OED: "monkey's wedding"

[Laurence Horn]

On Dec 2, 2012, at 10:11 AM, Neal Whitman wrote:

> I learned "the devil is beating his wife" from a neighbor in El Paso, Texas in 1982.
>
> I also note that CCR found "the rain coming down on a sunny day" unusual enough to write a song asking if you had ever seen it.
>
> Neal

I think of sunshowers, at least the northeastern variety (as opposed to where Creedence hails from, perhaps) as not involving rain during a sunny day but a brief episode of overlap, where the sun peeks out during the rain, often leading to a rainbow as well as sunshowers.  Of course CCR was into extreme weather events, not to mention that bathroom on the right.

LH
>
> On Dec 2, 2012, at 10:02 AM, Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
>> Organization: Haskins Laboratories
>> Subject:      Re: OED: "monkey's wedding"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On 12/2/12 8:34 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>> My grandmother told me about "sunshowers" ca1952.
>>>
>>> I thought it was weird that it could rain while the sun was shining. IMO,
>>> sunshowers are very brief.
>>>
>>> I've read (but never heard) "The devil is beating his wife."  I've never
>>> seen an explanation of it.
>>>
>>
>> "Sunshowers" is the term I was familiar with, growing up in the NY area
>> in the 50s/60s. When I moved to Texas for grad school, I was told about
>> "the devil is beating his wife" as a quintessential Texas expression,
>> although I don't think I ever heard it "in the wild".
>>
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