one man and his dog

one man and his dog

1. Almost nobody; very few people.

   Synonyms: one man and a dog, two men and a dog

   • 1984, Nursing Times:

     People around here tell me that they can remember the days when the hospital was run by just one man and his dog. Then people knew everyone by name and it was quite common to find a boss who knew details of his staff's domestic lives. Things have certainly changed today.

   • 2010, UK House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee, Nanotechnologies and Food: Evidence, →ISBN, page 283:

     We have stressed that this is the kind of work which not just one man and his dog could carry out, it needed input from various different specialisms,^[sic] and we were looking particularly for collaborative approaches which would allow the measurement and toxicology and so on all to be dealt with as part of a larger consortium.

   • 2012, Paul Arthur, CADCAM: Training and Education through the ’80s: Proceedings of the CAD ED ’84 Conference, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 9:

     [...] he could foresee a huge manufacturing complex operated by one man and his dog ...

   • 2015, Neil Collins, Red Mist: A Fan's View of the 2014/15 Season, →ISBN, page 24:

     Rodgers' pregame press conference was rammed, whilst Pellegrini's was attended by one man and his dog as tumbleweeds drifted by.

   • 2017, Alan Charlesworth, Social Media Marketing: Marketing Panacea or the Emperor’s New Digital Clothes?, Business Expert Press, →ISBN:

     And not just blogs read only by one man and his dog.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see one,‎ man,‎ dog.

• the whole world and his dog