If you’re tired of saying It’s hot outside, you always say It’s glorgy, pronounced with hard g sounds. This Scottish word may derive from an old word meaning “soft mud.” You could also say the weather is pothery, an English dialectal term that means “humid,” “close,” “sweltering,” or “sultry.” The 18-century poet Richard Sheridan summed up the typical weather he observed each month with some cleverly succinct verses:
January snowy,
February flowy,
March blowy,
April show’ry,
May flow’ry,
June bow’ry,
July moppy,
August croppy,
September poppy,
October breezy,
November wheezy,
December freezy.
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Transcript of “Well, Glorgy Be!”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. Well, it seems everybody’s talking about the weather, particularly in places that are really hot. And I’ve been tired of saying the same things over and over, but I’ve found a couple of handy new words that I’m going to start using. One of them is from the Scottish National Dictionary, and it’s obsolete, but I think it’s high time to bring it back. That word is glorgy. G-L-O-R-G-Y. Glorgy. Glorgy. Glorg. This sounds like a Scandinavian alcoholic drink that the Vikings had. This is what they feed. This is what they serve you at Valhalla, right? That might help you cool off when the weather is glorgy because glorgy means sultry. And the Scottish National Dictionary says it’s applied to a warm, suffocating day with a darkened sun.
So it was a glorgy simmers afternoon. Probably comes from an old word meaning soft mud. And the other word that I really love is pothery, P-O-T-H-E-R-Y, pothery. It means humid, sultry, or close. It’s an English dialectal term, and I really like it. It’s pothery out there. It’s too pothery to do anything.
You keep using the word sultry, but this isn’t a sexy sultry, is it? No, no, no. This is the sweltering sultry. In fact, I think those two words are etymologically related, sweltering and sultry. Yeah, yeah. It’s about the heat sultry. That’s where their connection lies.
Well, you’re reminding me that when the heat comes on, we look forward to the cooler months. And there’s a rhyming calendar put together by the Irish-English politician and dramatist Richard Sheridan, born in 1751. And it goes like this. It’s January snowy, February flowy, March blowy, April showery, May flowery, June bowery, July moppy, August crappie, September poppy, October breezy, November wheezy, December freezy.
I like July moppy in particular because maybe you live where it rains a lot and you need to mop it up, but also maybe you live where it’s really humid and you’re just tripping. You’re mopping your brow. July moppy. I also like September poppies. Is that when poppies bloom? Or is it when the air gets crisp and the sky looks bright blue? Maybe it’s popping the melons off the vine then. I’m not really sure.
Oh, it could be that. We’ll put that on the website so you guys can share that, put that up in the classroom. We’d love to hear your special words for the weather. 877-929-9673. Toll free in the U.S. and Canada. Email words@waywordradio.org or Twitter @wayword.
