Katappakins!
It's raining cats & dogs outside, and my socks are wet. This bodes well for a pleasant day, I wager. But first, I wanted to find out why the x (where 'x' is a variable) the phrase "it's raining cats & dogs" went through my head, because I noticed that it doesn't make one darned bit of sense.
A search of the internets (all of them) reveals that nobody has any clue whatsoever. The reasons that are parroted over and over are these:
1) In Norse Mythology, cats represented wind and dogs represented rain.
2) Either the Greek word for waterfall "Catadupa" or the French word for waterfall "Catadoupe" was misheard as "catsanddogs" (huh?)
3) In the streets of ancient towns, floods would wash away dogs and cats and people mistakenly thought they came from the sky.
Let's debunk these in order, shall we?
1) I'm sort of a dork for Norse mythology, and this is the first time I've ever heard or read that cats & dogs represented certain weather patterns. In fact the *only* websites that mention this strange, previously unknown facet of the Norse belief system are those discussing the origins of "raining cats and dogs." Apparently, every single one of these sites steals from the others. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just think it's weird that no primary sources seem to have ever mentioned this fact before.
2) Not that Babelfish is like a beacon of everlasting wisdom, but the Greek word for waterfall is "καταρράκτης" which may be "catadoupe" but may also be "katappakins." And the French word for waterfall is "chut d'eau" so the phrase would have probably ended up being "man, it's raining judo out there!"
3) Have you ever seen a cat or a dog? It seems to me far more likely that our big, dumb, lumbering human bodies couldn't get out of the way of a rainfall (exhibits a & b: my socks) than it does that lots of cats sort of amiably allowed water to approach them. Seriously, try giving a cat a bath. Maybe there were loads of dead dogs and cats on the streets of ancient cities (this seems likely) and that floods would float these around, but this is taking like six steps of justification, and it just doesn't sit well with me.
Ah, so the investigation has yielded only unsatisfying and dubious answers. So barring further evidence, the reason we say "it's raining cats and dogs" is because other people said it, and it's just as likely that the first guy ever to say it was drunk, insane, or speaking gibberish. Next time, I recommend: "Yo dude, it's raining katappakins out there!" Maybe it'll catch on. Until then, stay dry.
A search of the internets (all of them) reveals that nobody has any clue whatsoever. The reasons that are parroted over and over are these:
1) In Norse Mythology, cats represented wind and dogs represented rain.
2) Either the Greek word for waterfall "Catadupa" or the French word for waterfall "Catadoupe" was misheard as "catsanddogs" (huh?)
3) In the streets of ancient towns, floods would wash away dogs and cats and people mistakenly thought they came from the sky.
Let's debunk these in order, shall we?
1) I'm sort of a dork for Norse mythology, and this is the first time I've ever heard or read that cats & dogs represented certain weather patterns. In fact the *only* websites that mention this strange, previously unknown facet of the Norse belief system are those discussing the origins of "raining cats and dogs." Apparently, every single one of these sites steals from the others. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just think it's weird that no primary sources seem to have ever mentioned this fact before.
2) Not that Babelfish is like a beacon of everlasting wisdom, but the Greek word for waterfall is "καταρράκτης" which may be "catadoupe" but may also be "katappakins." And the French word for waterfall is "chut d'eau" so the phrase would have probably ended up being "man, it's raining judo out there!"
3) Have you ever seen a cat or a dog? It seems to me far more likely that our big, dumb, lumbering human bodies couldn't get out of the way of a rainfall (exhibits a & b: my socks) than it does that lots of cats sort of amiably allowed water to approach them. Seriously, try giving a cat a bath. Maybe there were loads of dead dogs and cats on the streets of ancient cities (this seems likely) and that floods would float these around, but this is taking like six steps of justification, and it just doesn't sit well with me.
Ah, so the investigation has yielded only unsatisfying and dubious answers. So barring further evidence, the reason we say "it's raining cats and dogs" is because other people said it, and it's just as likely that the first guy ever to say it was drunk, insane, or speaking gibberish. Next time, I recommend: "Yo dude, it's raining katappakins out there!" Maybe it'll catch on. Until then, stay dry.