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fandom_grammarWelcome back to Say What? Both of our sayings this time around reference dogs, but that's not really what they're about. To find out more, click through the cut and read on! With examples from Supernatural.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
This proverb, like so many others, has been traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer's works, specifically his 1374 poem Troilus and Criseyde. It means you shouldn't ask for trouble by stirring up something which is a potential source of difficulty or grief:
This saying has appeared in numerous literary works and publications since Chaucer's time, including a 1546 book of English proverbs by John Heywood.
More well-known instances of "let sleeping dogs lie" occur in works like David Copperfield (1849) by Charles Dickens:
It's raining cats and dogs.
The original variant of this saying was first recorded in Richard Brome's 1651 play, The City Wit:
The first theory has to do with mythology. Odin, the Norse god of storms, was often attended by dogs and wolves in stories, so that's one way we might have gotten the "dogs" part of "raining cats and dogs." But most linguists think that's not where it comes from. After all, where are the cats?
Another theory suggests that the saying somehow comes from the French word catadoupe, or waterfall, but we have the same problem with this theory as the one above—except now we have cats, but we're missing the dogs.
The most widely accepted explanation has to do with sanitation in Europe hundreds of years ago. The streets were cluttered with garbage and filth, and when very heavy rains came, all that muck and flotsam, including the corpses of cats and dogs (and rats and goodness knows what else) were washed out into the streets, floating by for everyone to see. Of course, it hadn't actually rained cats and dogs, but when has literal meaning ever stopped people from coming up with vivid, expressive phrases to describe things?
So what's the connection between these two sayings? Since the first one deals with keeping yourself from inviting unnecessary trouble and the second one describes heavy rainfall in a colorful way, not much beyond the fact that they share the word "dogs." That doesn't mean you couldn't use both sayings in a fic, however, if you had a legitimate reason to do so.
Sources:
American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms
America's Popular Proverbs and Sayings
Raining Cats and Dogs, The Phrase Finder (phrases.org.uk)
Let sleeping dogs lie.
This proverb, like so many others, has been traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer's works, specifically his 1374 poem Troilus and Criseyde. It means you shouldn't ask for trouble by stirring up something which is a potential source of difficulty or grief:
It is nought good a slepyng hound to wake.
This saying has appeared in numerous literary works and publications since Chaucer's time, including a 1546 book of English proverbs by John Heywood.
More well-known instances of "let sleeping dogs lie" occur in works like David Copperfield (1849) by Charles Dickens:
Let sleeping dogs lie—who wants to rouse 'em?and Margaret Mitchell's classic Gone With the Wind (1936):
He never mentioned Ashley and her love for him or made any coarse and ill-bred marks about "coveting her." She thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie, so she did not ask for an explanation of their frequent meetings.Sayings with similar meanings include "leave well enough alone" and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." In each case, the warning is clear: don't disturb things; just leave them the way they are. If you mess with the status quo, you're inviting all kinds of trouble on yourself. Which happens to be something the Winchesters of Supernatural are familiar with:
"What are you doing?" Sam snapped. "Are you calling Garth? Don't do it, Dean. If you call him, he'll want to tag along and screw things up. Remember the unicorn incident? Frigging glitter on everything for days. Just this once, let sleeping dogs lie, okay?"In this instance, Sam reminds Dean that Garth is often more trouble than he's worth. Eliciting his help will likely result in something more problematic than the situation they currently find themselves in, and Sam doesn't think it'll be worth it. Involving Garth would be like disturbing a sleeping dog and then getting nipped for it—an ill-advised act with an outcome that's avoidable.
It's raining cats and dogs.
The original variant of this saying was first recorded in Richard Brome's 1651 play, The City Wit:
"… and it shall raine … Dogs and Polecats and so forth."Jonathan Swift used it in 1783, in A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation, where it took the form we recognize today:
"I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs."In the first version, Brome references polecats, which are related to weasels. It makes sense that "polecat" became "cat," as language shifts and people drop syllables or mishear words and substitute things that make sense to them. Plus, cats and dogs are common house pets (and were common forms of pest control hundreds of years ago), so speaking about them as a pair seems logical. But where did the saying come from in the first place? Linguists have a few different theories.
The first theory has to do with mythology. Odin, the Norse god of storms, was often attended by dogs and wolves in stories, so that's one way we might have gotten the "dogs" part of "raining cats and dogs." But most linguists think that's not where it comes from. After all, where are the cats?
Another theory suggests that the saying somehow comes from the French word catadoupe, or waterfall, but we have the same problem with this theory as the one above—except now we have cats, but we're missing the dogs.
The most widely accepted explanation has to do with sanitation in Europe hundreds of years ago. The streets were cluttered with garbage and filth, and when very heavy rains came, all that muck and flotsam, including the corpses of cats and dogs (and rats and goodness knows what else) were washed out into the streets, floating by for everyone to see. Of course, it hadn't actually rained cats and dogs, but when has literal meaning ever stopped people from coming up with vivid, expressive phrases to describe things?
"Aargh, it's raining cats and dogs out there," Dean said as he pulled off his water-soaked jacket.In most fandoms, "it's raining cats and dogs" won't mean it's raining actual cats and dogs. It'll just mean it's raining very hard. That said, in a fandom like Supernatural, where unnatural things happen all the time and it could conceivably rain cats and dogs, it's easy to see how Sam would require some clarification.
Sam jolted upright on the couch. "Really? Did the coven do something to the weather patterns?"
"No, dude," Dean sighed. "It's just rain, not real cats and dogs. The guy at the liquor store said there's flooding downtown and the bridge is underwater. We're not leaving until it stops."
So what's the connection between these two sayings? Since the first one deals with keeping yourself from inviting unnecessary trouble and the second one describes heavy rainfall in a colorful way, not much beyond the fact that they share the word "dogs." That doesn't mean you couldn't use both sayings in a fic, however, if you had a legitimate reason to do so.
Sources:
American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms
America's Popular Proverbs and Sayings
Raining Cats and Dogs, The Phrase Finder (phrases.org.uk)
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