Rain, rain, go away, don’t bother coming back another day.
This has been the wettest summer I’ve seen in the more than four decades I’ve lived in Minnesota. Drizzle, rain, shower, deluge, downpour, we’ve had it all. Sure, brief interludes of sunny, lovely days. Then back to having buckets of water thrown at us. I have no idea how farmers managed to get a crop in, let alone how they’re going to harvest it now that it’s raining. Again. A few weeks ago, the weather guy on Minnesota Public Radio mentioned that this is already the second-wettest year on record here, with several months of precipitation yet to go. He went on and on about it being the second-wettest year, but never bothered to say which year was Number One.
It’s raining cats and dogs. Where the hell does that expression come from? #til the first use of it was in Jonathan Swift’s 1738 not-quite-a-bestseller A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation which says “I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs” but the connection between rain and cats and dogs can be traced back to Greek mythology where cats were associated with storms and dogs with wind.
I saw a bumper sticker today while sitting at a stoplight:
YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID, BUT YOU CAN NUMB IT WITH A 2X4
Mericans will understand the reference, but for those of you in Metricland, a 2x4 is a piece of lumber nominally 2”x4” but actually more like 1.5”x3.5” (38x89mm). But the phrase “I’m gonna whup you upside the head with a 1.5x3.5!” just never caught on, go figure.
Thanks to @whatsup for getting the ball rolling.
Pixabay image