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

A Way with Words, a radio show and podcast about language and linguistics.

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weather report
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2016/01/19 - 10:41pm

A weather reporter summarizes the forecast with these categories: coastal, inland, mountainous, and DESERTOUS!  Online dictionaries respond with, "huh? "  But a search at Accuweather results in about 10 pages of links. Looks like someone has invented a new word! 

Guest
2
2016/01/20 - 8:16am

Welcome to the forum Karen. You are correct. I'd never heard that word before either. And I've lived in the Sonoran Desert for close to 30 years. You can find "desertous" in the Urban Dictionary, but not in any of the more traditional online dictionaries. I did find two valid adjective forms: "desertic" and "desertlike."

I don't know what it is with these weather people. They seem to make up, overuse, misuse, and mispronounce words more often than any other media types. It's probably worth pointing out that, beyond a pretty face and a good voice, there's not a whole lot required to be a weather person. Very few of them are formally trained in meteorology. About the only "real" meteorologists you'll see on the tube are the ones in the storm centers when they've got a hurricane to cover.

Don't get me started on "meteorologists" again ... there's several threads in this forum where I vent on that topic.  🙂

Guest
3
2016/01/21 - 7:30am

Thanks! The first time I noticed her use this word I thought it was just a case of tripping over her tongue, as she had said "mountainous" just a moment earlier. But every evening it's her usual term when covering the various microclimates of this area. And then there are the choreographed hand gestures.....! 

deaconB
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4
2016/01/21 - 11:21am

The folks in the newspaper business are the ones too ugly for broadcast news.  The folks in broadcast news are the ones who don't knkow how to read and write.  And the folks who are involved in news magazines and books are the ones who can't meet deadlines.

That's all right.  News is mostly gossip, except for the sports department, which are promoters of commercial teams.

By way of full disclosure, I've worked in the newspaper "business" including ownership positions.  I would advise you that they're even worse than me, but I don't want to defame them THAT much.  They're just following the prime directive of the industry: none but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

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5
2016/01/21 - 11:44pm

Did she really call her weathers 'mountainous' ?  She must be referring to some great swings of temperature.  If some mountain lion is mountainous instead, it must be some impossibly giant cat.

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6
2016/01/22 - 4:43pm

Karen Holmgren said: ... And then there are the choreographed hand gestures…..! 

Oh yeah. I was just reading about that on Metal Floss today. See:  http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/73983/11-behind-scenes-secrets-tv-meteorologists

I did not know that "weather people" performed unscripted, but that would explain a lot of their nuances.

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