We have making note of silly phrases we’ve heard For example, “Throwing in the tent.” This is clearly a mash-up of folding the tent and throwing in the towel.
Another one has to do with the Fat Lady:Â “It ain’t over until the Fat Lady’s stuck a fork in it.”
And I heard an athlete on the Jim Rome show talk about “360 hindsight.”
Like I said, silly stuff.
So today I see this quote in the paper and it had me scratching my head. Here it is in context:
“This is the time of year when it should be raining like a tall cow,” said Mike Pechner, a meteorologist who owns Golden West Meteorology. “Well, it looks like El Niño may finally be beginning to show its face.”
So I asked my husband if he ever heard of it raining like a tall cow. He shook his head and suggested I consult Google.
Aha! There were several references to the following:
“Raining like a tall cow pissing on a flat rock.”
Now that makes sense!
So there you have it. Stay curious my friend.
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Apparently someone truncated the phrase for the SF Chronicle report without realizing that the partial version made the meteorologist sound like he had lost his mind. I lived in the South for until I was 18, lived in the West for another 40 years and I had never heard that phrase.