Siriusly –

The Dog Days of Summer begin today.

The following is provided for the benefit of non-astronomers.

Sirius is the name of the brightest star in the night-time sky (the brightest star in the day-time sky is called “the sun“), and it’s known as the dog star because it’s located in the constellation Canis Major – or, in English, Major Dog. The hottest days of the year in the northern hemisphere happen to coincide with the period during which Sirius rises with our own Sun, and ancient man therefore concluded that Sirius was contributing to the heat.

Like most men, they were wrong, but like most modern idiots, we continue to cherish their timeless wisdom anyway. Plus, having “Dog Days” of summer is a great boon to advertising copywriters, whose creativity is surely the driving force behind western civilization.

And so it goes