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Glite Dictionary
to bark yourself

to bark yourself

1 9.9
To do something yourself instead of asking someone else to do it
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : hacerlo uno mismo
  • He decided to bark yourself instead of hiring a professional.

Examples

  • After all, why keep a doctor and bark yourself?

    Fiction book (1995)

  • The meeting was chaotic because the manager insisted on barking yourself instead of delegating tasks.

  • If you have a team to help you, why would you choose to bark yourself?

Synonyms

to take it upon oneself
vsto bark yourself
28 5.3

Decide to do something and accept responsibility without being asked

involves acting oneself but specifically when delegation could or should occur
to keep a dog and bark yourself
vsto bark yourself
  • UK
9.9

To do work yourself when you hired someone else to do it

is doing tasks oneself when delegation would normally be expected
to buy a dog and bark
vsto bark yourself
  • Archaic
9.9

To do a task yourself and take responsibility for what happens

focuses on self-action even when assigning the work to others is possible

Antonyms

to delegate
45 3.7

To give a job and authority to someone so they do it for you

Surface Forms

bark yourself infinitive

Morphology

bark + yourself

The pronoun 'yourself' clearly signals acting alone and 'bark' names an action, so there is a loose compositional clue that someone is doing the action personally; however the specific proverb-like sense of unnecessary self-performance (the delegation logic in 'Why keep a dog and bark yourself?') is cultural and not directly predictable from the words alone. A B1 learner who knows the constituents would therefore only partially infer the intended meaning and would likely need exposure to the proverb to fully understand it.

Etymology

Bark yourself comes from an old saying, 'Why keep a dog and bark yourself?'. The picture of someone making the noise the dog should make—having to bark while the dog sits—shows doing a job yourself when you could have someone else do it, so it means 'to do something yourself instead of letting others help'.