where did the saying the devil is beating his wife come from
Sunshower In the Southern United States, Utah as well as in Hungary a sunshower is said to show that "the devil is beating his wife" (or, more rarely, "the devil is beating his wife with a walking stick") because he is angry God created a beautiful day. The rain is said to be his wife's tears. A regional variant from Tennessee is "the devil is kissing his wife".[8][9] In French, the phrase is "Le diable bat sa femme et marie sa fille"[10] (i.e., "the devil is beating his wife and marrying his daughter"). In the Netherlands and Belgium, they say that there is a "funfair going on in hell".[11]
Richard Lewis (comedian) Lewis claims to be the originator of the phrase "The ______ from hell" as in "the night from hell", "the date from hell" or "the roommate from hell". This theory is expounded in the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode "The Nanny from Hell". Lewis has petitioned the editors of Bartlett's to be given credit for the coinage, but the editors claim that the phrase was a common idiom prior to Lewis's use of it.[9] For example, during World War I, kilted Scottish soldiers were given the nickname "The Ladies from Hell" (translation of German "Die Damen aus der Hölle") by German troops. However, the Yale Book of Quotations does attribute the phrase to Lewis.[10][11] There is a 1939 short story by John Russell Fearn called “The Man from Hell”, published in Fantastic Adventures.