Under the Weather

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you guys doing? This is John Mincenzo in East Hampton, New York.

Hi, John. Welcome to the show.

Hey, John.

What’s cooking?

Hey. A couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t feeling too well.

Yeah, I’d been in bed for a couple of days, and a friend of mine called me up after a few days and said,

You know, are you going to work today?

I said, no, I’m still not feeling so well.

I said, oh, you’re still feeling under the weather.

And, you know, of course, I knew what it meant.

But I started thinking, like, what could that possibly mean, really?

You know, if you’re under the weather, that to me is the kind of ideal condition.

Because you don’t want the weather on you, then it’s raining.

And if you’re above the weather, you’re probably in space.

Under the weather is like where we’re supposed to be.

So why is it when we’re sick, we call it under the weather?

And I started thinking about that.

And I probably have too much time on my hands to think about things like this.

Yeah, well, you were under the weather, right?

I figured I’d give you guys a call.

Exactly.

Well, I have a lie to tell you, and then I have a truth to tell you, all right?

Okay.

So the lie is that it comes from the nautical world,

And it refers to either a part of a boat, such as a railing,

Or a particular level of the boat that was called the weather or the weather deck.

And supposedly, if you were sick from the seas, you would go under the weather,

Because this is where you would be out of the way and least likely to, you know, be tossed overboard by a wave

Or by your shipmates who didn’t want to see you vomiting.

That’s the lie. That actually is not a true story.

And the reason I’m telling you the lie is because this is a lie that is repeated in book after book after book

And source after source is the supposed origin of under the weather.

It’s wrong. It’s absolutely wrong.

Okay.

Actually, unfortunately, the truth is not as much fun.

The truth is simply that the weather affects us.

It changes our health.

It does things to our sinuses, to our bones.

It does things to just the way we feel about ourselves, you know, seasonal affective disorder, for example, when we don’t get a lot of sunlight, maybe make us a little bit depressed, things like that.

So when you are under the weather, it simply means that you are being affected by your environment.

The cold has given you a chill.

Oh, my sinuses.

Yeah, the bone that you broke when you were a kid is starting to ache.

Their sinuses are swollen, that sort of thing.

That’s all that it means.

The weather has somehow affected your body.

Yeah, that’s the origin of it, too.

So being under the weather just means you’re under the state.

Imagine it’s like under the influence of the weather.

I see.

Yeah.

That’s unfortunately the thing about, you know, John, you listen to the show, you know that’s how it is.

The fun stuff is almost always the lie.

Yeah, sad trouble.

The timing doesn’t work out.

This word pops up into English in the 1820s or something like that.

And given the nautical history of the English-speaking world,

Just really we should have seen this long before.

Much earlier.

Much earlier.

And it first appears in non-nautical contexts,

Completely unrelated to being at sea.

Huh.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, it makes sense to me.

All right, John.

Well, I hope you’re feeling better now.

I feel fine now, yeah.

All right.

Excellent.

Take care.

Give us another call sometime, all right?

Will do.

Thank you very much.

Take care.

Take care, John.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question about the origin of a word or you’re feeling under the weather and have a musing about things that are completely useless, we’re the ones to call.

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