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bunn ([personal profile] bunn) wrote2013-03-01 12:16 pm
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Welsh words for rain



I have to admit, that is not the meaning of 'pistyllio' that I learned as a kid growing up in Swansea. :-D Also I'm fairly sure that when you include things like 'spitting' 'mizzle' and 'downpour' the English must have pretty much the same number of words for rain as the Welsh. I suppose we need them...
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[identity profile] philmophlegm.livejournal.com 2013-03-01 12:32 pm (UTC)(link)
No, me neither, growing up in Wrexham. 'Pistyllio' was definitely translated in my Welsh lessons as 'pissing it down'.

As for English rain words, don't forget 'torrential', 'lashing', 'stair rods' and indeed 'pissing down'. I'm sure there are others...

[identity profile] ladyofastolat.livejournal.com 2013-03-01 12:52 pm (UTC)(link)
My Dad uses "smir" (with a nice trilled RRRR), which is a Scottish word for a very fine drizzle, so fine as to be barely there at all. I've always thought that English needed a word for this. I also like the Scottish "drookit," for drenched. (Hmm... We seem to have a lot of English words for getting wet through to the skin - drenched, soaked, sodden etc. And they all sound of Germanic origin, too. I wonder if Anglo-Saxons were particularly prone to getting caught out in the rain or falling in bogs.)
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[identity profile] bunn.livejournal.com 2013-03-01 02:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmm, is 'smir' not mizzle, or is it finer (and less sight-encumbering) than that..?

[identity profile] ladyofastolat.livejournal.com 2013-03-01 04:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmm... I think my Dad uses "smir" for a rain that's barely there at all - the sort of weather when you're not really aware that anything's falling on you, but your hair gets damp, so you know it must be.

However, I also have vague memories of being hustled out of the house on long walks, on the grounds that it wasn't really raining, it was "just a smir," only to get drenched, so it might be an element of Scottish weather-related PR.

[identity profile] puddleshark.livejournal.com 2013-03-01 01:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Love this!

I believe "tresio" is used exclusively in Capel Curig, which is where the rain gods live.

[identity profile] osprey-archer.livejournal.com 2013-03-01 02:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Ha, I love "It's raining old women and sticks!" Raining cats and dogs always sounded vaguely cuddly, which a downpour definitely is not: old women and sticks (old women with sticks?) sound much fiercer.
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[personal profile] sally_maria 2013-03-01 05:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Given we're currently in North Wales, I really hope this isn't a prophecy. ;-)

[identity profile] endlessrarities.livejournal.com 2013-03-01 07:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Why am I not surprised?

I'm not sure how many words there are in Scots - I know there are all sorts of damp and miserable, like dreich, and dreepit, and all sorts of words for dirty and muddy and mucky - in fact, I was wondering if the Scots word 'mockit' was related to 'mochen' in Welsh (please note that -illiterate Welsh exile that I am - I'm having to spell this phonetically) as in 'mochen thee' for dirty pig!
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