“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.” Martha talks about this weather proverb, which has been around in one form or another since ancient times. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Red Sky at Night”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
The other night I saw a spectacular sunset, and I was reminded of that little ditty that goes,
Red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
You remember that one, Grant?
I do, as a matter of fact.
Is that the way you learned it?
It was something similar to that, but I think of sailors and seafaring when I hear that one.
Yeah, right, right.
Well, I got curious about that phrase, and I did some digging, and I discovered so many different versions of this idea.
And they’re not just involving sailors.
They’re involving anybody who works outside and depends on knowing the weather.
How about this one?
Evening gray and morning red make the shepherd hang his head.
It’s like, bummer, I have to go out in the rain.
And this idea actually goes all the way back.
I didn’t realize this.
It goes all the way back to the Gospel of Matthew.
That long?
Yeah, yeah. And I’m sure farther back than that. But there’s a passage where Jesus quotes the conventional wisdom about the weather. He says, when it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and lowering. And I was thinking that, you know, it’s kind of a cool reminder that you don’t necessarily have to have a weather app.
No, no, no.
Or satellite or radar to predict the weather.
Oh, that’s very good.
You know, I’ve got a term about weather that’s not quite that old.
It dates back to about the 17th century, but it’s such an odd word to hear,
Particularly when you find out what it means.
Oh, good.
The word slatch, S-L-A-T-C-H, slatch.
Never heard it.
Yeah, you would think that’d be something ugly or filthy or something kind of greasy or yucky or something.
No, it means a short gleam of fine weather, a slatch.
Isn’t that wonderful?
Oh, that’s nice.
Yeah, and more specifically in New England, I’m reading from the American Heritage Dictionary.
They have a really nice usage note on this.
It can also be a lull between breaking waves or a lull in a high windstorm.
And I just loved the idea that there was kind of this discrepancy here.
We’ve often talked about euphonious words that somehow sound like the thing that they can note.
But this is the word where it’s the opposite.
Slatch does not seem like it would be a wonderful thing.
There was a slatch yesterday, and so I stepped out before the storm set in again.
Oh, gosh, I love that.
Something like that.
It’s sort of like those bright intervals that the weathercasters talk about in England.
Very good.
Exactly right.
But I like slatch.
That’s great.
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