Do the British have fifty words for the rain?

Having read the article Fifty words for rain on the BBC website, I now know that the Inuit do not have fifty words for snow. I may have already known this, thanks to Stephen Fry and QI, but am not entirely sure if I did or not! Never-the-less, it doesn't hurt to repeat contradictions and corrections to commonly accepted and oft repeated erroneous statements.

The article starts -  "If the Inuit apocryphally have 50 words for snow, why don't British people have 50 words for rain... or at least more words than the few they normally employ, asks Kevin Connolly."

Kevin Connolly seems to be bemoaning the fact that we are inundated with so much rain, but standard English does not mirror the volume of rain we have with the volume of words we can use to describe it. Also, that perhaps our weather forecasters are lacking a little imagination when it comes to their broadcasts?

The article continues - "...when we posed the question to the Broadcasting House audience on Radio 4 we were deluged, inundated and flooded with suggestions for words for rain."

Therein lies the one small problem with an otherwise very interesting article. The question posed at the beginning of the article asks "...why don't British people have 50 words for rain... or at least more words than the few they normally employ" The fact of the matter is that the British people DO employ fifty words for rain, possibly even more, but standard English does not. The fact that they were " deluged, inundated and flooded with suggestions for words for rain" when they appealed for suggestions from the Broadcasting House audience on Radio 4,  proves this

Kevin says "One heartening conclusion is that colloquial English is a lot more vibrant, colourful and expressive than its slightly grander cousin deployed in the Met Office." So, British weather forecasters are the ones that have the unvaried vocabulary. Well, regional studios do regional news accompanied by regional weather, so why can't our regional weather forecasters do the weather using local colloquialisms? Possibly, the reason why it isn't done, is because there are so many different colloquialisms and even people living in the same city, don't always understand each others turn of phrase.

Here is an example of a weather forecast using all those interesting and different words for rain harvested from the Radio 4 audience. Which broadcast do you prefer, this one or the traditional standard English?

So, exactly how many words do the British have for rain? 

First of all, how many are mentioned in the BBC article:

1. Rain (obviously)
2. Downfall
3. Drizzle/Drizzleing
4. Deluge
5. Downpour
6. Dreich
7. Soft weather
8. Tipple/Tippleing
9. Pelting
10. Raining cats and dogs
11. Luttering down
12. Siling down
13. Plothering
14. Raining stair-rods
15. Raining chair-legs
16. Raining like a cow relieving itself
17. Chucking it down 
18. Mizzle/Mizzling
19. Grizzerable
20. Woodfiddly rain
21. Mawky
22. Pishpotikle weather

From the comments on the article:

1. Raining upwards
2. Raining Elephants and Whales
3. Teeming rain
4. Bucketing down
5. Lashing down
6. Heavy rain
7. Droughting down
8. Hose-pipe banning down
9. Hammering it down
10. Pissing it down
11. Pelting down
12. Tipping down
13. Gutting
14. Bouncing
15. Stoating
16. Pishing
17. Misting
18. Horizontal
19. Sheeting it down
20. Rain of biblical proportions
21. Liquid sunshine
22. Nice weather for ducks
23. Deemin doon
24. Spitting
25. Welsh rain
26. Soaking
27.  Pipmly Sissing

That's 49 words already. The thesaurus has suggested the following:

1.  Cloudburst
2.  Drencher
3. Heavy dew
4. Pouring
5. Precipitation

These are my suggestions in addition to the above:

1. Torrential
2. Monsoon
3. Spits and spots 

Plus, there are 26 words in Welch (and they are part of Britain) for rain. As quoted from the comments  BBC article:

"Mae o leiaf 26 o eiriau ar gyfer law yn Gymraeg (There are at least 26 words for rain in Welsh)
bwrw
byrlymu
glawio
llifo
bwrwglaw
towlud (dial.)
dafnu
taflu
pigo
hegar law
glaw mân
lluwchlaw
gwlithlaw
chwipio bwrw
brasfwrw
pistyllio
sgrympian (dial.)
piso
cawodi
curlaw
arllwys
tywallt
tollti
stido (dial.)
dymchwel
tresio
Mae hi'n bwrw hen wragedd a ffin (it's raining old women and sticks :))"

By my reckoning that is 82 British words for rain. Can you add anymore?

Freecycle, ever heard of it?

Freecycle. Ever heard of it? Well, you and my spell check are it good company, because it doesn't recognize the word either.

Freecycle or The Freecycle Network was set up in May of 2003. It's motto is "Changing the world one gift at a time." The basic concept is to keep usable items out of landfill by passing them on or "gifting" them, to someone who can make use of them. 

The idea originated in the good ole' US of A, but quickly spread as the idea was such a good one. As of May 2011, the membership stood at 8,406,190 across 4,940 communities, in over 85 countries. All this despite being run by groups of volunteer moderators.

You are allowed to post 4 types of message: OFFER, WANTED, TAKEN, RECEIVED. I think its fairly obvious what they mean; You can OFFER something you no longer want or you can post a WANTED. Then you post the relevant TAKEN or RECEIVED post so the group members are updated and know not to email you anymore.

Different groups have different rules. I belong to 2 groups, Sheffield and Chesterfield. Both groups have rules, but one is more strict about how they are applied.

Its amazing what people will offer, and unfortunately there are some who will take advantage for their own profit. If you weren't too fussy, you could set up an entire house in a few months, just through collecting what people no longer want. That is part of the beauty of Freecycle. When I told you what Freecycle was all about, you probably thought, well I could just take it to the charity shop or sell it on eBay. Both good options, but lets face it, some items just won't sell. Freecycle is FREE to use and people come to you to collect what you have to offer. Also, it is local, so the impact on the environment is minimised. Of course its up to you how you dispose of your unwanted items, but as a last resort, think Freecycle.

Why am I posting about Freecycle?

Well, that brings me to my point, I am now officially a group moderator for the Sheffield Freecycle group. I'm one of a group of volunteers who apply the rules, check messages for mistakes and keep cheeky, greedy people in check.

Why have I decided to do this? Well, its all to do with how my CV looks when I return to work, whenever that may be. If you've read my first post and registered the bit about doing an eCommunications foundation degree, it might make sense. Forum moderation, blogging, emailing, basically broadcasting yourself via the internet is what its all about. Of course, the foundation degree is a long time away, but if I get experience now, shouldn't that help me in the future?

Be thankful for the love.

Those of you that still have grandparents and depending upon your age, parents, draw them close and give them an extra special hug today. In fact, just give anyone a hug. Some days we need that love. Some days we should just simply remind ourselves of that love, because when its gone, its gone and you won't comprehend quite how much you needed it; how much of a big part of your life it had become. 

I lost all my grandparents when I was quite young, so I don't really know what it is like to grow up with that kind of extra special bond in my life. The one and only advantage of this early loss is that I have never had to go through the heart break. In fact, I've never lost anyone I was close too. Of course, the shadow of potential loss has passed over my existence from time to time, but has never come to settle during my adult life.

Today, that shadow passed over my husbands family. His grandma has been in for a hip replacement operation at the grand age of 83. The prospect worried her, I know this because she told me that she had  changed her will.

The fact that she told me this piece of information, was at the same time sad, and for me, significant. It was sad to know she had felt the need to change her will due to developments within her family, but significant because, the conveying of this information meant that she respects me.

So, considering the fact that I have no grandparents of my own, I have adopted my husbands grandparents as my own. If anything bad had happened or if anything happens during her recovery, I will be as distraught as my husband. Of course, the sad event will happen one day, but not yet I hope.

Are Intellectuals a Myth?

Twitter, love it or hate it, if used correctly it can be very educational. It has brought me into contact with people who are very knowledgeable on the subject of the Tudor age. So when the article “Is 'Tudor England' a myth?” appeared online, on the Oxford University's website, it caused a bit of flutter on Twitter.

Here is a link to the article. http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2012/122905.html

The article has been written by an Oxford historian, so he must be better educated than me (I have one GCSE and two NVQ's at level 2, to my name, so far). As a result, he will be much better paid, than I will ever be. Yet, despite this education and the fact that he works at “one of the leading universities in the world”, his words seem rather pointless.

The article states "Cliff Davies of Oxford University’s History Faculty and Wadham College scoured official papers, chronicles, poems, plays and pamphlets for  the ‘Tudor’ name but found it hardly used as a designation of the monarchy until the last years of Elizabeth’s reign, and even then sparingly." From a curiosity point of view, it might be interesting to do this, but it doesn't serve any real purpose, does it.

Let me illustrate. As a subject of the English monarchy, I refer to our queen as Elizabeth II, not Elizabeth Windsor. If I was to ask the man on the street who our queen is, I doubt many would say Elizabeth Windsor. Here is a link to the official website of the British monarchy. http://www.royal.gov.uk/Home.aspx Search and see if you can find the queen's surname mentioned, I can't.

While the monarchy still plays an important role, probably more important than we will ever realise, in the business of running our country, its role isn't as “absolute” as it used to be. So, if we refer to our queen as Elizabeth II, why would subjects of any of the Tudor monarchs have needed to use the Tudor name “as a designation of the monarchy”? Was there some confusion as to who the monarch was back then?

Cliff Davies further states "Periods’ are artificial constructions by historians. What makes the concept of the ‘Tudor period’ so seductive is that we believe it to have been current at the time. This was not the case.  We need to revise our concepts." He's right about this. Did stone age man think of himself as stone age man? Did Georgians think of themselves as living through the Georgian era? I doubt it. What will the time we live in now be labelled as in the future, the Windsor era? Is that how we think of it? No, we call it the modern age, but hasn't every age, been the modern age, to the people living through it?

Of course, I understand what he is trying to say. Some historians are simply not up to scratch. Good historians invest all their energy in writing or conveying a detailed and accurate image of the time period they are discussing or writing about. Bad historians are lazy and rely on the fact that simply uttering the phrase, the Tudor age, will evoke all the cliched, stereotypical and sometimes completely false ideas about the Tudor age that they cannot be bothered to research or write about. Its a time saver. But, anyone, historian or not, who is passionate about the subject of the Tudor age will look beyond the obvious and seek out the truth.

To me, this article is just the result of some supposed “intellectual” who has too much time on their hands and as a result, wastes time on over thinking an insignificant point. The simple fact of the matter is, that to the man on the street, the phrase the Tudor age simply means the time when the monarchs that bore the Tudor name sat on the throne. I know this to be true, because I asked. Phrasing it any other way, wastes about as much time as this “historian” did on his research.

Forever Fabulously Thirty

Me Time is Important

Today is the day before my birthday. How old will I be? Well, I've decided, as women often do, to lie about my age until my body betrays the lie issuing forth from my deceitful mouth. So, in answer to the question, I will be thirty.

When I did, actually, turn thirty, I was just emerging from my second, prolonged attack of Post Natal Depression and the thought of turning thirty threatened to return me to that dark abyss in the recesses of my mind. Fortunately, my doctor had recommended Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT, as part of my treatment. I'll spare you all the boring details, except the one thing I learnt, 'ME' time IS important.

I hear that sigh! How many of you are picturing the clichéd image of a long soak in a hot bath, with aromatherapy oils and candles? If only it was that easy to cure depression! I'm not saying these little moments, that allow you to stop and watch the world go by, (a thing we seem to do less and less these days) aren't important, because they are. But, in order to properly address the illness of depression, you have to go much deeper. You have to make it a chance to BE 'ME' time.

Put simply, if you do not take care of yourself, how can you hope to properly take care of anyone else? Or, put another way, if you have lost focus on who you are and you are stagnating in a pool of depression, how can you hope to focus on anyone else?

As a full time mother to two demanding girls, taking care of and focusing on my girls is something I have to do every day, without fail. CBT, made me realise that I had forgotten to take care of myself. I had lost sight of the me I was before I became “mummy!” It was as though I had split myself into two people. The physical me lived on, but the mental, emotional me had been slowly buried, so slowly, in fact, I hadn't realised I had been lost from sight.

So, in order that I should not be lost from sight again, when I turned thirty, I decided to give my 'ME' time and consequently, my life, more focus. My first steps on the road to rediscovering myself were small. Taking time to sit and have breakfast or simply, just taking five when I was tired. Next came the craft room (a 6' square back porch to be exact) where I could keep my things for crafting eccentric and pretty items for around to house. Then, because I wanted more of a challenge, came the running (more about this and the crafting in later blogs).

So, what next? Why, an A Level on English Language and Literature of course. I had challenged myself physically, now I wanted a mental challenge and to someone who left school at thirteen and who possesses a single solitary GCSE, an A Level is a huge challenge.

But, it wasn't just a random choice. Remember I said that I wanted to give my life more focus, well my focus has become not ending up as a checkout girl when I eventually return to work. I've been there, done that, got the unwashed, unwanted t-shirt left behind by the previous employee. Now that I have reached the grand age of thirty, I've decided I'm worth more and can do better. I want the decade that is my thirties, to be the best yet and working on a checkout in order to scrape together a few pennies, the pitiful “minimum wage”, does not appeal to me.

So, step one is to complete my A Level. Step two, is to do a Maths GCSE. Step three. . . well, step three, is to do a foundation degree in eCommunications. Personally, I think it is a huge leap from one GCSE, to eventually, hopefully, doing a foundation degree (completely online) and I'll admit I'm a little bit daunted by the challenge I've set myself. Hence, the reason and motivation for this blog. The foundation degree is two or three years in the future, but I'm starting to build on any writing skills I have now, so I am better prepared for the demands of the course. My challenge here and now is to keep up with writing this blog and to try and make it a good one.