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| Thread ID: 69091 | 2006-05-21 22:45:00 | Monday laughs: Call Centres | Billy T (70) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 456672 | 2006-05-24 04:05:00 | The bridal bouquet had its earliest beginnings as a bunch of fragrant herbs who "job" it was to discourage evil spirits from getting close to the bride. It started not as a bouquet, but, with Greeks and Romans, as a garland of fresh herbs which the bride wore in her hair. In Victorian times, the flowers in a bride's bouquet carried messages, because each flower had its own special meaning. Phrase Quizzes Contacts Web www.phrases.org.uk Browse the alphabetical list of 1,200 phrases: [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U,V] [W] [X,Y,Z] Raining cats and dogs Meaning Raining very heavily. Origin This is an interesting phrase in that, although there's no definitive origin, there are several speculative derivations. The first thing to say is that the phrase seems to be unrelated to the well-known antipathy between dogs and cats, which is made word in the phrase "fight like cat and dog". In fact "raining cats and dogs" doesn't make a great deal of literal sense and the explanations below that attempt to link the phrase to felines, canines and weather seem rather feeble. Here goes though - take your choice. 1. It comes from mythology. Witches, who often took the form of their familiars - cats, are supposed to have ridden the wind. Dogs and wolves were attendants to Odin, the god of storms and sailors associated them with rain. Well, some evidence would be nice. There doesn't appear to be any to support this notion. 2. Cats and dogs were supposed to be washed from roofs during heavy weather. This is a widely repeated tale. It got a lease of life with the message "Life in the 1500s", which began circulating on the Internet in 1999. Here's the relevant part of that: I'll describe their houses a little. You've heard of thatch roofs, well that's all they were. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. They were the only place for the little animals to get warm. So all the pets; dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs, all lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery so sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Thus the saying, "it's raining cats and dogs." This is nonsense of course. It hardly needs debunking, but, least there be any doubt... Dogs lived in thatched roofs? No, of course they didn't. Even accepting that mad idea, for them to have slipped off when it rained they would have needed to be on the outside - hardly the intuitive place for an animal to shelter from bad weather. 3. The phrase is supposed to have originated in England in the 17th century when city streets were filthy and heavy rain would occasionally carry along dead animals. The idea that seeing a dead cats and dogs floating by in storms would cause people to coin this phrase is far fetched, but just about believable. 4. Another suggestion is that it comes from a version of the French word, catadoupe, meaning waterfall. Well, again. No evidence. If the phrase were 'raining cats' or if there also existed a French word, dogadoupe we might be going somewhere with this one. As there isn't lets pass this by. Returning to facts rather than idle speculation, we do know that the phrase was in use in a modified form in 1653, when Richard Brome's The City Wit, has the line: "It shall raine .. Dogs and Polecats". Polecats aren't cats as such but the jump between them in linguistic rather than veterinary terms isn't large. In a form more like the current version it appears in Jonathan Swift’s 'A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation' in 1738: "I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs". More likely than any of the versions given above is that this is just a nice descriptive turn of phrase, which doesn't relate to any particular event or practise. There's a similar phrase originating from the north of England - "it's raining stair-rods". No one has gone to the effort of speculating that this is from mythic reports of stairs being carried into the air in storms and falling on gullible peasants. Its just a rather good vivid phrase giving a graphic impression of heavy rain. Another similar phrase is "it’s raining like pitchforks", the first known reference of which is D. Humphreys' Yankey in England, 1815: "I'll be even with you, if it rains pitchforks - tines downwards." |
pctek (84) | ||
| 456673 | 2006-05-24 04:10:00 | www.askoxford.com | Cicero (40) | ||
| 456674 | 2006-05-24 05:13:00 | Thanks for the insight thought for the word "threshold". I have always found difficulty in grasping the meaning of it. Cheers :) |
Renmoo (66) | ||
| 456675 | 2006-06-01 06:30:00 | Mujibar now works as a technician at a Dell-Service call center . No doubt some of you have spoken to him . In fact, someone managed to take a picture of him at the office :D . imagef1 . net . nz/files/Techsupport . jpg" target="_blank">www . imagef1 . net . nz |
SKT174 (1319) | ||
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