FoxTrot by Bill Amend for April 17, 2016

When it’s a light rain fall, I call it “kittens and puppies.” When it’s a very heavy rain fall, “lions and wolves.”

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.http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-rai1.htm

I didn’t realize Peter was so prissy.

Here in Sweden, we call it a “rod-rain.” Not as in the name Rod, but as in “fishing rod.”

It’s raining cats and dogs. I just stepped into a poodle.

I call a downpour a Toad-strangler.

After reading this, I spent the next 1/2 hour reading phrase origins.

http://www.cracked.com/article_16108_the-bizarre-history-10-common-sayings.html

High-five, internet.

That is one weird kid.

It is from Jonathan Swift, describing all the refuse and offal (including dead cats and dogs) that washed down the streets of London during rainstorms. Pretty gross, actually:

Now in contiguous Drops the Flood comes down,Threat’ning with Deluge this devoted Town.…Now from all Parts the swelling Kennels flow,And bear their Trophies with them as they go:Filth of all Hues and Odours seem to tellWhat Street they sail’d from, by their Sight and Smell.They, as each Torrent drives, with rapid Force,From Smithfield or St. Pulchre’s shape their Course,And in huge Confluent join’d at Snow-Hill Ridge,Fall from the Conduit, prone to Holbourn-Bridge.Sweeping from Butchers Stalls, Dung, Guts, and Blood,Drown’d Puppies, stinking Sprats, all drench’d in Mud,Dead Cats and Turnip-Tops come tumbling down the Flood.

There’s also a saying my cousin’s Dad used to say: “It’s raining Bullfrogs out here!” (meaning a heaving downpour)

At least raining cats and dogs isn’t as bad as hailing taxis and buses.

Wow, that’s a deep analogy. Weird, but deep. I did myself many questions like that, back when everything seemed literal.

Once I read the expression comes from past times where there wasn’t good sewage, when it rained a lot the day after you could see the corpses of all the stray dogs and cats that drowned, so it looked like it rained cats and dogs.