Why do we say things like?

Question

Sick as a dog?
Healthy as a horse?
Why is the poor dog always sick anyway?

Answer 1

hiiiiii !
i agree with you ...........actually even i dont know the reason that why do people say such stupid things which makes no sense !!
Some more stupid things which are often said by people:-
a) ''as cute as a button !
My opinion: are buttons cuteee??


b) as cold as hell !
My opinion: hell is supposed to be burning then how come
its cold?

c) have you taken water in your water bottle??
My opinion: a very stupid question !!


So , you see no --one actually knows why?



Anyways ,
Keep Smiling & Keep Rocking:-)

Answer 2

There are several expressions of the form sick as a ..., that date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sick as a dog is actually the oldest of them, recorded from 1705; it is probably no more than an attempt to give force to a strongly worded statement of physical unhappiness. It was attached to a dog, I would guess, because dogs often seem to have been linked to things considered unpleasant or undesirable; down the years they have had an incredibly bad press, linguistically speaking (think of dog tired, dog in the manger, dog’s breakfast, go to the dogs, dog Latin — big dictionaries have long entries about all the ways that dog has been used in a negative sense).

At various times cats, rats and horses have been also dragged in to the expression, though an odd thing is that horses can’t vomit; one nineteenth-century writer did suggest that this version was used “when a person is exceedingly sick without vomiting”. The strangest member of the set was used by Jonathan Swift in 1731: “Poor Miss, she’s sick as a Cushion, she wants nothing but stuffing” (stop laughing at the back).

The modern sick as a parrot recorded from the 1970s — at one time much overused by British sportsmen as the opposite of over the moon — refers to a state of deep mental depression rather than physical illness; this perhaps comes from instances of parrots contracting psittacosis and passing it to their human owners.

as sick as a dog"
You are as sick as a dog when you are very sick with a cold, flu, or stomach problem. Example: "I don't know what I ate this morning, but I have been as sick as a dog all day."

As sick as a dog emphasizes how very sick you are. Example: "I heard you were uncomfortable yesterday." Reply: "Uncomfortable? I was as sick as a dog!"

You are much too sick to do the things a normal person does when you are as sick as a dog. Example: "Sorry, but I am not going to be able to come in to work today. I'm as sick as a dog."

Answer 3

I say sick as a dog, healthy as an ox.

I don't know why, but then there are somethings that I do....

Answer 4

Idioms and/or cliche.

I love these things. I think they are more like metaphorical references that have be misconstrued as an explanation.

We make them up all the time, "hit 'em up" "holla back" "peace out" "later" "its been forever and a day" All kinds of random statments have have nothing to do with hitting people, yelling, throwing peace out, or reference to actual time.

The stongest part of all of it is that ENGLISH is a living language. All that means is we are constantly adding words to it. And at this time we are adding alot of computer terminology and slang. A dead language would be something like Latin, we still use it, but no one is going to make up any more words for it. I hope not anyway, I don't want to have to study anything else.

I hope that is not as odd an answer as it seems to me.

Answer 5

Sick as Dog? I usually hear, Sick as Rogue Tomato. Or, Healthy as Rogue Tomato's libido.

Answer 6

poor dog. Maybe they say...."I'm sick as a man" who knows.

Answer 7

I think because we fed the dog too many of those rock hard dog biscuits. =)

Answer 8

he's not always sick, sometimes he's a lucky dog or a dirty dog, or he's dog tired

Answer 9

it's a figure of speech that has been used for such a long time, that ppl are used to saying things like that

Answer 10

people who healthy always sweat properly, but dog dos not have sweat, it sweat with it's mouth. if human do that is he/she healthy?