You've probably heard that Chicago has had more of its share of winter so far. I am in SF right now, but Shu said it was -15 degrees Fahrenheit last night. While not cold for Alaska or North Dakota or Minnesota, it's really, really cold for Chicago. They're just laughing about it here in SF.

There was an article in the Chicago Tribune saying there just aren't words to describe how cold it is. Here were some of their suggestions:

Maybe-fingerless-gloves-aren't-cool cold

Snot freezingly cold

Those-aren't-beet-slices-they're-my-ears cold

Sarah-Palin-thinks-its-cold cold

Honey-let-the-homeless-man-in cold

Measuring-temperature-in-Kelvin cold

Slice-open-and-crawl-inside-your-Tauntaun cold

Cate-Blanchett cold

University-of-chicago-economists-house-party cold

Others?

David Letterman said it was so cold Sarah Palin had to shoot a new fur coat.

How cold was it in RI? So cold several school systems called off school because the temperature was supposed to go down to 12-13. Not minus, above zero. I never heard of that in my life. Why in my day schoool didn't close until the wind blew the caulking from between the logs in the wall.

Some "off-color" expressions ....

"Colder than a witch's tit"

"Colder than a well-digger's ass."

"Colder than a by-god."

"Hotter than the hinges of Hell."

"Slicker than snot on a doorknob."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jerry thomas,

Brass monkeys.

Yuk, Jerry. Were you in the Navy? My husband has a few trite catch phrases from his Navy days--flatter than piss on a plate (why would anybody??? yui) is one, along with the one about the witch's mammary gland and the brass monkey.

Kalleh, a few suggestions for descriptions of extreme cold from my (years-ago) Upstate New York experience:
Squeaky-snow cold (the snow would squeak when you walked on it.)
Diesel-gelling cold (if you didn't plug in the dipstick heater at night, your VW Rabbit Diesel wouldn't start in the a.m.)
Ice-damming cold (if you didn't have "flashing" around the edges of your roof, the ice would dam up in the gutters and cause the roof to lift away from the house around the eaves.)
Ski mask cold (so cold, everybody wants to dress like a bank robber.)

When I was younger, I loved the crispness of this kind of cold. Here in PA this a.m., we had +5 F at 7 a.m. It is now all the way up to 14, but in NY every winter we were there, it was generally minus 10 to 20 for a couple of weeks every January. Then it would go up to 20 and feel like spring. We had all the right down coats, heavy caps, gloves, socks, boots to get through it too. But now, all I want to do in this weather is hibernate under a nice warm comforter.

Wordmatic

What irritates me is when people in warmer climates act all arrogant about how their weather is "so much better." I am in the Bay area now, and the weatherman showed all these awful photos of the icicles and cold of Chicago, and then the said, "To our Chicago friends: 'LOL'"

The problem with that is, no matter where you are, there are catastrophes that can happen, be it tornadoes or hurricanes or volcanoes or fires or earthquakes or tsunamis or whatever. Nobody has the luxury of saying "LOL" at anothers' misfortunes.

TV weather people are what irritate me.

It isn't enough that temperatures go below freezing. No, they have to throw in the "wind chill," which is supposed to make it that much more deadly. Then they treat us like they're our mothers and warn us to dress in layers and wear our mittens instead of gloves and take off our wet shoes when we come indoors and don't drive but if you do be careful and slow down in fog -- all things any viewer already knows or they wouldn't have survived all the previous winters.

Did you ever notice it never just rains anymore? We have "precipitation events" instead. Things don't happen at midnight or noon; it's the "noon hour" and the "midnight hour." When did "overnight" become "the overnight hour"? Don't expect a storm this afternoon -- look for it in "the afternoon hours."

One local station doesn't give a "forecast." It gives a "futurecast." At least you now can see storms on radar but that isn't enough for weatherpersons and their stations who insist the Weather Bureau's radar belongs to them and call it their "Doppler 12000 Pinpoint Live Action Storm Tracking Imagemaker."

Now I sound like Andy Rooney......

We do have the wind chill factor in UK forecasts, and I feel it makes sense to include it. After all, if you dress for 45 degrees Fahrenheit without allowing for the wind chill factor, you might not put on sufficient clothing and thus be uncomfortable.

The other strange descriptors we don't have - and thank heavens for that.

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Nobody has the luxury of saying "LOL" at anothers' misfortunes.

But it does give you the chance to use "The E Word" again, right? So it's not all bad.

Here in Hawaii we avoid the chill, but if the lava don't gitcha, the hurricane will.

Read more ...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jerry thomas,

True, CW. Shu reminded me of that.

I completely agree with you, proof. The weatherpeople (being politically correct and all!) make it 100 times worse.

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Yuk, Jerry. Were you in the Navy?

I was in the Navy, but I got all of those cold-comparison expressions from my father, who was not.

~~~~~ jerry

We've had icicles on the sun here in Oregon. Not as bad as up north, though: http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/2640/?letter=C&spage=26

quote:

weatherpeople (being politically correct and all!)

You lost me on political correctness in the weather. Why is it politically incorrect to just say "this afternoon" or "it's cold, you'll want to bundle up"?