Archive for the ‘Weather and seasons’ category

Autumn things

Tuesday 23rd September, 2008 @ 11.17am BST Europe/London by Pandammonium

The weather seems to be getting more autumnal now. It’s colder, gloomier and rainier now than it once was.

I was thinking earlier; there’s a denominal adjective (that just means an adjective formed from a noun (I think)) for autumn, which is autumnal; there’s one for winter, which is wintry, there’s summery from summer, but what about spring? Springy? Springal? A peek at the online OED suggests it’s not springal:

Springal(d [1]

Obs. exc. Hist.
An engine of the nature of a bow or catapult, used in mediæval warfare for throwing heavy missiles; also, a missile thrown by an engine of this kind.

Springal(d [2]

Now arch.

1. A young man, a youth, a stripling.
2. attrib. as adj. Youthful, adolescent.
   Cf. Cheshire dial. springow, nimble, active.

But, looking at spring, the season, it tells you: it’s vernal:

Spring

The first season of the year, or that between winter and summer, reckoned astronomically from the vernal equinox to the summer solstice…

So now you know.

posted in Language and Linguistics, Weather and seasons | Tags: English, seasons, words | No Comments »

Circumzenithal arc over Cambridge

Friday 19th September, 2008 @ 3.19pm BST Europe/London by Pandammonium

Pictured: Rare upside-down rainbow spotted in the UK (Daily Mail)

I wish I’d been looking out the window on Monday when this was in the sky!

posted in Weather and seasons | Tags: natural phenomena | No Comments »

It’s grim down south

Monday 28th July, 2008 @ 10.08am BST Europe/London by Pandammonium

It’s hot, and I’m bothered.  I am not designed for this heat.  I’m really not.  It makes me want to move back up north, where it’s cold.

I can’t bear it!

posted in Weather and seasons | Tags: Add new tag, cold, hot | No Comments »

summer

Wednesday 7th May, 2008 @ 9.00am BST Europe/London by Pandammonium

I recall that last May, the weather was hot and sunny a lot of the time; it seemed like summer, although it’s really only late spring.  Then it chucked it down in the period we in Britain traditionally associate with summer.

This year, we’ve had our April showers and now we’re into May and the sun is blazing away up there in the sky, seeming like summer again.  Presumably that’s because there’s less ozone to protect us from the rays now.  Hmm, no-one ever goes on about the hole in the ozone layer anymore.  It’s all greenhouse gases this and carbon footprint that.  I still say we should plug the cows into the gas mains…

Anyway, from the evidence of two consecutive years, I hypothesise that summer has moved to May.  I also suggest that winter has moved as well, given that 20–30 years ago, we got snow in December, but now we get it in January, if any; spring must be reduced to March and April.  If we get all that rain again that we had last year, then I propose we have a new rainy season in June to August, followed by autumn.

posted in Weather and seasons | Tags: rain, seasons, snow, summer, sun, winter | No Comments »

White Easter

Sunday 23rd March, 2008 @ 12.52pm GMT Europe/London by Pandammonium

I’m dreaming of a white Easter…

Just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? Still, that’s what we woke up to this morning. Snow, on Easter Sunday. I know Easter’s early this year, but it’s still not supposed to snow at Easter. It’s supposed to snow at Christmas, but it didn’t.

So, I spent Easter morning having a snowball fight, which I lost on hits because my throwing is dreadful, but won on stamina (because I had a sneaky method of keeping my hands warm and dry and my opponent, the Hubster, had bare hands) and building a snowman.

posted in Current Affairs, Life(style), Weather and seasons | Tags: Colin, Easter, snow, snowmen | No Comments »

Weather

Monday 10th March, 2008 @ 10.49am GMT Europe/London by Pandammonium

Seems to be having a right old weather today. It was blowing a gale this morning, flinging rain against the window so hard, it sounded like it was hailstoning. But it wasn’t. I looked. That was around 7 or 8. Now—nearly time for elevenses—it’s less windy, not rainy and really quite cloudy. But no so cloudy that the sun can’t peek through now and again.

posted in Weather and seasons | Tags: clouds, rain, sun, wind | No Comments »

Ai can studies kitty pidgin?

Friday 7th March, 2008 @ 12.11pm GMT Europe/London by Pandammonium

Anil Dash: Cats Can Has Grammar

Yesterday, I spent far too long looking at cheezburgers, and I was wondering if I could do a study on lolcat grammar. It seems it’s already been referred to as kitty pidgin (between English and felinese), and there’s right ways and wrong ways to do it. It’s therefore clearly something that can be studied!

One email to my supervisor coming right up:

Teechr,

Ai can studiez kitteh pidgin?

Catteh

He’ll love it, right?

posted in Animals, Humour and Fun, Language and Linguistics, Memes, Weather and seasons | Tags: Andrew, lolcats | 4 Comments »