March 2, 2009

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

Last night we were watching the weather and he predicted the morning low was to be seventeen degrees. He said March was coming in like a frozen leg of lamb. After I gained control of my hysterical laughter, I asked my wife if the old saying for March weather was indeed in like a lamb, out like a lion or vice versa.


"I don't know."
"It's got to be one or the other."
"I don't know, who cares?"
"I wonder when the saying was first coined, and who said it?"
"Only you would want to know something useless like that."
"I'll have to google it tomorrow."
"You do that...good-night, geek."

This is from the USA Today:

"For most locations, the average temperature at the end of the month is higher than at the beginning, so the proverb typically has some meteorological truth to it, but where did it come from?

The phrase apparently has its origins with the constellations Leo, the Lion, and Aries, the ram or lamb. It has to do with the relative positions of these constellations in the sky at the beginning and end of the month."

3 comments:

  1. I'd never thought about it apart from the alliterative loveliness phrase and the idea of that the month starting with a roar ('March winds doth blow'). I love the idea being turned on it's head ... 'in like a frozen leg of lamb' out like a lion on fire?

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  2. Simple - Lion eats lamb. End of discussion.

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  3. That's interesting. I hadn't heard the saying before, but it's good to see it for the first time with its source.

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