"Peace is flowing like a river, Flowing out of you and me, Flowing out into the desert, Setting all the captives free" - Peace Is Flowing Like A River, Anonymous
Okay so it's raining here, and then the sun comes out. and i say, "oh, i guess the devil is beating his wife." and my boss says, "WHAT?!?"
Has anyone else heard this phrase. I have told three people in the last five minutes and received horrified stares. I am from Louisiana so maybe it's a southern thing?
julie [email] said at 6:54 PM 06-06-2006: I've never heard that. Maybe cuz I'm not from the South. It seems that wife-beating is just a horror-inducing phrase. I've known people who recoil in horror when I call white tank tops wife-beaters.
angele [email] said at 7:30 PM 06-06-2006: That's funny. I never thought of how horrifying that phrase could be to the overly sensitive. I used to get all excited whenever the devil was beating his wife ever since I can remember. I'm sure at one time I was a four-year-old exclaming with glee that the devil was beating his wife when the sun was shining while dripping rain drops fell.
kate [email] said at 8:46 PM 06-06-2006: see okay, i was a kid in metairie, and yeah totally common. my mom was born in new orleans, her mom from biloxi, and my dad was born in austin. i mean, they both said it. like...EVERY time it rained and the sun came down. i am just stunned this is not a common phrase, as terrible as it sounds.
angele [email] said at 11:43 PM 06-06-2006: I gots a Texas mommy and a NOLA daddy. A horse and a donkey produce a mule. Maybe our special parental situations produce a wealth of bizzaro slang and phrases that other people just don't develop.
myriam [email] said at 8:38 AM 06-07-2006: I have never heard this in my life. What the heck does it even mean?!
I grew up calling sun-while-raindrops-fall as "monkeyshine rain"--mom told me when I was a little girl that that's what they called in africa when she grew up. Something about monkeys getting it to happen.
brandon [email] said at 9:10 AM 06-07-2006: Rain while the sun shines is the tears of the devil's wife... cause he's beating her... you'd cry, too, if the devil beat you.
I've always thought of this as a rural Louisiana/Baptist thing. Catholics and city folks don't like to talk about the devil so much, it ruins some of our more fragile concepts.
myriam [email] said at 10:25 AM 06-07-2006: But why wouldn't that just be rain alone? What's the sunshine connection? Does he only beat her when the sun shines? If so, does she not cry everytime? Why aren't Southern Baptists logical, damnit?!?!!!
brandon [email] said at 10:39 AM 06-07-2006: I've always thought that angels bowling in heaven and the devil beating his wife were brought in to explain the seemingly causeless phenomenon, sunshowers, since during regular rain clouds are normally present. Though, if you look up, clouds are still present. But kids are stupid so you still need some explanation for the difference between rain when there is sunshine and rain when there is not, to quell the little scamps and their incessant "why, mommy, why?" questions.
A sunshower can also refer to something else, which is a nod of consent and a safeword away from an actual beating, and what better way to describe the devil porking his wife? It's certainly analogous to the way we explain animal copulation to the very young: "They're just wrestling!"
It's an interesting question or origin, with pretty gross implications that brings to mind one of Zack's old cartoons. You know, the one with the horse...
Todd D said at 10:00 AM 06-07-2006: The original (longer) version from Wikipedia: "The devil’s behind his kitchen door beating his wife with a frying pan." Obviously the rain are the tears from Ms. Jones - er uh - Mrs. Devil. And the sun shining is from the sunny-side-up eggs that she was frying. As everyone knows, only devilled eggs are eaten in hell. So, when the bitch tries something new, the devil smacks her with the pan til she cries. Just like Uncle Brad and Aunt Jenny.
Oona said at 12:05 PM 06-08-2006: Of course She does! I say it, my mother said it and my grandmother said it. But we weren't southerners, they were Pennsylvannians
reggie [email] said at 11:10 AM 06-07-2006: I ain't never heard this before but I wouldn't be shocked by it either. I'd probably just steal it and use it myself.
crystal [email] said at 4:51 PM 06-07-2006: As a 100% born and bred southerner - myself being of the hillbilly variety (the mountains of NC) - I heard this phrase often growing up! my parents and grandparents and great grandparents are all mountain folk.
