Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Like so many things on English, what we say is a shorthand for what we mean.

When a child is doing something he has been told not to, and he suffers a minor painful indignity, an adult is likely to say "that'll learn you!" (well, actually, they say that'll larn ya! as a way of sympathizing and a reminder that parents don't say things to be mean but to save the kid from mistakes, and since the kid has already suffered concequences, no further punishment seems necessary.

In the 1950-ish recipes I learned to cook from, it said to use a lump of butter, not a tavlespoon or two, and it said to bake in a hot oven until a straw comes out clean; thirty years later, it said to preheat the over to 450F and bake for 18-21 minutes.  Does preheating an oven mean heating the oven before you heat it?  And 18-21 is minus three.  How do I bake something for minus three minutes?

This has been the rainiest year ever, locally.  We're expecting more thunderstorms on Friday, and a high of 90F on Saturday.  People are going to call Saturday "steamy" because oin the days before permanent press clothes, you'd suffer through that kind of hot, humid air when you used a steam iron.

I just told you that 90F isa forecast for Saturday, but being a farm boy, I often can forecast he next few hours better from the feel of the air, and the appearance of the cloudy.  Someone will ask, "What's the temperature going to be today?" and I say "It looks like a real scorcher."  But two minutes later he's talking to someone else, and they ask, "what's the temperature this afternoon?" He can't tell them what the high is, and that's really not useful, anyway, if you learn that the high is 90, but at 2 PM, a front is going to move in and cold rain will drop things to 65F.  So people have learned to say, "the temoerature is gpong to be hot on Saturday", meaning you should plan to take a lot of ice on your picnic, and wear light clothing.

Technically, it's wrong, but it's an efficient way to convey the information.

How hot a temperature do you baje taters?  Well, you can put them in a 450F oven if you're baking bread, or a 325F oven if you're baking pies.  At the higher temperature, you get a crustier potato, and it's done in an hour, and at the lower temperature, you get a "wetter" softer-skin potato and it'll take about 90 minutes.  Cooking is not rocket surgery, nor brain science - and neither is air temperature.  According to studies, half of all people are cold at 72F and the other half is cold, and the only way to predict which you are is to test your wife; if she's in one group, you're likely to be in the other.

It's too hot