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Cats or Dogs?

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February 10, 2011, 05:55
BobHale
Cats or Dogs?
In the sidebar gadget on my blog where random OEDILF limericks pop up I just got one defining the phrase "dog's chance" or "dog's chance in hell".

I was interested because I have never heard precisely this phrase. I have only ever heard "cat's chance" or "cat's chance in hell" (or the rather more logical "snowball's chance" and "snowball's chance in hell")

Is this Cats/Dogs distinction a regional thing?


"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
February 10, 2011, 07:28
zmježd
a regional thing?

Probably I have only heard dog's/snowball's chance in hell, though I now wonder at the name of the family cat in The Simpsons.


—Ceci n'est pas un seing.
February 10, 2011, 08:03
<Proofreader>
I've nly heard it in reference to snowball.
February 10, 2011, 08:14
arnie
Likelise, I can only think of a snowball's chance in hell. The phrases "dog's chance and "cat's chance", while somehow familiar, don't ring true. Maybe there's some confusion with other idioms like "dog's life" perhaps?


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
February 10, 2011, 20:50
Kalleh
Like arnie, I've heard snowball's chance. To me the phrase dog's chance sounds vaguely familiar, but that's all.

[Speaking of dogs, I wasn't going to post this here because it really isn't a word post, but now I will. Having just gotten 20 inches of snow and then zero degree weather, our poor dog feels just like this one in the article: Link]
February 12, 2011, 05:19
Geoff
I've only heard snowball.

Like Kalleh, zero degrees F, not C. Less snow, but lots of ice.


It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti