Linguistic Adventures

Dear George,

Glad to hear you've made it to Japan.  I was hoping to have time off so could then fly over and surprise you.... but that's a lot of effort, and if I were there who'd be in the UK updating you on the latest news?  It is 13*C outside, mostly cloudy with scattered showers. The weather has been this way all week...apart from the day when London was on fire (!)... Whilst in the post office queue, there to check on the price of a first class stamp (46p), I over heard someone describe the weather as "raining cats and dogs".

I do love that phrase.  It is one that we can use all the time in England.  I don't know if you know that I love finding out the history of sayings and words, I have on my bookshelf now many books on the subject of etymology and the history behind "raining cats and dogs" is a great little theory.

The probable source of "raining cats and dogs" is rooted in the fact that, in the filthy streets of 17th/18th century England, heavy rain would occasionally carry along dead animals and other debris. The animals didn't fall from the sky, but the sight of dead cats and dogs floating by in storms could well have caused the coining of this colourful phrase. Jonathan Swift described such an event in his satirical poem 'A Description of a City Shower', first published in the 1710.

The first theory I came across, and my favorite by a country mile, is just silly.  It supposes that the saying came from idea that animals would make homes in the thatched roofs of houses because they were nice and warm.  In a heavy down pour the roof would become slippery and the animals resting therein would fall.  Thus it would be literally raining cats and dogs.

I don’t expect everyone to share my love of etymology but I hope these stories go some way to explain why I do.  I love seeing how these theories come about.  I love how stories and words evolve, and what I really really find satisfying about the thatch roof theory, is the correct use of the word "literal"…

This is all a roundabout way of getting to the real gripe I have on my mind… Whilst in the post office queue a man a couple of places behind me, talking on his phone said “I’m literally in the post office now.”

Now, are we to suppose that the person on the other end of the phone believed him to only be figuratively in post office? Maybe he had been metaphorically in the post office?  I over heard a similar thing the other day.  A young lady had stepped off the train at waterloo and was walking down the platform and holding a conversation on her mobile and saying “I’ve literally got off the train”…  Why say literally?  There’s no way of getting that confused about that statement she was getting off the train.  Who knows maybe the whole conversation went something like this:

“I’ll call you back when I get to work, I’m getting off the train now”

“What do you mean getting off the train?”

“I’m getting off the train”

“Sorry I’m confused.  Do you mean you’re alighting a mode of public transportation or making having some kind of spiritual breakthrough whereby you’ve seen that life is an illusion and we’re mindless drones working in a system and now you’re escaping your mortal body’s shackles and ascending to a higher plane of existence?”

“No, I’m literally getting off the train.”

What also pisses me off is when people inappropriately use the word literal and say things like

            “I literally jumped out of my skin”

You didn’t.  That never happened…

            “I was literally scared to death”

You were not.  If you had been it would mean you would be dead and not here to annoy me.

            “I’m literally dying for the toilet”

Are you?  Really?! About to die are we because your bladder is full of urine???

            “I was literally petrified”

What?! Petrified? You changed you entire organic matter into a stony concretion by encrusting or replacing its original substance with a calcareous, siliceous, or other mineral deposit? Is that what happened? Is it? IS IT?!

All the best mate. See you in OZ
Yours.
Little Dave