Did I say this already? I think I might've

[cosmolinguist]

Ever since I first got here British people have been telling me that they love to talk about the weather. This has always mystified me -- maybe because of the people I know? -- because compared to what I'm used to no one talks about the weather at all. I remember hearing forecasts on the Today programme that go "Rain in the northwest, otherwise nice." That's it!

Whereas my dad still talks about isobars because a local TV weatherman used to go on about them. My grandpa got irate at me once for not being able to answer to his satisfaction the "what's the weather like in England now?" question when I was visiting; I still remember him demanding "but what's the temperature?" like he was Jeremy Paxman, because I didn't have a number ready for himself. My dad has a rain gauge that measures down to hundredths of an inch, so it's not at all unusual for him to tell me "yeah, we only got seven hundredths." After talking to a few friends and relatives, a good Minnesotan will be able to give you a comprehensive picture of the wider weather situation, comparing rainfall or snow accumulation or temperature/windchill/heat index differences thanks to their equally precise family and neighbors.

Maybe it'd be different if I hung out with farmers here too, but as things are the only place in British life I now encounter sufficiently-detailed weather reports is during rain delays on Test Match Special. It's quite sweet and soothing to hear the details of the direction the storm is moving, the appearance and growth of water puddles, the wind and the color of the sky.

Comments

[matgb]

Maybe it'd be different if I hung out with farmers here too

That's one factor. The other?

You are in Manchester. I have lived there. What's the weather like there today, light showers, moderate rain, heavy rain or hailing?

There are freak occurences where it doesn't rain for an entire day, but those are almost entirely at this time of year. ;-)

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah but I do talk to people who aren't in Manchester :)

And actually I do a lot of my weather-talking with people in Manchester, because they're trying to tell me the weather I am whinging about is really brilliant actually.

[matgb]

Yeah, "talking about the weather" is normally simply a change-the-subject thing anyway, Brits don't talk about the actual weather that often, especially not the science of it, British weather is virtually always fairly similar and fairly predictable. We talk about the weather as it means we've somethign to talk about that isn't complicated like, y'know, important things that might require an opinion, offers of help, etc.

And Manchester weather is brilliant, it's rarely too hot, is normally fairly predictable, and the rain comes from those nice cloud things that obscure the nasty daystar. So yeah, I can see why you'd complain about that ;-)

[andrewhickey.info]

Yeah, Manchester has the best weather in the world.

[bunnypip.livejournal.com]

My feeling is that British people assume that they talk about (mention? complain about?)the weather a lot as a default polite/dull topic of conversation, because that's what national stereotypes tell them they do and because we think we have a changeable climate. There are things about British life that are/were dependant on weather (farming, sport, etc) and of course we're a small island so there's things like the shipping forecast which most people think they know about but which I haven't actually heard for real since I was about 7. I don't hear many people talk in detail about weather unless there's something unusual going on.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I think it's interesting that there's this myth about what British people are like that includes things like "talking/complaining about the weather" (and indeed "listening to the shipping forecast") that don't actually seem as true as the received wisdom still persists in saying. Of course all these stereotypes lag behind people's experiences, and I'm sure the ones that apply to where I'm from are lagging behind reality too, but this one just struck me today because I found one of the niches where it still persists in all its glory.

[bunnypip.livejournal.com]

and yet there are things about living on an island, like 'being interested in lifeboats/ remembering lifeboat stories from school assemblies/ having fond memories of Blue Peter lifeboat appeals' that seem far more true of the British people I know and yet 'obsessed with lifeboats' doesn't seem to have made it into the national stereotype/identity

[cosmolinguist]

I'd love to live in the alternate Britain that makes a big deal of being obsessed with lifeboats. :)