 1791), The Observer and Daily Express. However, there are many more available than the relatively few as above! Wikipedia gives hundreds! However, it is impractical to search for all. That said, not all are of the same degree of substance. Even so, in due course, more will be examined as time permits, although admittedly, to a practical level, one could spend a lifetime on this! As an aside, these are all truly awesome research tools of recent times, little more than ten years old. All are capable of multiple paper searches. Further, these sites can now be considered relatively ‘mature’. For instance, the BNA (largely of local papers, rather than of national ones), launched in 2011, is now of 28,900,000 pages, with an addition of 153,000 a week (as of 28 November 2018), with the stated total of up to 40 million newspaper pages to be made available. New titles and full runs of the paper are still being added. Therefore, the study presented here is partial. However, it seems inconceivable (given the depth so far) that, as a broad treatment, my listing is fundamentally lacking, save for the occasional minor predating; that here is broadly true in terms of the extent.
Books and Journals/Magazines
Outlets searched include JSTOR (albeit not with full access to this resource, 2019, but I have now) and Google Books.
JSTOR (short for Journal Storage) is a digital library founded in 1995. Originally containing digitised back issues of academic journals, it now also includes books and other primary sources, and current issues of journals. It provides full-text searches of almost 2,000 journals. However, it is a relative disappointment. A search on ‘houndstooth’ gives a mere 167 references, with the oldest being as late as 1962! The variant ‘hounds tooth’ shows many more (1,330), but this includes non-design/fabric references, with the first design/fabric connection of 1951! Certainly, for historic matters at least, this archive is no use at all.
For unclear reasons, when using Google Books, spurious references occur, seemingly due to deficiencies of OCR. To give a specific instance, there is a reference to The New Yorker of 1925 with a Pauline Trigère reference, of which I know the name to be from the 1950s! And this is not just an isolated occurrence; numerous other instances can be seen. This being so, I am more than a little wary of categorically attributing such references. For unclear reasons, references to The New Yorker abound. Another plausible instance, from the typeface, is that of a Paul Stuart clothing advert, purportedly of 1925. However, I see that Paul Stuart opened in 1938! I don’t understand! Can anyone shed light on these anomalies? This is Google we are talking about, and not some hobbyist! Given such plain wrong attributions, without seeing the whole book in person, I am more than a little wary of relying on these references. For now, at least, the jury is out on the first definitive book reference. However, all the indications, whatever it is, are that it is indeed in line with the newspaper accounts, and not earlier.
As ever, I am open to suggestions as to other resources to investigate.
The Scope and Outline of the Investigation
The aim, upon starting, was a consistent approach, in which all instances of houndstooth and synonyms are documented. However, what indeed began this way has somewhat lost its way, has diversified and expanded due to the scope of the investigation. Upon beginning with the BNA, I then successively expanded to other foreign newspapers. However, in general, I lack foreign language skills, and not all of the foreign archives were easy to use. Further, for some entries, for instance (oddly) chicken’s foot, in Australian newspapers alone, there are hundreds of entries of the time range studied (detailed below). Further, I expanded the search, including more obscure references, sometimes of doubtful connection. It is simply overwhelming and exhausting! What began as a short study, of just a ‘day or two’, quickly expanded to many days and weeks, and now months, with no sign of a completion in sight! In short, I have decided to curtail the extent, which largely explains some discrepancies in depth. The study is in four parts, somewhat arbitrarily at times, and open to revision, partly dictated by Google Sites' preference for relatively short pages. The content here, of a 53-page document, is simply not admissible. This being so, I split into four parts:
Part 1, solely of Houndstooth.
Part 2, where the other five main synonym titles are discerned, namely Dogtooth, Chicken’s Foot, Pied de Poule (the French term), Puppytooth and Pepita.
Part 3, where other semi-popular terms are used, with checks, incorrectly or vaguely, namely, with Shepherd’s Check/Plaid/Maud/Tartan, Gun Club Check, Prince of Wales Check and Glenurquhart Check.
Part 4, less popular terms, namely Border Tartan/Plaid/Drab/Check, Falkirk Tartan, Northumbrian Tartan, Galashiels Grey Star Checks and Crow's Foot.
Peripheral References
A problem when searching is that unrelated peripheral references occur. The various terms are used to describe unrelated aspects, although of course these can generally be filtered out:
Houndstooth is also applied to various sayings, with ‘clean (or sharp) as a hound’s tooth’, grasses (and others)
Pied-de-Poule is also applied to botany, with buttercups
Chicken’s Foot is used in chicken ailments (and others)
Dogtooth is discussed as an architectural ornament (and others)
Sifting through all this, even with the aid of filters, still takes time. Further, even within obvious fabric matters, of what may be thought to the exclusion of all others, although houndstooth is associated with fabrics and fashion, ‘dog tooth’ also applies to a (triangular) edging in clothing, and so although obviously close in the same field is unrelated. Typically, the reference is not always illustrated, and so at times, uncertainty of intention remains. For instance, with dogtooth, a reference may be to ‘dog tooth patterns.’ At face value, especially in a fabric context, it would appear to refer to what is the standard model. However, this isn't necessarily so. Conceivably, and plausibly, it may refer to a jagged edge pattern reminiscent of a dog’s tooth. Therefore, trying to second-guess a quote at times is fraught with difficulty. Where this happens, I note the ambiguity.
The Remit and Range of the Investigation
An open question is the extent of the remit/range of the investigation. Although ideally I would include all references to all countries from the beginning to the present day, this is simply impractical; there must be (or what feels like) millions! Even for just a single country, this remains impractical. Further, I have been somewhat selective at times on these grounds. For instance, of the main focus, namely houndstooth, I have naturally been more thorough in my listing. Others, of less frequently found descriptions, are less so. The general aim is to show when the various terms occurred, and with tendencies and trends discernible thereof. As alluded to above, this thus results in some entries being lengthy or short. On occasions, when some interesting instances occur outside the given date range, I show selected instances. Specifically for houndstooth, somewhat arbitrarily, I tend to end the research for the year 1939. From its beginning, in 1925, ostensibly in Australia and the UK, by 1930, this gives ten to fifteen years from its introduction, of which this is judged sufficient to show when the various terms occurred, and with tendencies and trends discerned.
Types of References
A variety of references are discerned, with articles on fashion matters (in general, by far the most interesting) and adverts. To both, illustrations are also of interest, as they clearly define the terms, although in practice this is not always so, with a drawing at times leaving the meaning still unclear as to intent.
Terminology Difficulties
Just as with problems of terminology that occur in defining houndstooth and variants, so the same situation arises with references in print. Further, the additional term sometimes applied to this, namely ‘shepherd’s check’ (which dates from 1859), is sometimes used synonymously (and erroneously) for houndstooth, but is not included here.
All five main terms have variants, with a gap in the word, hyphens or apostrophes in various combinations and omissions, detailed below, which complicates matters somewhat. However, I have at least made a start, and of which much new details have come to light, and the various chronologies are put on broad firm foundations, although I make no claim as to an exhaustive, all-encompassing definitive account. Thorough, yes, and undoubtedly the best available there is, but there is still room for improvement and more research. Likely, there is the occasional error here, with considerable collated effort involved over different times, but if so, this will be a relatively minor error. Nonetheless, the account is of sufficient depth that trends can be clearly discerned.
The Listing
The thorough listing below (to be followed by a frequency analysis) is not to be regarded as a defining work, at least just yet. Although I have indeed been thorough and striven for consistency, this was not of an all-encompassing nature; as detailed above, there is simply so much to do that time does not permit. Further, the copyholders are all in general, still archiving their material. Note that some entries in effect repeat themselves, either due to adverts or syndication.
Presentation of the Entries
The entries below are presented under each term, e.g. houndstooth, placed chronologically by year. I begin with the newspaper title, dates, and page number of the publication. Non-UK papers have the source country in brackets after the title. In brackets is the term as given in the paper. This thus shows the favoured spelling (under construction). At the end, each country is shown in a pictorial manner, as a flag icon. Although this is not essential, it is certainly convenient in that it permits easy recognition of any one country and its extent. As a ‘note to self’, * is the exact term checked, to be removed upon completion of the listing.
The archives, with abbreviations, are as follows:
BNA - British Newspaper Archive (UK, £), of 29 million pages available from around 250 British local newspaper titles (not as a rule nationals), dating from 1710 to 1954.
Very good. Excellent and varied filters.
Gall. - Gallica (France, Free), of 1.3 million newspaper and periodical pages to date. And overall, over 3 million digital documents - books, manuscripts, maps, images.
Not the easiest site to use, possibly caused by language difficulties.
Tr. - Trove (Australia, Free), of 12.3 million pages covering a range of titles from every state and territory, from the earliest newspaper published in Australia in 1803 through to the mid-1950s.
Very good. Excellent and varied filters.
CA - Chronicling America (USA, Free), of 7.2 million pages from 1,270 titles from 1860-1922, of 23 select states.
Good, but basic. Lacks the capacity to use ‘not’ terms.
De. - Delpher (Netherlands, Free), of more than 100 million pages from Dutch newspapers, books and magazines.
NA - NewspaperArchive.com (USA, $), of 130 million pages (newspaper and periodicals) dating from 1607 to the present day, with papers from all American states and eleven other countries, including the UK (some 800 titles).
Pleasing. The main drawback is that it lacks a search by picture.
Ne. Newspapers.com (USA, $), of 11,200+ papers, with 451 million pages(!) from the 1700s–2000s
PP - Papers Past (New Zealand), of three million freely available pages from 83 digitised New Zealand newspapers and periodicals covering the period 1839 to 1945.
UKPO - United Kingdom Press Online (UK, £), of over 2 million pages from some of the UK’s biggest-selling popular newspapers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Pleasing.
NYT - The New York Times (USA, $) dating back to 1851.
Other Archives:
Vogue. Does anyone have any (institutional?) access to the Vogue fashion archive? It costs a ridiculous $1575 as an individual researcher!
As can be seen, there is a mix of free and paid content. Simply stated, there is no discernible difference in quality between the free and paid, simply a choice of content. With the aid of filters, which differ slightly, this makes for the most convenient research. Some content, owned by the paper, is reserved for their own distribution. However, even here, even as excerpts, which are free (of which the extent varies), without seeing the whole page or even story, much can still be done; it is certainly not essential to subscribe to these paid instances!
Inventory
Part 1
1. Houndstooth
Part 2
2. Dogtooth
3. Chicken’s Foot
4. Pied de Poule
5. Puppytooth
6. Pepita
Part 3
7. Shepherd’s Check/Plaid/Maud/Tartan
8. Gun Club Check
9. Prince of Wales Check
10. Glenurquhart Check
Part 4
11. Border Tartan/Plaid/Drab/Check
12. Falkirk Tartan
13. Northumberland Tartan
14. Galashiels Grey
15. Four and Four
16. Star Checks
17. Crow's Foot
Page History 3 December 2025. A new page, albeit the material is taken (cut and pasted) from 'Houndstooth in Print 1', consisting of this introduction, and houndstooth references. Therefore, it is 'old' in one sense and 'new' in another. Pending the return, I now consider that this original presentation is not the best as it is a combination, with 'Houndstooth in Print 2, 3, and 4', of individual specifics. Furthermore, the entries have newspaper clippings, while the introduction does not. Simply stated, I consider this the best presentation. Further, the advantage of this reorganisation is that 'Houndstooth in Print 1–4' retain their pages, and do not require 'assembling', as here.
Corrected text in Grammarly, pending a more extensive review.
The page/content is overdue for a return, although I do not recall new archives coming onstream. However, newspaper archives, such as the BNA, have been continuously updated since the last study (2019), with about 60 million [sic] pages added subsequently! There must be new findings waiting. This page alone can surely be added to, not to mention other sources (books).
I can't find a date for this series, but all the indications are that it was in 2019, in line with a general study of houndstooth, where this was undertaken at that period.