riddle me this...

[poppedmndkisser]

So yeah...This makes it the third day in a row that I am sick as a dog. Which reminds me, does anyone know why they say.."sick as a dog"? Or for that matter.."healthy as an ox"? Because I mean i don't know how often dogs get sick, and an ox always has that runny nose, so maybe oxen are always sick and nobody knows it because nobody ever bothers

Comments

piggly wiggly

[costapasta]

I'm not sure about the actual origin of the dog thing, but I might have an idea about the Ox deal. You see, being strong is traditionally related to being healthy. Back in the day when oxen had to pull things about, you kind of had to have some strength in you in order to do the field work. It was tough work. When you got ill, you became weaker. Thus, "strong" became almost synonimous ( I think I spelled that correctly) with "healthy", while "weak" and "sick" became equivalents.
The phrase "strong as an ox" must have been about at the time, for obvious reasons, so I can see "healthy as an ox" stemming from that. I have also heard "healthy as a horse", and this could have stemmed in the same way as well.
I'm pulling this out of my ass, but it sounds good to me!!