Flights of Fantasy

I don’t know about you, but I adore research, even if it’s just figuring out when and why a particular saying came into being. For instance, in getting my newsletter ready to go out this week, I used the phrase “the dog days of summer.” Now, I’ve heard that phrase my whole life, but I suddenly realized I didn’t have a clue why it was so oft repeated or what it meant. Not really. Sure, I could guess that it had to do with hot, lazy afternoons… the kind where a dog might like to sprawl out in the sun and doze, but that was all it was, a guess.

What does that phrase really mean? When did it come into our common vocabulary?

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the “dog days” hearken back to ancient Greeks who noticed that the hottest days of the year occurred during the time that Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, rose and set with the sun. They thought that the heat came from adding Sirius’ heat to the warmth of our own sun. After all, one meaning for the Greek word that we translate as Sirius is “scorcher.”

All well and good. The sun + Sirius = hot weather. Fine. What has that got to do with dogs?

To answer that question, we look to the ancient Romans, who placed Sirius in the constellation Canus Major, or Greater Dog. They agreed that the convergence of the sun and Sirius made for hot weather and referred to that part of the summer season as dies caniculares or days of the dog star… not quite the dog days of summer, but we’re getting closer!

The English phrase seems to have come into common usage in the late 1500s, as a popularization of the Latin phrase dies caniculares.

So, it’s not about lazy dogs on hot summer days, the dog days of summer is a reference to early astronomer’s attempts to explain the persistent weather patterns. Who knew?

And just because I can, here’s a picture of my favorite dog enjoying a lazy summer day…

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