When weather forecasters predict a Chamber of Commerce day, they anticipate sunny, pleasant weather that’s postcard-perfect, and a great advertisement for life in that location. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Chamber...
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...
Claggy, a regional UK weather word, originally meant a thick, low-level cloud, damp, overcast, foggy, or misty. Because it comes from an old word having to do with sticky things, it also came to describe air that feels unpleasantly close and humid...
In northern England, mafting means “oppressively hot” or “sweltering,” as in mafting hot weather. The word is of uncertain origin and has been around only since the 1990s. It can also work as a verb, for example when someone is mafting in bright...
After our conversation about mini-seasons between the usual winter, spring, summer, and fall, listeners share other examples: stick season in Vermont and mud season in Michigan. The Old English word for “February,” solmonath, may derive...
What do we mean by the expression for a spell, meaning “for a period of time”? It’s mere coincidence that this term is written the same way as the word spell meaning to “arrange letters to form words” or spell as in...