Timeline for Are the cats and dogs of the idiom "it's raining cats and dogs" plural in usage?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 11, 2022 at 6:09 | answer | added | Henry | timeline score: 0 | |
| Oct 23, 2020 at 16:58 | answer | added | Edwin Ashworth | timeline score: 3 | |
| Apr 21, 2015 at 16:24 | vote | accept | Alexander K. | ||
| Apr 20, 2015 at 16:56 | answer | added | Cord | timeline score: 2 | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 20:53 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackEnglish/status/588807505121304576 | ||
| Apr 16, 2015 at 13:14 | comment | added | Ernest Friedman-Hill | @Brandin yep, that's the context I'm imagining | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 13:00 | comment | added | Brandin | @ErnestFriedman-Hill Only the word "those" gives me pause, because "those" is used to point to some specific items, especially in comparison with some other items (these vs. those). I suppose if were having a disagreement on how severe the weather actually was, then I could open the curtain, point to the rain crashing loudly against the road, and declare "Those are cats and dogs out there!". | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 12:50 | comment | added | WS2 | The verb form is conditioned by the subject of the sentence, which in this case is it. And it is a substitute for the weather. Cats and dogs is an adverbial clause. It is like saying It was fun and games at the party last night. | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 12:48 | comment | added | Ernest Friedman-Hill | Without disagreeing with one word of the comments above: if someone were to say "those are cats and dogs out there!" I think I'd find it a clever, original, and charming turn of phrase. | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 12:41 | comment | added | user66974 | grammar.about.com/od/d/g/Dummy-It.htm | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 12:38 | comment | added | Brandin |
My hobbyist-linguist friend then said to me that the person was correct because cats and dogs were a compound subject - a result of the idiom itself - This explanation doesn't make sense to me (although I don't have the distinction of being a "hobby" linguist). When we say "It's raining cats and dogs", the phrase "cats and dogs" is clearly adverbial in nature. It's like saying "It's raining really, really hard." An adverb-phrase like "really, really hard" has no grammatical notion of number.
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| Apr 16, 2015 at 12:33 | comment | added | Brandin | "It's..." is also used to talk about topics without plurality, e.g. "It's beer and football today.". Also if someone asks the question "How's the weather?", you pretty much are required to start off any answer by saying "It's...". | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 12:29 | comment | added | Dan Bron | Here, you are dealing with the dummy it of the weather, and possibly an ellipsis: "it [is raining] cats and dogs out there". The dummy it is always grammatically singular. | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 12:29 | history | edited | Robusto | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
deleted 4 characters in body
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| Apr 16, 2015 at 12:23 | review | First posts | |||
| Apr 16, 2015 at 12:49 | |||||
| Apr 16, 2015 at 12:20 | history | asked | Alexander K. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |