Comments on: Raining Cats and Dogs

By: Yannik Behme

Yannik Behme — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:14:48 +0000

Objections can be raised against your conclusion, even though Toke’s hypothesis is indeed one possible explanation. The weak point clearly is that, apart from De Morgan’s childhood memory (“the whole phrase [...] was [originally] ‘cats and dogs, and pitchforks with their points downwards’”, De Morgan 1861: 380) which could be based on a regional or intrafamilial idiosyncrasy, evidence for a fuller original version of the idiom has yet to be found. Furthermore, there are other quite reasonable attempts at an explanation which you discount.

G. Harvey’s “dogboltes or catboltes” could also be a word play on an older idiom. In “A Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable”, B. A. Phythian refers to a text from 1549 which is implying just that. After having dismissed the “heavy shower” hypothesis, Phythian writes:
“A better explanation, or at least a clue, is to be found in a quotation from Chaloner’s translation of Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly (1549): ‘Rather should we let all the world go to wreck both with dog and cat (as they say)’. This indicates that there existed a popular expression ‘with dog and cat’, that it was used of a disaster, and that it meant ‘completely and utterly’, down on the last dog and cat [...].” (1993: 264)

Chaloner’s 1549 translation of Erasmus’ “In Praise of Folie” indeed contains this sentence: “Or rather shoulde we let all the worlde goe to wreke both with dogge and catte (as they saie) than ones to make a lesyng, be the mattier neuer so lyght” (Erasmus 1965: 79). With dogge and catte is not a direct translation from Latin. The original speaks of “cum uictu et uestitu, quod aiunt” (Erasmus 1829: 362), which would translate to ‘food and clothing, as they say’ – ‘as they say’, so this is presumable some kind of idiomatic phrase; and in search of an adequate translation, Chaloner came up with dogge and catte. And the most probable reason for this is that there really used to be a “popular expression ‘with dog and cat’, [...] and that it meant ‘completely and utterly’” (Phythian 1993: 264). A heavy rain could have evoked the biblical story from the book of Genesis, in which God sends a great deluge from the sky to destroy the world and it would have gone down with dog and cat if it would not have been for the righteous Noah and his ark. It is raining cats and dogs might thus have been motivated by the idea that ‘it is raining as if it was the end of the world’.
This approach seeems to be even more plausible and convincing to me than the one offered by N. E. Toke.
________________________
De Morgan, A. 1861. “Raining Cats and Dogs.” Notes and Queries. Series 2. Vol. XII. London: Bell & Daldy. 380381.
Erasmus, Desiderius. 1829. Colloquia Familiaria, et Encomium Moriae. Editio Stereotypa. Lipsiae [Leipzig]: C. Tauchnitii.
Phythian, B. A. 1993. A Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. London: Hodder Education.

By: grim

grim — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:03:40 +0000

Speers, you have messed up. Liberman’s article quotes the OED’s earliest attestation, which is Jonathan Swift’s from 1738. You can find it for yourself, in “A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation,” published in 1738 (a searchable facsimile is available on Google Books.)

Haliburton was not born until 1796.

By: A Speers

A Speers — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:27:33 +0000

You may wish to view;

http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.asp?ContentID=300

This saying is attributed to the Canadian author Thomas Chandler Haliburton (pre 1865). Mr. Lieberman you have not done your homework!

By: madelaine osborne

madelaine osborne — Sun, 27 May 2007 15:00:30 +0000

my brother went to collage and told me that back in the day cats took over the world and then the dogs got them back.

By: Angela

Angela — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:18:46 +0000

My mom said when people use the word its raining “Cats and Dogs” it means its raining really hard and Raining “Cats and Dogs” is a Idiom for Its raining really hard.

Is that true or is it just a cover up for secret spy work going on.

By: conocimiento

conocimiento — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:50:55 +0000

That theory is, I believe, taken from the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. I’d be curious what Mr. Lieberman thinks of it.

By: Lacy

Lacy — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:49:17 +0000

I had a high school English teacher who told us that the phrase originated from the idea that cats and even small dogs would climb up into thatched roofs to sleep, and when heavy rains would come, they would not be able to hold on to the wet thatch and would fall to the ground.

Seems at least as unlikely as some of your candidates above!