rooves

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:50 AM -0500 2/4/08, Amy West wrote:
>Oh, dear G-d almighty, I cannot believe that this old myth/falsehood
>has reappeared here.
>
>Mark, pick my fainting medievalist self up off the floor. I'm
>assuming that James Landau simply contributed this cite and is not
>the author of the text.

Indeed; a click on the link indicates that Jim was asking about the
reliability of this claim, not promulgating it (whence his quotes),
and a search on "cats and dogs" or "thatch" will probably pull up the
various observations following his query that this is in fact a
classic etymythology, as you say.

LH

>That collection of etymythologies, which
>includes this one, that have made the e-mail circuit since the early
>90s is the bane of my existence. I nearly burst a gasket when one of
>the managers at the museum mindlessly started rattling some of them
>off, including this one...
>
>---Amy West
>
>>Date:    Sun, 3 Feb 2008 20:15:29 -0800
>>From:    Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
>>Subject: rooves
>>
>>Cadillac ran a commercial today, mentioning "sunrooves".
>>
>>The only mention I find in the ADS archives on "rooves" is
>>http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0501D&L=ADS-L&P=R4217&I=-3
>>
>>"The phrase comes from the days when most roofs were thatch.  Now thatch
>>contains seeds, which means it attracts mice and rats who eat the
>>seeds.  To get the rhodents out of their rooves, people would turn their
>>cats and dogs loose on the roof.  When it rained, the felines and
>>canines were washed off the roof, hence the expression." - James A. Landau
>>
>>(Note that this citation also includes the spelling "rhodents".)
>>
>>Benjamin Barrett
>>a cyberbreath for language life
>>livinglanguages.wordpress.com
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org