The urban legend goes that the Inuit have many different words for snow. After 65 straight days and counting of rain in Dublin, I feel obliged to point out that we in Ireland have our own lexical scale to define our most common of meteorological conditions. From mild to severe:
Sure it’s only cat out there.
If I’m missing any, please let me know in the comments. Let’s take our heritage seriously, people.
An extensive list indeed. There seems to be a direct correlation between splashing around this glorified puddle of a country with wet shins and a sodden behind and our need to describe as precisely as possible the miserable downpour that is afflicting us.
I might suggest adding torrential, driving and soft to the list. Perhaps it would be pushing it to include interminable and depressing. Anyhow, this is as far as my linguistic imagination can be stretched at this point.
That being said – taking heritage very seriously for a moment at your suggestion – I couldn’t help but feel that if I were your father I would give you a good talking to and send you up to bed without any supper (I don’t believe in spanking). Stern, I know, but fair if you consider that your list has a most glaring omission. It would be a difficult task to find a people more rained upon than ourselves, and few better at describing it as your mighty list has shown, but what about the miserable water-logged wretches who have gone before us? Centuries of people who have huddled under thatch staring out at grey Summer skies or had a bad shoe and heavy rain cause their sopping skin to come away from the soles of their feet in sheets? What better language in which to proclaim their misery than their own. The Irish language, being a most ancient and lyrical language known for its adjectival verbosity, is almost built just for the purpose of describing rainfall. If only I had the range of vocabulary in Irish to prove it.
My own Irish not being up to the task, I found the following letter from a Mr Breadndán ó Cróinín posted on an Irish language website which contains a ream of Irish adjectives for the rain. No doubt there are countless others.
Link: – http://www.gaelport.com/index.php?page=clippings&id=1115&viewby=date)
“A perusal of Ó Dónaill’s Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla reveals that we Irish have no shortage of expressions when it comes to describing precipitation. Rain may simply be described as “báisteach” or “fearthainn” but the story does not end there. The words “ceobhrán” and “brádán”, of course, describe drizzle or misty rain and one might also say: “Tá sé ag draonán báistí” The expression “tá sé ag dríodarnach báistí”, although not contained in Ó Dónaill’s dictionary, also describes this type of light rain. “Ceathanna”, “múrtha” or “scrabhanna báistí” describe showers of rain while “aimsir cheathach” or “aimsir spairniúil” describes showery weather. The word “craobhmhúr” is also useful in describing scattered rain or a light shower.
“Breacbháisteach” describes occasional rain (presumably of the type that causes difficulties with windscreen wipers) while rain blown on the wind (of the type that gets your trousers wet no matter which way you point your umbrella) might be described by “seadbháisteach” and, come to think of it, “seadbhraonta” might also cause problems for those wipers.
Unfortunately, the type of rain described by “spréachbhraon fearthainne” (a sprinkle of rain) was not that experienced by most of the country during the past month and the following may be utilised instead to describe this heavy, torrential rain: “batharnach”, “clagairt”, “clagarnach”, “dallcairt”, “forlacht”, “gleidearnach”, “stealladh”, “tuile” or “tabhairt mhaith báistí”.
Or why not “péatar”, “liagarnach”, “ragáille or “bús báistí”? In Munster Irish “ag cur foirc agus sceana” corresponds to “raining cats and dogs”, while in Connemara this might be expressed as “ag cur sceana gréasaí”. “Ag cur balc báistí” might also be heard in Ulster. “Ag cáitheadh báistí”, “tuile liag”, “caidhleadh”, “clascairt” or “léidearnach báistí” would also useful here. It may in fact be the case that we more than match those Eskimos and their snow.
Finally, although Ó Dónaill translates “báisteach leatromach” as “local rain” this is almost certainly the kind of rain “meant for the guy beside you at a football match but deflected on to you by his golf umbrella”.