The Weirdness of English- Idioms and True Weather Proverbs: The Morning Thing on 5/26/16

“I’ll just play it by ear.” “It’s raining cats and dogs outside.” “Oh gosh, I’m laughing so hard I’m in stitches!”

We say weird things sometimes. English is full of idioms, those phrases that taken literally mean something quite different than their intended meaning. Why do we say random things like “the pot calling the kettle black” or “driving me up the wall?” Turns out there are good explanations, a method to the madness if you will.

Usually it’s a lesson in history, perhaps linguistics. Either way, it’s helpful at best and fun at least to know why we say the things that we do. You can check out the origins of idioms here and here.

In addition to idioms we say weird things like “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning, red sky at night, sailors delight” to describe the weather. Turns out that a lot of these Old Wives’ sayings about the weather actually are true. You can check out the scientific reasons for it here.