Talk:rain cats and dogs

old discussion

The usage note is fine, but really it applies to any weather term (and to a broader class I can't put my finger on). E.g., it's raining, it's snowing, it's hailing ... -dmh 04:54, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Those are called impersonal verbs (Wikipedia). I'm pretty sure I've seen another term along the lines of "weather verb" too but that's less formal I'd say. — Hippietrail 15:39, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ta. Sounds like a category to me ... -dmh 15:51, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome and I agree 100% with the category idea. I added a bunch of other types of verbs over at verb if you're interested. — Hippietrail 16:17, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good stuff, and obvious directions for future work (which I will have to forego in favor of real work) -dmh 17:33, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It would be very helpful, especially when learning a new language, to know the transliterations, not just the translations, of the comparable foreign language idioms. This should be a valid heading. -- 216.234.56.130 21:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't rain but it pours

Is this not also an English idiom synonymous with "It's raining cats and dogs"? __meco 16:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't think so. The idiom "When it rains, it pours" has nothing to do with atmospheric precipitation. The idiom ...cats and dogs always refers to atmospheric precipitation. --Connel MacKenzie 16:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

You're clearly right. It was my not remembering the precise wording of that idiom which brought on my confusion. __meco 17:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if we should have a note about the obvious confusion for English learners though. Some might (rightly) say that all idioms are confusing...but these imply they are related, when they are not. I wonder if we have a specific way of addressing situations like this? --Connel MacKenzie 17:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Etymology

The ultimate etymology of this idiom is unknown. There are many other theories that are more likely than the example. Should we list them all,or merely note that it is unknown? DeeKenn 17:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It'd be fun to try to list them all, otherwise "Etymology unknown" would get very repetitive. Conrad.Irwin 17:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Etymology (again)

I found a site which lists some possible etymologies for this phrase. --BiT 01:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

RFM discussion: February–March 2020

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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rain cats and dogs → cats and dogs

It can "rain cats and dogs", "pour cats and dogs", or be google books:"coming down cats and dogs", there can also be a google books:"downpour of cats and dogs", on rare occasion it can even "leak cats and dogs". Given how we've shortened idioms in other cases (e.g. "of one's word", "way out of a paper bag"), should this also be moved to "cats and dogs"? (I don't have strong feelings about this, but it does seem like there'll need to be an entry at "cats and dogs" to cover the other usage I mentioned, and consistency would suggest just moving the lemma to there.) Any translations that can't be shortened can be kept with qualifiers, IMO, as on other entries like "of one's word" (see also the Tea Room discussion that made me think of this). - -sche (discuss) 17:26, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

If rain cats and dogs passes the jiffy test (i.e., predates the other forms), it should be kept. The others seem like they could easily have been derived from it, and rain cats and dogs is the only form I'm familiar with. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:20, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

• Ditto. — SGconlaw (talk) 05:18, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Hmm. Pinging @DCDuring, who's participated in a lot of discussions about what portion of various idioms to lemmatize. Should we, by "jiffy" logic, partially reverse previous RFMs like the one about (man) of one's word, and have double entries at of one's word and man of his word? (I see another "partial idiom" I was able to think of, way out of a paper bag, already came up at RFC as being kinda problematic.) (See also Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/English#soaked_to_the_bone which was redirected to to the bone.) - -sche (discuss) 15:31, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

I suppose I've come around and now fully accept the 'jiffy test' arguments. Let's call something like cats and dogs a reduced form of rain cats and dogs and assume that rain cats and dogs was the first common expression that used the idiomatic cats and dogs. IMO, it would make sense to have an entry for rain cats and dogs and one for cats and dogs. All the expressions that involve synonyms or plays on rain should not be lemma entries or alternative form entries, with perhaps the most common being hard redirects. I don't know that there are any expressions of the form '[VERB] cats and dogs' that would be worth even a hard redirect, nor can I think of any straightforward rule for making the inclusion decision.

Reduced form entries are often not very intuitive. One can only hope (but hope in vain) that a first search for an expression like 'snow cats and dogs' will lead a user to the entries for rain cats and dogs and/or cats and dogs. But having entries for all attestable expressions of the form [VERB] cats and dogs seems silly to me and is probably of very low importance to Wiktionary users.

The general problem involved includes our treatment of expressions of metaphors, some of which are much less lexically straightforward than '(rain) cats and dogs'. BTW, one can find uses of 'rain kittens and puppies'. (I would have thought snow kittens and puppies would be better.) DCDuring (talk) 16:42, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

I would have redirects for the common alternative verbs, or else how will someone searching for them find the content? (And since e.g. "pour cats and dogs" is unlikely to ever host any other content besides something related to this idiom, I see no problem with a redirect, and it's cheap.) I'm still on the fence about applying "jiffy" arguments to RFM, but I concede this would often have the side effect of making it easier to host translations, when another language can't shorten an idiom (e.g. remove a verb, stripping it to the adverb-like part) like English and/or en.Wiktionary can. - -sche (discuss) 23:52, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

OK, besides cats and dogs and pour cats and dogs, which already existed, I have created come down cats and dogs and storm cats and dogs, and then cats and dogs to handle remaining phrases like a downpour of cats and dogs, sleeting cats and dogs, etc. - -sche (discuss) 21:29, 5 March 2020 (UTC)