Raining Cats and Dogs

Summer has passed, July is coming, and soon it will be rainy season again here in the Philippines. Ever heard of the phrase “raining cats and dogs?” This is an expression which is usually used when it is raining heavily. I really don’t know how this expression originated as raindrops certainly don’t look or act anything like cats or dogs to me. *giggle* I found out though that it isn’t really certain where or how this phrase originated. One source says that:

It originated in 17th Century England when many dogs and cats drowned during heavy downpours of rain and when rivers burst their banks. Their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets giving the appearance that it had literally rained “cats and dogs.”

From the site World Wide Words, there are five more explanations to the origin of the phrase. One is that:

The most common one says that in olden times, homes had thatched roofs in which domestic animals such as cats and dogs would like to hide. In heavy rain, the animals would either be washed out of the thatch, or rapidly abandon it for better shelter, so it would seem to be raining cats and dogs. Other suggestions include derivation from an unspecified Greek aphorism that was similar in sound and which meant “an unlikely occurrence”, or that it is a corrupted version of a rare French word, catadoupe, meaning a waterfall. It has also been suggested that at one time the streets of British towns were so poorly constructed that many cats and dogs would drown whenever there was a storm; people seeing the corpses floating by would think they had fallen from the sky, like the proverbial rains of frogs.

There is also a mythological theory:

It seems that cats were at one time thought to have influence over storms, especially by sailors, and that dogs were symbols of storms, often accompanying images and descriptions of the Norse storm god Odin. So when some particularly violent tempest appeared, people suggested it was caused by cats (bringing the rain) and dogs (the wind).

Well, there are several other theories but I don’t really mind which one’s the right one. The thought of where the saying came from just happened to pass my mind. All I know is I’m really looking forward to this rainy season. For those who don’t know yet, I’m a labrador…and just like other labs, water is one of my favorite things! *grin*

Woof!