h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Have a look through my conversations if you really want to know, Happy Nerd.

Rudy is more the DJ type.
He keeps us reminded that Rock and Roll will never die.
He has U-toobs sticking out of every orifice.

~jwf~

Break out the champagne...
It wouldn't have been champers but rum - or gin for the ossifers and kept in a sealed compartment for safety (bad weather or naughty sailors).

Oh! I really don't know what happened to my question! I was looking forward to coming back and seeing it answered! Big chunks of it disappeared!

I wanted to know why people say "It's close" when it's humid.

*giggles*


It's close to being hot??

lil xx

I always thought it meant that you were closely smothered in the hotness, the humidity, the general weather, can't breathe, the heat the flies etc etc.

I thought of it in a similar way as TC - the sky is close, or the atmosphere feels like it's pressing down on you. I'm sure it's probably not the true etymology - it usually isn't when you deduce it like that.

A faint suggestion of a roll of thunder, humidity rises, you get a sort of slightly restricted feeling - the storm is getting close.

I'm with TC and KB on this one. It's one of those slightly synaesthetic terms.

The OED defines the adjective 'close' in that sense as:

"Of the atmosphere or weather: Like that of a closed up room; confined, stifling, without free circulation; the opposite of fresh."

The earliest recorded use is in J.Heywood's 'Play of Wether' in 1533:
"Wynde rayne nor froste nor sonshyne wold she haue But fayre close wether her beautye to saue."

I can't imagine anyone looking or feeling beautiful in this oppressive, humid August heat. How times change!

Is there not also a use of close as a variation on
an alley, mews or 'enclosed' space between buildings?

The term, relative to the atmosphere of an airless
enclosed interior space, may simply have evolved from
the advent of windows and shutters which can close out
the outside whirled of wind and weather.

~jwf~

Why is it that when we close a door, we pronounce 'close' differently? And how do you pronounce 'close' when it means a cul-de-sac?

As in the place with the postcode of HU13 9QF, you mean?


Geggs

Ho yus, Geggs, a clerical error mayhap.

That one's pronounced cloce, like weather - you cloze a door.