[MLR]

This seems to be pseudo-history at best, the saying is centuries old in some form or another - Wiktionary has "it never rains, but it pours" at 1772, and even then it was being given as a trite saying.

Maybe it popularised the modern wording, but the story in the article isn't going for that angle at all.

[djur]

Even without the historical evidence, the slogan seems an unlikely coinage without the existing idiom (surely "when it rains, Morton pours" would be more likely), and I don't know how you'd get from the marketing slogan to an idiom about misfortune.

It's a shame. Stories like this are fascinating when they turn out to be true. Like how "bucket list" entered the American vernacular so quickly and thoroughly that there are many people who believe the movie was named after a preexisting common phrase.

[PopAlongKid]

> a preexisting common phrase

You mean like, "kick the bucket"?

[djur]

No, I mean "bucket list". A lot of people think that it was part of the vernacular before the movie came out, but it wasn't.

[sweetbacon]

re: "bucket list" well I've learned something interesting today. I was solidly in the latter camp.

[smegsicle]

it certainly seemed like the culture was ready for a catchy name for the concept, and even if it indeed hadn't been independently coined previously, people were ready to accept it

nowadays though we've got zuckerberg pretending like he invented the term 'metaverse'

[MBCook]

Sure enough here is a citation I was able find easily from 1860.

I should have known better. Can’t trust even simple things these days.

https://books.google.com/books?id=V2AEAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA4-PA169&...

[coldpie]

> Can’t trust even simple things these days.

"These days," as opposed to that glorious time in the past when you could trust anything some random stranger said to you.

[sumy23]

That usage doesn’t seem idiomatic. Like it’s literally saying the rain in this area is heavy.

[MBCook]

True. But I just chose an early one. There were others. Seems to have been a phrase even if not idiomatic yet.

[JacobAldridge]

And quite a different interpretation.

My grandmother was the idiom queen (by the time the dementia really took hold, she was communicating in trite phrases just like 'kids these days' communicate in memes) and this was one of her favourites.

The meaning of the saying is fairly straightforward - "pours" being more voluminous than "rains", it's like saying "it never trickles but it floods". Related of course to the London bus, where you wait for ages and then 3 show up at once.

Morton's seems to take the sentiment, but change the meaning - it rains AND it pours, because the "it" changes between those two verbs. A clever play on words to change the meaning of and old idiom - maybe similar to Tesco's "Every Little Helps" that's catchy because it's similar and yet different - but as you say, definitely not the origin of the trite saying about misfortune or luck.