Tag: Jonathan Swift

The veracious story of a worthy knight, called Sir Loin of Beef

.Reading time 19 minutes.

The English poet John Taylor (1578-1653) wrote, in The great eater, of Kent, or Part of the admirable teeth and stomacks exploits of Nicholas Wood, of Harrisom in the county of Kent His excessiue manner of eating without manners, in strange and true manner described, by Iohn Taylor (1630): One Iohn Dale was too hard […]

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the authentic origin of ‘to rain cats and dogs’

.Reading time 22 minutes.

First recorded circa 1629 as ‘to rain dogs and cats’, this phrase is based on a cat-and-dog fight as a metaphor for a storm or hard rain; the theory that Jonathan Swift coined the phrase is ludicrous.

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