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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: 100 words for rain
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
The Eskimos (so the story goes - but probably a hoax) have a hundred words for snow. Because they see so much of it.
As the Weather thread is proving rather well, many of us are seeing rather too much rain, which made me wonder how many words we can come up with between us to describe the precipitation phenomena. 30, 50, 100, 200? Let's see how far we can get and make the thread really soggy.
If there's an interesting story to your descriptive term, all the better.
Piddling Down
(In Dorset, there flows the River Piddle, with its resultingly named towns, Piddletrenthide, Piddlehinton, and you can even visit the pub The Piddle Inn, if you need to dry off.)
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
mizzling
That soft refreshing rain that makes the West Country so green.
(Piddletrenthide might be where to find the Piddle Inn and be in the Piddle Valley, but it so isn't a town, it's a village of population of about 700 people. That there bee-y where I do curm frahm - well the main (valley) road to Dorchester from my neck of the woods and the easier route to cycle home from Dorchester.)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
my aunt calls the fine, misty kind of rain "spiddlety-do". I have no idea where the word comes from.
when it appears to be sunny yet a little warm rain is falling, we call it "sundrops". and a really torrential downpour my (colorful) father calls a "frog-strangler".
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
The Eskimos (so the story goes - but probably a hoax) have a hundred words for snow. Because they see so much of it.
the story grows. I always heard that there was about 35. back when I studied Inupiaq (don't ask, all I retain are cusswords, a few random nouns, and numbers 1 through 5) I was taught probably about 7, which included forms of ice.
and hey, lookie here...
(brought to you by comet, ruining people's fun since 1973...)
[ 18. June 2012, 08:10: Message edited by: comet ]
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
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Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
One of the standard weather forecast phrases where I grew up was "persistent rain" which led to the descriptive form "It's persisting down".
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Here in Southern California, when some gray clouds that actually might dump half an inch of rain on us arrive on the horizon, the local news throws on screen, in big graphics STORM WATCH! ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Eh, stop tempting providence, you lot! It's beautifully sunny today.
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Beenster
Shipmate
# 242
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Posted
Don't forget the squally showers! I love them - well not the actual showers but the expression. It's so animated and makes the rain sound very alive and angry.
Posts: 1885 | Registered: May 2001
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
One of the standard weather forecast phrases where I grew up was "persistent rain" which led to the descriptive form "It's persisting down".
If I hadn't already read where you grew up, that alone would tell me.
Another one from the same place - intermittent rain, followed by showers ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
Cats and Dogs is one I remember which then led some folks to say pussies and pups but then we are talking about when I was young and innocent.
We get a lot of rain here but I don't think there is a large range of words for it - I shall ask TPTB.
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Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
Rain is sadly known as bad weather in my neck of the woods. I say "sadly", because when I was in Uganda some years ago and I and my Ugandan friends were caught in a torrential downpour, I was told that this was good weather (admittedly we were in the car at the time).
Ever since that time I have tried not to call rain "bad weather" (except in times of flooding, of course). "Never curse the rain" is my little bit of superstition now.
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Roseofsharon
Shipmate
# 9657
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Posted
Mr RoS works outdoors, so the weather is a frequent topic of conversation.
The terms we mostly use are
Spitting, (if it's only trying to rain)
Very light rain is Drizzle, Mizzle or A Bit Damp
Stair-rods, or Chucking It Down (if you can barely see through it)
and
Precipitation (if you can see it heading towards you)
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Posts: 3060 | From: Sussex By The Sea | Registered: Jun 2005
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
Datsun Cogs was a common phrase for a while, until the company spoilt it by changing their name to Nisan.
We still say persisting down here though.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Smudgie
Ship's Barnacle
# 2716
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Posted
I designate a certain type of precipitation as "wet rain" - you know, the sort which has you miserable and soaked to the skin within seconds without really looking as though it's raining properly at all.
A speciality of the Isle of Wight also seemed to be "horizontal rain". I've got photographic evidence of that, somewhere.
Reminds me of the old (and not very funny) joke: When it's raining cats and dogs, be careful not to treat in a poodle.
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Posts: 14382 | From: Under the duvet | Registered: Apr 2002
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
Not just horizontal we get uphill rain round here.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
My grandfather used to speak, hopefully, of a clearing up shower, presumably one which doesn't go on to become settled in, which is that rain, which, accompanied by a uniform, low grey sky, goes on steadily all day.
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Posts: 776 | From: Edge of the Fens | Registered: Feb 2010
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birdie
fowl
# 2173
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Smudgie:
I designate a certain type of precipitation as "wet rain" - you know, the sort which has you miserable and soaked to the skin within seconds without really looking as though it's raining properly at all.
That's 'that fine rain that soaks you through' in our house (a la Peter Kay, and hopefully not actually in our house).
Also 'fat rain' - those big splodgy drops you get, usually at the beginning of a summer shower. ('Fat snow' also available in winter.)
We also have 'persisting down' as well as 'trying to rain' and 'thinking about raining'.
I understand that the Wlesh equivalent of raining 'cats and dogs' is raining 'old women and sticks', and I say that (in English) sometimes, just for a bit of variety.
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Posts: 1290 | From: the edge | Registered: Jan 2002
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Nanny Ogg
Ship's cushion
# 1176
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Posted
I call some types of rain "Sticky rain" because of the way lands on clothes, hair etc making you damp but not really wet.
It's the sort of light rain that creeps under umbrellas so I don't usually bother with one.
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Posts: 4137 | From: Away with the fairies | Registered: Aug 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
All at the very wet end:
pouring down
sheeting it
tipping it down
at the soft and gentle rain end:
misting (walking the Pennine Way there was a lot of misting if there wasn't actual precipitation)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
We have "cat feet," which is the opening moments of a shower when you're sitting in the car looking at big drops hitting the windshield and leaving four or five droplets behind arranged in the form of a cat's pawprint.
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Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Beethoven
Ship's deaf genius
# 114
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Posted
Bucketing down is one I remember from my youth, but don't think I use often (despite its relevance here recently... )
It's definitely worse than 'pouring', and far worse than the dreariness of 'drizzling' (a word which is nice when associated with cakes, however!).
And the phrase 'it's not rain, it's liquid sunshine' got into our family vocab on a trip to the Grand Canyon in 1984, and has stayed there ever since! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[ 18. June 2012, 11:50: Message edited by: Beethoven ]
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toujours gai!
Posts: 1309 | From: Here (and occasionally there) | Registered: May 2001
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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
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Posted
Drips and drops as one TV weather presenter down here has called it for some years. Drips and drops are accompanied by the business of the brolly.
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Posts: 9745 | From: girt by sea | Registered: Aug 2003
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The Rogue
Shipmate
# 2275
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Posted
And don't forget that Mr Barker advised the residents of Lissing Down to carry an umbrella.
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Posts: 2507 | From: Toton | Registered: Feb 2002
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BessLane
Shipmate
# 15176
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Posted
Living in a farming community, rain, whether it's too much or too little, is a constant topic of conversation. Everyone has a rain gauge which they check with religious zeal. Quantities are compared and discussed with an almost ritualistic fervor. Heck, there was even a country song a year or so ago called "Rain Is a Good Thing."
As for colorful sayings about rain, my family had the word grelfy which meant the kind of day with that annoying soaking mist/rain accompanied by a feeling of grey ick. Grelfy days are best spent inside with a pot of hot chocolate, a good book or a lover, or a combination of all three.
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Posts: 1388 | From: Yorkville, TN | Registered: Sep 2009
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Roseofsharon
Shipmate
# 9657
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Smudgie:
I designate a certain type of precipitation as "wet rain" - you know, the sort which has you miserable and soaked to the skin within seconds without really looking as though it's raining properly at all.
Ah, as a gardener I call that 'Useful Rain', as it will soak into the soil and down to the plant roots - as opposed to 'Too Much Rain' that runs off the surfaces and down the drains without doing the plants any good at all.
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Posts: 3060 | From: Sussex By The Sea | Registered: Jun 2005
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
100 words for rain
Lancashire.
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Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lothlorien:
Drips and drops as one TV weather presenter down here has called it for some years. [/b]
Is that better or worse than spits and spots?
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
I'd forgotten spitting which is sparse, unpleasant drops -- which, however optimistically one may say 'oh, it's only spitting' always lead to heavier rain.
(x-posted)
[ 18. June 2012, 15:39: Message edited by: Niminypiminy ]
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Posts: 776 | From: Edge of the Fens | Registered: Feb 2010
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
My Mum uses the phrase Scotch mist, meaning that kind of haze of dampness that isn't quite rain.
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Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Or the Irish equivalent, a nice 'soft day'.
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Hammering Down - lots of very wet rain.
Cloudburst - lots and lots and lots of very very very wet rain.
Mizzy - misty dampness, such as is to be found most of the year round on Dartmoor (often caused by low cloud).
In Creamtealand, it's either raining, just about to rain or just finished raining. Much like most of the West of Britain really, especially Wales and the Lake District.
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Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
and the Pennines. (Ever been to Haworth?)
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
100 words for rain
Lancashire.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
the rain carrying winds come from the South West and meet the Pennines, a range of large hills running South to North. which is not a problem, the rain clouds head North. That is until they encounter the Forest of Rossendale, not a forest of trees, but a range of not quite as high hills which go from the Pennines North of Rochdale West to North of Bolton.
The rain clouds have nowhere to go but upwards, and ascending clouds drop their rain, making the Manchester area one of the wettest in the country. The hill above Rochdale is called Hail Storm Hill. It is well named. Do not move to the village of Newhey if you want to stay dry.
What it means on this side of the hills is that much of the rain has already been shed by the clouds by the time they get here, less than 20 miles from Rochdale. The hills between is where the rain falls upwards.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
Cross posted with: quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
and the Pennines. (Ever been to Haworth?)
Another almost treeless forest, The Forest of Bowland, together with Pendle Hill creates another pocket of rain further north. The Aire valley lets more rain get through to the calmer side of the hills.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
My antecedents being country folk, rain tended to be either spitting or pissing. Or coming down in torments.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
In dry parts of the Western United States, a sudden, strong rain can cause normally dry, shallow ditches to become raging overflowing torrents rather quickly. This is called a gullywasher.
(Incidentally, we desperately need a few of those at the moment, as we are currently dealing with two large forest fires, with no rain in site. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) )
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Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Balaam:
Cross posted with: quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
and the Pennines. (Ever been to Haworth?)
Another almost treeless forest, The Forest of Bowland, together with Pendle Hill creates another pocket of rain further north. The Aire valley lets more rain get through to the calmer side of the hills.
Born and brought up in the Aire valley, I think of grey skies and rain as normal. A year spent near the east coast was a revelation. And moving to (supposedly) damp Merseyside was a pleasant surprise. We send the clouds to fall on Wigan.
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
In the rural Kentucky area from whence I hail (sorry, couldn't resist that one!), a really heavy rain would be described as 'It's flat-rocking,' which was short for 'raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock,' which is sufficiently graphic, I think.
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Posts: 1675 | From: saint meinrad, IN | Registered: Apr 2006
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
The Eskimos (so the story goes - but probably a hoax) have a hundred words for snow. Because they see so much of it.
Except they do not. Words for snow
quote:
Wikipedia "Eskimo words for snow":
The "Eskimo words for snow" claim is a widespread misconception alleging that Eskimos have an unusually large number of words for snow. In fact, the Eskimo–Aleut languages have about the same number of distinct word roots referring to snow as English does.
(I would also note that, at least in Canada, the term "Eskimo" is not used to refer to the people or the language, the people are Inuit, and the language Inuktitut. Eskimo is about equivalent to 'negro' to refer to people I think).
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Words for rain:
-cloud burst - like buckets and buckets of rain are coming down, except minus the buckets.
-squall, which is a bit of blustery rain, and 'white squall' which is a lake thing where the water is being blown up from the lake and mixing with the falling rain, which is usually coming horizontally.
-dirty weather - when the sky is black with rain clouds and it is really raining hard, and there is possibly a tornado in the black. We had this last Friday, but luckily the tornadoes avoided houses for the most part.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
(I would also note that, at least in Canada, the term "Eskimo" is not used to refer to the people or the language, the people are Inuit, and the language Inuktitut. Eskimo is about equivalent to 'negro' to refer to people I think).
an additional side note - that's not the case here. "Eskimo" is used to include the groups of people who speak (something like) 5 or 6 related languages and have related cultures. people here are more likely to be offended if you call them Inuit, as those are the Canadians. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
If you don't know if someone is Inupiaq, Yup'ik, Chup'ik, etc it's acceptable to call them eskimo. Heaven help you if you call a member of the indian groups that, though!
is there really only one Inuit language in Canada? that's wild.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Deputy Verger
Shipmate
# 15876
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Posted
In South Africa, when it rains while the sun is shining they call it a Monkey's Wedding.
Posts: 475 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2010
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I heard a Zambian person use the word "monkey shower" for the same thing.
In France, the expression for very heavy rain is "il pleut des cordes" - it is raining ropes [ETA which it has done a LOT recently - top Parisian accessories this season are a big Mary Poppins umbrella and a pair of wellies].
[ 19. June 2012, 08:16: Message edited by: la vie en rouge ]
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Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
sheeting down - when the rain drops are so close together that they appear to be joined together in sheets.
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Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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East Price Road
Shipmate
# 13846
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Posted
I see that BBC link has beaten me to it, but here in Yorkshire I hear people sometimes use "siling", as in "it were silin' down" (first syllable pronounced "sigh"), meaning it was pouring down. It corresponds to the same word in the Scandinavian languages, as the Danes say "det siler ned (med regn)", it's pouring down (with rain).
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Posts: 739 | From: West Yorkshire | Registered: Jun 2008
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dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
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Posted
My mum always used to describe rain as 'a passing shower'. Even if it had been pouring down all day and showed every sign of continuing to do so, she would typically express the opinion that it was 'just a passing shower'.
(Despite being four years in Ireland, I've yet to hear the proverbial 'fine soft morning' although my parents swore they did in years gone by...)
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Flinging wide the gates...
Posts: 10335 | From: Hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Registered: Jun 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Ach, it's just a bracing dampness in the air.
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Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
If you don't know if someone is Inupiaq, Yup'ik, Chup'ik, etc it's acceptable to call them eskimo. Heaven help you if you call a member of the indian groups that, though!
is there really only one Inuit language in Canada? that's wild.
Interesting! There is more than one language, though it is more like dialect, with Greenlanders speaking mostly intelligible to Inuit, but I've heard that this is also not true. I think what we've had is language loss, then reintroduction which may have made language more uniform, particularly with the creation of Nunavut (eastern arctic territory. The west is Yukon and North West Territories, which have other language and cultural groups.
I understand than Inuktitut is a very difficult language to learn. The construction, nuances and use of 'infixes' which are like suffixes and prefixes that go into the middle of words or word strings make it so. Inuit throat singing is probably the most familiar thing to most Canadians.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
Interesting!
There could be two opinions about that.
What is clear, is that it doesn't have a lot to do with rain.
Firenze
Heaven Host
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Aleut and "Eskimo" cultures moved from West to East in the not too distant past, starting in Chukotka (the north-eastern tip of Siberia) maybe two thousand years ago, arriving in the Hudson Bay area not much moire than a thousand years ago not getting to East Greenland till the late Middle Ages. So the easternmost languages haven't had time to diverge much and are basically versions of one Inuit language. There is less language diversity among them in all of Canada and Greenland put together than in Alaska, and less in Alaska than in the Aleutians. (And there might have been more once - some of the ancestral diversity in the western part of the range might have decreased due to expansion of Yupik both east and westem and some Aleut languagtes are extinct)
So the Eskimo-Aleut languages are unrelated to other native American languages. They are perhaps close to Chukchi and some language spoken in Kamchatka and eastern Siberia. (If the theoiries of some looney Russian philologists about an ancient "Euro-Asiatic" language are true they are closer to English than they are to other American languages - but we have no real evidence)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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