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MEANING
Of New-Zealand and Australian origin, the colloquial phrase to have come down in the last shower, and its variants, mean: to be inexperienced, to be gullible.
This phrase chiefly occurs in negative contexts, as not to have come down in the last shower, and variants, meaning: to have learned through experience, not to be easily deceived.
This phrase occurs, for example, in a letter to the Editor, from one John O’Brien, Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland, published in the Sunday Independent (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Sunday 2nd October 2022 [page 33, column 4]—the reference is to Vladimir Putin (born 1952), Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000, President of Russia from 2000 to 2008, Prime Minister of Russia from 2008 to 2012, and President of Russia since 2012:
Putin knows the international community did not come down in the last shower—but he also has a domestic audience he must pander to, and an iron curtain that he must rebuild.
EARLY OCCURRENCES
Note: There is an error in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED – online edition, December 2024, s.v. shower (noun)):
As the earliest occurrence of the phrase to have come down in the last shower and variants, meaning to be inexperienced, to be gullible, the OED has recorded the following passage from Journey to the Moon. A Dream, by ‘M. A’, published in The Lowell Offering. Written, edited and published by female operatives employed in the mills (Lowell (Massachusetts): Misses Curtis & Farley) of November 1843 [page 11].
However, in this passage, the phrase to have rained down in the last shower does not refer to the narrator’s character, but to his physical appearance as contrasted with that of the inhabitants of the moon, whom he describes as follows: “Some lacked heads, and some arms, while some were supplied with half a dozen of each”.
—This is the passage in question:
Those of the Lunarians whom we met on the way, regarded me with the greatest astonishment. One of them inquired of my conductor, if that fellow, pointing to me, did not rain down in the last shower, for, said he, I should think his brains had been turned topsy-turvy by some dreadful mishap, and had not yet recovered their equilibrium. Another wished to know if I had not fallen from a comet which had just crossed the moon’s orbit, on its way to the sun.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences that I have found of to have come down in the last shower and variants, meaning to be inexperienced, to be gullible:
1-: From an account of a court case, published in The Otago Witness: A Journal of Commerce, Agriculture, Mining, Politics, and Literature (Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand) of Saturday 31st March 1877 [page 5, column 5]:
Mr Norman […] told the defendant that he had no right to take the coal without signing for it. […] Mr Norman ordered the railway constable to apprehend the defendant on a charge of being illegally on the premises, as he would not sign for the coal. Felony was not mentioned. The defendant was filling his dray from the truck when he was arrested.—William Charles Norman, goods manager, deposed that the defendant was very facetious when declining to sign for the coals. He told witness that he “was very smart, and must have come down by the last shower.” The defendant said he would have the coal without signing for it.
2-: From an account of a court case (W. & C. Bird v. James Gibb), published in The Burrangong Argus and Burrowa, Murrumburrah and Marengo General Advertiser (Burrangong, New South Wales, Australia) of Wednesday 12th June 1878 [page 4, column 3]—James Gibb had asked W. & C. Bird to put up a fence, and, in the following, he explains to the court why he refused to pay W. & C. Bird the amount that had been agreed on:
I was away four or six weeks while the fence was being put up; met plaintiffs when the fence was finished and told them I was going to look at it; it was the worst fence I had ever seen put up; I offered £35, or to leave it to arbitration; was not then aware that some of the posts were only a foot in the ground; they would have all or none; I measured the fence and then said it was the worst fence I had ever seen; C. Bird asked me if I thought he came down in the last thunder shower.
3-: From Did I Love Her? An Australian Novel; By the Author of “Nora Creina,” “Jacinthe,” &c., published in The Illustrated Sydney News (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 20th January 1883 [chapter 8, page 11, column 3]:
“Charlie, my boy, come with me,” I said, as impressively as Lot must have spoken to his unbelieving sons-in-law. “It is far better for you; that girl is only making a fool of you; I had positive proof of it to-night.”
A look of derisive scorn dawned on Douglas’s good-looking face.
“I understand your game,” he said, calmly. “I’m not such a fool as I look, Furnival, nor did I come down in the last shower—if you think your infatuation hasn’t been palpable to every one you’re much mistaken. Don’t be like the fox in the fable who having lost his own tail tried to persuade the other foxes to cut theirs off too.”
4-: From a letter by one Walter Liberty Vernon, dated Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Sunday 8th June 1884, published in The South Bucks Free Press. Wycombe, Maidenhead, & Marlow Journal, & South Oxfordshire Gazette (High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England) of Friday 25th July 1884 [page 2, column 1]:
“Thousands of parrots and cockatoos kick up an awful row. The parrots don’t mind being shot, in fact like it, for the more you shoot them, the more they come on. The cockatoos, however, are not got at so easily, and as the saying out here is ‘did not come down with the last shower of rain.’”
5-: From A Sixpenny “Dos” House, by ‘Sigma’, published in The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) of Monday 2nd November 1885 [page 5, column 7]:
Just as I was considering the advisability of forfeiting my 6d. and exchanging the fœtid atmosphere of this den of horrors for the comparatively pure air of —— street, I was accosted by my nearest neighbor, who asked me in a soft, almost feminine, voice, what luck I had had during the day. […] I asked him what he meant. “Oh, cheese fakin’,” said the young vagabond. “I didn’t come down by the last shower of rain. D’ye think I’m not fly to your little game? A workin’ man ain’t got hands like your’n.”
6-: From a letter from a South Australian, published in The Adelaide Observer (Adelaide, South Australia, Australia) of Saturday 11th September 1886 [page 12, column 2]—reprinted from the Hills Advertiser (Mussoorie, India):
“When I resided in Dehra, all owners of poultry—myself among them—were periodically bereft of many fowls by a disease which induced blindness, inability to eat, choking, and death. I have seen this disease treated here (Australia) with perfect success, and I hasten to inform your readers of the simple means by which this is accomplished. The cause of the mortality is a growth which forms on the tongue on the lower surface and extending beyond the point. The remedy is the removal of that growth. The mode of performing this important, but simple operation, was shown to me by a golden-haired South Australian very deft with her hands, and an all-round smart girl, who, as she informed me, ‘did not come down in the last shower.’”
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