What we talk about when we talk about weather

Posted 11/30/16

Oscar Wilde, the brilliant Irish playwright behind “The Importance of Being Earnest,” certainly knew his way around words. Given his gifts, he didn’t think too highly of talking about the …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

What we talk about when we talk about weather

Posted

arnie-120116

Oscar Wilde, the brilliant Irish playwright behind “The Importance of Being Earnest,” certainly knew his way around words. Given his gifts, he didn’t think too highly of talking about the weather, something for which his countrymen in the British Isles are famous.

“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative,” he said.

I tend to agree with the sentiment to a degree, but find myself often relegated to just that sort of conversation. It could be about how cold and windy it was last Sunday. Or about today’s rain. Or how mild the summer was.

And because I have kids who head outdoors to reach school nearly every day, the weather and what would make one well prepared for it is a daily task and conversation, often with unwilling participants.

If you too find yourself discussing the weather more often than maybe you’d like, you’re not alone.

A survey of 2,000 adults conducted in the U.K. last year suggested Brits spend five months of their lives talking about weather. The survey, reported in an October story in the English newspaper “The Telegraph,” found that an average adult discusses the weather three times a day, in conversations lasting about three minutes each. That works out to nine minutes a day and 63 minutes a week.

Nine minutes a day certainly doesn’t seem too bad, but the cumulative effect of all that weather talk seems to add up to a lot of wasted time. It’s not like much can be done about the weather. As Mark Twain once wrote, “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.”

Regarding the same study, an expert on human behavior told the BBC that weather talk was an instinctive ice breaker for humans, particularly in cultures where asking more personal information (e.g., “So what do you do?”) is considered rude. A simple question: “Cold, isn’t it?” is an easy way to gauge someone’s interest in conversation without committing too much.

“Depending on their response to your weather greeting, you can tell if someone is in the mood for a chat, or is feeling grumpy and negative,” the expert said.

Given the recent “temperature” of other subjects around us right now, the state of politics, the world, etc., weather might just be one of the few safe conversation starters we have left. Even barring common ground over politics, one can’t even be very certain that any stranger you meet can talk about other easy, no-risk topics like TV shows or sports. Weather might very well be the last piece of common ground we can be sure of.

Remember that as of Dec. 1, we enter the start of what meteorologists call “meteorological winter,” the start of the coldest 90-day period in our year. (Winter as determined by the winter solstice begins on Dec. 21). Weather forecasters believe the season will be warmer than average, though December is supposed to start off colder.

So, as we enter the real change of season, get those weather conversation skills polished up. You’re going to need them.

-- Pete Mazzaccaro

opinion