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by DiggyJohnson 1259 days ago
From the Wikipedia:

> O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez, commonly known by the name English as She Is Spoke, is a 19th-century book written by Pedro Carolino, with some editions crediting José da Fonseca as a co-author. It was intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide or phrase book. However, because the "English" translations provided are usually inaccurate or unidiomatic, it is regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour in translation.

> The humour largely arises from Carolino's indiscriminate use of literal translation, which has led to many idiomatic expressions being translated ineptly. For example, Carolino translates the Portuguese phrase chover a cântaros as "raining in jars", when an analogous English idiom is available in the form of "raining buckets".

> It is widely believed that Carolino could not speak English and that a French–English dictionary was used to translate an earlier Portuguese–French phrase book, …

1 comments

> "raining buckets"

Really? Which part of the UK does that come from. Where I come from *Nort Wilts.) the related phrase would be "It's bucketing down!" but I've never heard anyone say "It's raining buckets!".

Raining Buckets is definitely still in use in America, and shows up enough in old books? Linguistic drift?
Where I am (Boston area) "raining cats and dogs" seems to be the more common idiom.
"raining cats and dogs" also popular in the U.S.
I just stepped on a poodle.
It's more "buckets of rain"
Also from north Wilts and I'm pretty sure I've heard (and used) both forms.
it's a common expression here in the US, at least! unsure about the UK.
It would be exceedingly funny, if the expression had become idiomatic in the US, _because_ of the book.

(However, it might have come to US English from Spanish which is pretty close to Portuguese and thus ultimately from the same source as the book?)

Spanish has "llover a cántaros" too.