#556 Torrential Reign

I get hung up on words. That’s partly because I like the sound of them, and partly because I understand how important it is to communication that people try to mean what they say and say what they mean.
So I thought it was interesting the other day when I got one of those spams about male enhancement drugs and the product they advertised was Cialis. Except it wasn’t just straight Cialis. It was something called Cialis soft tabs. Somehow, I think they’re missing the point.
My love of words may be why I love living in the Northwest. Where but in the Northwest can you get such a colorful and rich vocabulary of atmospheric aberrations?
Most notably, of course, having to do with rain.
If the Eskimos have 1000 words for snow, we certainly aren’t too far behind with our descriptions of rain. There’s mist, rain, patters and cloudbursts. There’s sunbreaks and partly cloudy and partly sunny.
We can’t seem to get away from showers. We all need showers. It is one of my most confusing weather reports though: Rain at times with occasional showers.
A lot of redundancy there.
The very fact that it is occasional makes it a shower. But how does that differ from rain that only happens “at times”?
There’s “downpours” when a squall blows through on the freeway and empties buckets of cats, dogs, and chickens so quickly you feel like you’re driving in a carwash. Torrential rain. Cloudburst. Skydump.
Then there’s fog. Yes fog. Fog qualifies as precipitation to the extremely moisture sensitive.
And my two favorites. Drizzle and sprinkles. I love it when it’s drizzling or sprinkling.
“Sprinkling” sounds like the sky is tinkling or something.
“Drizzling” makes me think of Emeril the TV chef with his food processor. Slowly drizzling in the olive oil so his sauce won’t separate.
I love this forecast: “We expect a mostly sunny day with intermittent clouds and some light drizzle.”
It’s like some sort of garnish or condiment. Or something they ask you at Starbucks with your macchiato.
Would you like drizzle with that?
No, but could you put some sprinkles on my whip?
America ya gotta love it