Being caught in the rain can be either a pleasant or unpleasant experience, depending on the circumstances that surround your capture. If you are singing and dancing in it like Gene Kelly used to do, or running in or from it like other people who can’t sing or dance, you are more than likely to perceive the rain from very different perspectives. But what if you are a cat or dog? How does that fit into the proverbial scheme of things?
Hopefully, we are armed with an umbrella most of the time when it rains, but if you are anything like me, the umbrellas are usually somewhere else whenever the rain begins to fall. There are many words to describe rain, but surety the strangest is the one that involves felines and canines; namely, the expression “it’s raining cats and dogs.”
Wherever did this phrase come from and what on earth do dogs and cats have to do with the natural phenomenon of clouds bursting and splattering wetness on everyone? Well, here is the story, (or at least one of them) whether you are wet or dry.
The very first evidence of this expression dates back to 1652 when it appeared in Richard Brome’s play, “The City Wit.” In Act IV, scene 1, we find the phrase ”from henceforth, Erit Fluvius Deucalionis.” Another reference is cited more than one hundred years later in 1783, in Dean Jonathan Swift’s “Polite Conversation.” His Lord Sparkish says: “I know Sir John will go though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs; but pray, stay, Sir John.”
It is indeed a very odd concept to think about while watching the raindrops fall through either a window or at one’s feet.
One question remains. If it rains cats and dogs, how come they never have galoshes or umbrellas either!
Related Articles:
“The Cat In Proverb and Thought”
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