There was an interesting discussion in listening class today about some expressions related to (or using) weather words. A trainee asked about an expression used to describe when several unfortunate incidents happen back to back... (actually this expression applies not only to bad things, but to good things also)
I mentioned the expression, "It never rains, it pours." Several trainees mentioned the expression, "It never rains without pouring". Still other trainees mentioned the expression, "It never rains, but it pours." So which expression is right?
Well, here's a quick and easy way that you can check which expression is most frequently used; this will, I hope, give you some idea of which expression is best to use.
Visit:
www.google.comEnter your search query between quotation marks. For example, "it never rains, it pours"
Notice the frequency of your search query in google's results.
The expression which has the highest frequency is probably the best one to use.
Try it here! Click on the expressions below to see how often Google finds each expression.
"It never rains, it pours." (about 1,400 results)
"It never rains without pouring". (about 330 results [and the first result is Korean])
"It never rains, but it pours." (about 49,000 results)
"When it rains it pours" (about 265,000 results)
{FYI Google checks about 8,000,000,000 (that's eight billion or 팔십억) pages}
So, based on frequency, "When it rains it pours" would seem to be the best choice; however, all of the expressions seem to carry the same semantic and pragmatic meaning.
So which one is best? That depends... are you a prescriptivist or a descriptivist?
The music playing before today's listening class was from a Saskatoon band by the name of "Wide Mouth Mason"; sometimes shortened to WMM.
