Raining Pitchforks

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Isabel in Stevens Point.

Hi, Isabel.

Hello, Isabel. Welcome.

Thank you.

I’m calling about an expression that I heard my mother use that I never heard from anyone else used to describe a fierce rainfall. She would say, it’s raining pitchforks and hoe handles. And I wondered about that. I don’t know the source, but she taught in one-room schools for 10 years before she was married. I wonder if possibly it appeared in a children’s book.

Where was she when she was teaching?

In Portage County, in several different schools. And just recently, I discussed this with a friend who had grown up in Racine, and the Racine version is pitchforks and hammer handles. So I guess that’s the contrast between an agricultural area and an urban area or a business area.

Well, Isabel, it’s really interesting that you mentioned this expression. I’ve seen lots of different variations that start with the pitchforks. Raining pitchforks and bullfrogs. Pitchforks and bull yearlings.

Bull yearlings, really, I hadn’t seen that one.

Pitchforks and barn shovels.

Oh, yeah.

Forks and grindstones.

Pitchforks and angleworms.

Angleworms.

Angleworms, yeah, like to go angling with.

Oh, that you put on a hook, huh?

I guess.

And it’s interesting, too, because the whole idea of something falling very noisily from the sky seems to be at the root of things like raining cats and dogs.

Right.

Exactly. That’s the expression that I did hear a lot as a child. You put it very well, Isabel. These always refer to fierce rains. We’re not just talking a light little spring thing. We’re talking about the kind of torrent rain where you think the house is going to come down, right? Or if you’re out in it, it actually stings because it’s coming so heavily.

Yes, and it’s described in terms that the utterer would have at hand. It’s vivid, right?

Yeah, it’s your daily life turned into a metaphor.

Yeah.

Right, right.

But there’s a whole bunch of language that we use in the United States. Some of it’s a little outdated now or not much used, but for heavy rainstorms, gully washer is one that a lot of people, toad strangler.

Yes, I heard frog strangler in Florida.

Stump washer.

Ditch worker?

Because it actually clears out the ditches.

Oh, yeah, yeah, right.

And Grant mentioned expressions in the United States, but there’s some great expressions all around the world.

Oh, really?

Yeah. In Greece, I know they say it’s raining chair legs.

That’s great.

I guess they have pitchforks over there, but raining chair legs. In Norway, it’s raining female trolls. And my favorite is down in Colombia. The expression is, están lloviendo hasta maridos, which means, it’s raining even husbands. It’s raining men, hallelujah.

That’s marvelous.

So if you’re looking for a husband, move to Colombia, I guess. Falling from the skies. Wait for a good gully washer.

The one that you use, the pitchfork version, it does go back at least 100, probably 150 years in American English. These colorful expressions, once people hear them, they can’t leave them be. They pick them up, they use them, they pass them along, put them in their stories and their writing. It’s interesting. I’ll bet you’re going to get a lot of phone calls subsequent to this, giving you other versions.

I bet we do.

And I hope we do. Isabel, thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a term that you use for a heavy rain, 877-929-9673, or put the list in email, words@waywordradio.org.