The Weather

Always a topic close to the heart of any Brit, the weather. For such a temperate climate we spend a quite ludicrous amount of time talking about something which is never right. It's too hot or cold, wet or dry, windy or humid. Yet this cannot be anything new. If we find the weather such an important topic when we spend so much of our time in today's artificial environments, logically it must have been as important to our ancestors who were forced to spend a much greater proportion of their lives out of doors. Thus it stands to reason the Proto-Indo-European tongue, the ancestor of just about every European language, will have given us many of the words we use today.

Whilst it is impossible to know the Proto-Indo-European tongue, for no written form existed, we can trace something of the etymology by comparing the many branches known through written histories.

Sky - speak of the weather and our first instinct is to look up, no surprise as the weather hardly ever occurs in the atmosphere below shoulder height. One would think this would be a really early word and yet it does not appear in English until the thirteenth century when it meant 'a cloud'. This meaning can be traced to a Proto-Indo-European skeu but that meant 'cover, conceal'. Hence while we refer to the sky as that bit which is blue during the day and dotted with stars at night, to the ancients the sky was the cloud and the rest was nothing at all which I suppose is almost correct.

Cloud - is the next obvious thing to look at and, once again, has a really odd history. This comes from Old English clud meaning 'mass of rock', there is still a summit known as 'The Cloud', and first used in the modern sense in the thirteenth century. We have no notion of what the Saxons called those white (fluffy) /grey (foreboding) / black (ominous) big things which have a tendency to move across the sky. Yet this is not to say the term had never been used prior to this. Indeed there is a reference dating from 414 BC in The Birds by Aristophanes, here he speaks of Nephelokokkygia, an imaginary city in the air which translates as a phrase everyone has heard of: 'cloud cuckoo land'.

Rain - surely the most talked about aspect of the weather. Commuters insist it rains more often to and from their place of employment than when they are in the dry at either end. In the days before the washing machine and dryer it was the bane of housewives everywhere on 'wash day'. On the school run you will never fail to hear how it "Always waits for the kids to come out of school" - which is utter drivel, the weather gods actually hate the educators and target the teachers, it is mere coincidence the pupils go home at roughly the same time. As a word it can be traced to Latin rigare 'to wet, moisten' which has also given us 'irrigate', and perhaps represents a Proto-Indo-European reg 'moisten, wet'. Of course 'rain' is not the only word describing liquid water from water vapour.

Drizzle - a fine rain, which is from a fourteenth century drysning meaning 'falling of dew'. We also find Old English dreosan 'to fall', likely from a base of Proto-Indo-European dhreu 'to drip'.

Muggy - what I considered a very British term is related to the above. From Middle English mugen and Old Norse mugga it originally described 'drizzle'.

Shower - refers to the duration not the amount of rain to fall. Both Old English scur and Old Norse skur have a Germanic base skuro and a Proto-Indio-European origin in kew-ero 'north wind'.

Deluge - unsurprisingly from Old French deluge and ultimately from Latin diluvium 'flood, inundation'. It is related to dis 'away' and luere 'to wash'.

Snow - is a comapartively late English word, in Old English it was sniwan. While it is often said the Inuit have fifty words for snow, nobody bothers to mention the English also used snew until at least the seventeenth century. Interestingly the other use, as in 'snowed under' or 'overwhelm', is also the original meaning of the white fluffy stuff much loved by those who enjoy making snowmen and snowballs (or perhaps than should be overwhelmed-men and overwhelmed-balls).

Slush - shares an origin with the Danish slus for 'sleet', an accurate description.

Sleet - is unknown in Old English, most likely because it went unrecorded for the Germanic group have enough examples including Middle High German sloz, Middle Low German sloten, Norwegian slutr, Danish slud, Swedish sloud, and all from Proto-Germanic slautjan and Proto-Indo-European slaut. This is related to 'hail' in its development and together probably described something which was not quite snow. Much as a weather forecast in February of this year which promised the snow would turn first to sleet and then icy rain, as if we would be aware there was a difference between the latter two.

Hail - in Old English was hagol, in Old Frisian heil, Old Norse hagl, and several others. All traced to Greek kakhlex and Proto-Indo-European kaghlo meaning 'round pebble' and 'pebble' respectively.

Wind - the Old English wind is from Proto-Germanic wendas 'winds', ultimately from Proto-Indo-European went 'blowing' from the verb we 'to blow'. Other early releated tongues include Sanskrit va, Hittite huwantis, Breton gwent, and many others. Those who read lots of early poetry may be aware this was pronounced to rhyme with 'kind' or 'rind' until the eighteenth century, the present short vowel is due to the influence from 'windy' which is not easy to vocalise with the longer vowel sound.

Gale - to a meteorologist any wind between 32mph and 63mph. Historically it applied only to an ocean wind, perhaps connected to Old Norse gol 'breeze' or Old Danish gal 'furious'.

Hurricane - as many will be aware this is from Spanish huracan, itself from a word in the Arawakan language spoken by the Caribbean peoples. Seen in English from the late sixteenth century there were at least 39 different spellings of this word, Shakespeare speaks of a 'hurricano'.

Tempest - and on the subject of Shakespeare clearly this was in use before the Bard of Avon penned the play of this name. It is seen in Old French tempeste and Latin tempestas 'storm, commotion, disturbance'.

Tornado - is from Spanish tronada and Latin tonare both meaning 'thunder'.

Thunder - is from the Germanic group, Old English thunor, Old Norse thorr, Swedish tordon all from Proto-Indo-European stene meaning 'to resound'. This can be seen to be related to Sanskrit tanayitnuh and Persian tundar.

Lightning - is seen in Old English as lihting and is, rather predictably, from the same origin as 'light' and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European leuk 'brightness'.

Storm - can be traced to Proto-Germanic sturmaz 'onset, tumult'.

Fog - is a late addition to the English language. Danish fog 'spray, shower' is less likely than Old Norse fok 'snow flurry', thus used in the sense of difficult to see through.

Mist - is earlier than the above, found in Proto-Germanic mikhstaz, Sanskrit mih, and Proto-Indo-European migh or meigh it describes 'dimness' and, as with fog, difficult to see through.

With all these words decribing inclement weather, very few can be found for good and the main one includes an adjective from the noun which must have existed since well before it was worshipped as a god. This is really odd for, ignoring the cloudy bits, statistically there are more hours of sunshine than of rain. Which is even more amazing when considering it can only rain for 24 hours in any day, while 12 hours is the most sunshine we expect to average in a day over a year.

Sunny - clearly an adjective from that very early word. As we would expect for words which have their roots in the dawn of humanity this is a short, monosyllabic word. Proto-Germanic sunnon, Proto-Indo-European suwen, and the possibly earlier saewel all describe the great yellow orb but are also used to mean 'shine'.

The only other words I could think of to describe good weather were scorcher, clearly from scorch and first used in 1874 to describe a heatwave although oddly heatwave is not seen until 1890 when describing a spell of very warm weather, prior to that it was used to refer to the solar cycle. Such terms as 'fine', 'hot', 'sultry', 'swelter', etc all appear to be loan words. Indeed in the case of 'swelter' in the fourteenth century it meant 'to faint' and ultimately from Proto-Germanic sweltan 'to die'.

We can be certain discussions about the elements were among the earliest conversations. Sadly we shall never know any of the first words spoken by humanity (and possibly their ancestors and related anthropoids) which must have involved references to rain, wind, heat, cold, etc.

Shipping Forecast

Listening to Test Match Special on the final day of the 2nd Test of the current Ashes tour, I decided to listen on my old radio rather than tuning in to the digital broadcast. This turned out to be a mistake as when the inevitable victory arrived, the final wicket fell while Radio 4 were broadcasting the Shipping Forecast!

This only detracted marginally from the win, however it did get me thinking about the etymology of these oddly named sea areas used in the Shipping Forecast. The following list is given in the accepted order in which every report is broadcast:

Viking - while there is no doubt the term refers to the Norse lands off which this sea area is found, the origin of the word has always been disputed. The most likely meaning is from vikingr, a noun referring to those who went on expeditions and voyages across and beyond this sea area.

North Utsire - Utsira is a region of Norway, its name comes from Old Norse Sira, the name of the river found here which means 'the strong stream', with the addition of ut giving 'out of Sira'.

South Utsire - as above.

Forties - is an area of the North Sea where the depth is shown on nautical maps as very level and results in a series of depth of forty-something fathoms. It was known as such well before shipping forecast areas were ever devised.

Cromarty - is a Scottish place name, from Gaelic crom bati 'the crooked bay'.

Forth - is one of several areas named from the river estuary found there. The River Forth is not known before the twelfth century, this may be from Old Gaelic foirthe, itself derived from Brythonic voritia meaning 'slow running'. Suggestions that this is related to the Norse fjordr 'fjord' are unlikely.

Tyne - another river name, the northeast Tyne is related to other English river names (Tame, Teme, Tamar, Thames, etc), all of which are thought to mean 'river'. If this seems overly simplistic, remember these people were not as widely travelled as we are today, many would never have seen another river of any reasonable size in their lives. Even today residents of a town rarely refer to the river by name when speaking to one another, merely calling it 'the river'.

Dogger - gets its name from dogge, an old Dutch word for a fishing boat and transferred here for this has been one of the most productive fishing areas in the North Sea. As the name suggests it is a large sandbank and its 6,800 square miles reaches a maximum depth of just 66 feet. The North Sea was once dry land, before the thaw at the end of the last ice age Britain was attached to Europe. This dry region was named Doggerland, named for the sandbank and must be unique in being an area of dry land being named after a fishing boat.

Fisher - as with the previous name is also named for its heavy catch for fishing boats.

German Bight - is used for the western North Sea, 'bight' being used for an indentiation of the coastline from the fifteenth century. The word is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European bheug 'to bend', the word also gave us the name of the early weapon, the bow.

Humber - another area named for the river, in this case more an estuary, is from the Humber which is another ancient name but considered to describe 'the dark river'.

Thames - as discussed under the Tyne, England's greatest river is an ancient name and thus would be most simplistic in describing itself as 'the river'. Effectively this would be describing 'flowing water' as opposed to stagnant pools and thus probably good for drinking.

Dover - as a sea area derives its name from the Straits of Dover, which in turn came from the famous port. The place name comes from Celtic dubras which gave a name to the River Dour and described 'the waters'.

Wight - is clearly named from the Isle of Wight, although the island takes its name from the Solent which is forms two arms to the northeast and northwest and separates it from the mainland. The name is Celtic or earlier and tells of 'the division'.

Portland - from the so-called Isle of Portland, connected to the mainland by a narrow strip, this name is recorded since at least the tenth century and is from old English port land 'the estate of the harbour'

Plymouth - arguably England's most famous port has a name which is easy enough to define, it comes from Old English to describe 'the mouth of the River Plym'. Of course the next question concerns the origin of the river name, which is derived, the process being known as back formation, from another place name. Plympton also stands on the river and tells us it was 'the farmstead of the plum trees'.

Biscay - is clearly the region of the Bay of Biscay. The name is from Basque bizkar meaning 'hill, slope' and referring to a section of the Pyrenees which gave a name to the Vizcaya province around Bilbao.

Trafalgar - a name well known to the British because of the famous battle of 1805, although few are aware of its location. It is named after Cape Trafalgar in southwest of Spain. Indeed the name means 'the western point' and comes from Arabic tarf-el-garb. Stories that the name is Arabic taraf-al-aghar and describing 'the pillar cave' of one of the Pillars of Hercules in Greek mythology are little more than creative etymology.

FitzRoy - was formerly known as Finisterre, an Old French name meaning 'the end of the earth' but was changed in 2002 to avoid confusion with a Spanish forecast area. The modern name comes from Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy (1805-65), who is best known for captaining HMS Beagle on Charles Darwin's famous voyage but who was chosen for to honour the man who founded the UK Meteorogical Office.

Sole - named for the Sole Bank, another of the areas named for its fishing, although whether it was named for the great quantities of sole caught seems unlikely.

Lundy - named for the island of Lundy of the coast of Devon, it is named from the Old Scandinavian lundi ey and describes itself as 'puffin island'.

Fastnet - is another with an Old Scandinavian name, this is after the Fastnet Rock, itself from hvasstann ait 'the sharp tooth islet'.

Irish Sea - one of the most obvious names of all the sea areas.

Shannon - another named after a river, here Ireland's largest river is thought to be from Celtic sen amhan telling of 'the big river'.

Rockall - is a small rocky island in the North Atlantic which was unheard of outside maritime circles until the creation of the sea areas. Its origin is possibly from Gaelic sgeir rocail 'the roaring sea rock', although rocail may also be translated as 'tearing, ripping', either would be a good description of this exposed rock.

Malin - is named from one the northernmost point of the Irish mainland, although it is not a part of Northern Ireland. Malin Head is named for it being 'the headland head'

Hebrides - a name which undoubtedly is of great age, the Greek Pliny gives them as Hebudae in the first century and around AD150 Ptolemy records these as Eboudai. Unfortunately the meaning of this name is unknown, not surprising since they will have been named at some time since they were first occupied, archaeology shows this to be at least 6500BC.

Bailey - is named after the Bailey Bank, another shallow much prized by fishermen.

Fair Isle - is an island known for two reasons, for the knitwear which bears its name, and also as the most remote inhabited island in the United Kingdom. It is not named for its beauty but comes from Old Norse faer and describes 'the sheep island'.

Faeroes - this group of islands shares an origin with Fair Isle, it comes from Old Danish faar oe 'the sheep island'.

Southeast Iceland - the last sea area has one of the most obvious origins, the name of the island is quite literal and named such in 960 when the Viking explorer Floki landed here. Note this was not their first venture here, they had arrived over a century earlier on the opposite coast and had known this place as Snjoland 'snowland'.

Incidentally, these names are always read out in this same order to make it easier for listeners to know when their particular sea area is coming up, clearly quite important for mariners. Perhaps Sally Traffic should take note for few drivers can have avoided trouble spots ahead as a result of her warnings. Inevitably these garbled radio reports are strung together in a single sentence (apparently without any punctuation), while the location is often hidden so well within the report as to make the announcement meaningless and hence a complete waste of air time.