More musing about idioms and where they came from. How about these?
Have you ever looked out your window and said, “Holy Cow, it’s raining cats and dogs!” (I live in Seattle and this happens a lot for me.) This sentence has two idioms. The meaning of Holy Cow is simply an expression of surprise, but the history of Holy Cow is still disputed. Some think it is a reference to the sacred cows of Hinduism, but since this expression originated around 1920, this is doubtful. It is more likely that Holy Cow is like other exclamations such as Holy Smoke, Holy Moses, Holy Moley, Holy Mackerel, or Holy Joe. These phrases may be substitutions for the use of the word “God” or “Jesus” in order to get around the Biblical prohibition against taking the Lord’s name in vain. Actually, no one really knows the origin of this idiom – but it’s fun to speculate, isn’t it?
The origin of “raining cats and dogs” is easier to explore. The meaning is simply a heavy rainstorm, but of course dogs and cats do not actually fall out of the clouds. So why do we say they do?
Way back in the medieval age in Europe, city dwellers disposed of their garbage by throwing it in the gutters that lined the streets. This garbage included dead dogs and cats. When a heavy rain came, the gutters often flooded and the garbage, including the decaying and stinking animals, was washed out on the streets.
So you can be grateful when you say, “it’s raining cats and dogs,” that city gutters have improved since medieval times.
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