Caitlín R. Kiernan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greygirlbeast) wrote2008-02-16 04:45 pm
greygirlbeast) wrote2008-02-16 04:45 pm
Entry tags:
Howard Hughes coughs up a lung.
Well, this is going to be very short, because, as it turns out, I'm sick as a dog. Whatever that means. I mean, why dogs in particular? Wait a second...with a quote, I attempt to answer my own question:
There are several expressions of the form sick as a ..., that date from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. Sick as a dog is actually the oldest of them, recorded from 1705; it is probably no more than an attempt to give force to a strongly worded statement of physical unhappiness. It was attached to a dog, I would guess, because dogs often seem to have been linked to things considered unpleasant or undesirable; down the years they have had an incredibly bad press, linguistically speaking (think of dog tired, dog in the manger, dog’s breakfast, go to the dogs, dog Latin — big dictionaries have long entries about all the ways that dog has been used in a negative sense).
At various times cats, rats and horses have been also dragged in to the expression, though an odd thing is that horses can’t vomit; one Nineteenth-Century writer did suggest that this version was used “when a person is exceedingly sick without vomiting”. The strangest member of the set was used by Jonathan Swift in 1731: “Poor Miss, she’s sick as a Cushion, she wants nothing but stuffing” (stop laughing at the back).
Er...anyway. When we left for the dentist on Wednesday, I had a cough. Thought nothing of it. I never get sick. I mean, not germy sick. By the time we got back to Atlanta that evening, I had a sore throat. By Thursday night, I was achy and running a fever of 100F, which feels like 101F for me, because I'm a freak and my normal body temperature is actually 97.7F (Spooky, also a freak, averages 97.3F). And since then, I have bounced feverishly up and down, mostly slept, moaned, bitched, cursed microbes, and annoyed Hubero with my mountains of snot rags. Too woozy to sit up for very long, I have not written. This is officially my worst "flu/cold" sort of crud since 2003. Anyway, at some point, Spooky took the following humiliating photograph:
Erg. Here comes gravity again. Maybe by tomorrow I'll only feel like ass.
There are several expressions of the form sick as a ..., that date from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. Sick as a dog is actually the oldest of them, recorded from 1705; it is probably no more than an attempt to give force to a strongly worded statement of physical unhappiness. It was attached to a dog, I would guess, because dogs often seem to have been linked to things considered unpleasant or undesirable; down the years they have had an incredibly bad press, linguistically speaking (think of dog tired, dog in the manger, dog’s breakfast, go to the dogs, dog Latin — big dictionaries have long entries about all the ways that dog has been used in a negative sense).
At various times cats, rats and horses have been also dragged in to the expression, though an odd thing is that horses can’t vomit; one Nineteenth-Century writer did suggest that this version was used “when a person is exceedingly sick without vomiting”. The strangest member of the set was used by Jonathan Swift in 1731: “Poor Miss, she’s sick as a Cushion, she wants nothing but stuffing” (stop laughing at the back).
Er...anyway. When we left for the dentist on Wednesday, I had a cough. Thought nothing of it. I never get sick. I mean, not germy sick. By the time we got back to Atlanta that evening, I had a sore throat. By Thursday night, I was achy and running a fever of 100F, which feels like 101F for me, because I'm a freak and my normal body temperature is actually 97.7F (Spooky, also a freak, averages 97.3F). And since then, I have bounced feverishly up and down, mostly slept, moaned, bitched, cursed microbes, and annoyed Hubero with my mountains of snot rags. Too woozy to sit up for very long, I have not written. This is officially my worst "flu/cold" sort of crud since 2003. Anyway, at some point, Spooky took the following humiliating photograph:
Erg. Here comes gravity again. Maybe by tomorrow I'll only feel like ass.
no subject
Since you are an professional writer and all, do you know what kinda of binding the A Series of Unfortunate Events has, is called. The one where all the pages look like they were cut by someone not very good at there job, and they decided heck just let it go.
I have no idea whatsoever.