Raining Cats and Dogs

I received a rather interesting comment today. Matthew told me that he read over my blog, and that I had actually learned to communicate with words. I'm not sure if he was implying that I didn't know how to previously, or that other people don't know how to. Either way, it's a compliment, I guess - even if I don't know what it meant.

A funny quote from a cartoon I saw today:

"As a lazy tailor would say, 'Suit yourself' "


And now for the Useless Information for the week, I will tell you of the origin of the phrase "Raining cats and dogs"! I heard somewhere that the phrase came from medieval times when houses had thatch roofs. They would basically pile a bunch of straw on top of the house and it would shed water when it rained. The story says that during cold weather small animals would crawl into the straw to stay warm, and when it rained they would end up falling through the ceiling. And so started the adage: "Raining cats and dogs". It almost makes sense until you start to think about it, but in the end, you have to realize that it's just crazy.

The truth is that nobody really knows for sure where it started (like so many other things) but there are a few theories. The most likely is that in the filthy streets of 17th century England, many times heavy rains would carry along the bodies of dead animals in the flood waters. Jonathan Swift described this in his poem "A Description of a City Shower", and the first appearance of the current version was in Jonathan Swift's "A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation". The fact that he described the streets flowing with animals, and then used the phrase "Raining cats and dogs" a few years later makes a pretty good case for the theory that poor sanitation is the source of this popular adage.

Like I said before, nobody really knows how it was started, but these are just a couple theories. There are actually several ideas, but in the end, it doesn't really matter who started it if you're outside when the clouds open up and you're getting soaked!