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The foggy/cloudy distinction is a funny distinction. I still remember how until I went through a cloud in a plane as a kid, I somehow didn't realize that fog a
by Natsu 8y ago
The foggy/cloudy distinction is a funny distinction. I still remember how until I went through a cloud in a plane as a kid, I somehow didn't realize that fog and clouds were exactly the same thing.
Sure, you could point out that one touches the ground and the other doesn't, but that feels like a rather nebulous distinction to make.
Incidentally, the same lack of distinction exists in Portuguese.
- flomble 8y ago>nebulous Delightful. I think you get right to the reason for the distinction in language. The two things weren't unified in your conception until you were inside a cloud, which until recently was impossible except by climbing to high altitudes. Fogs and clouds are usually experienced in very different ways, so it seems natural to me that people came up with different words for them.
- gattilorenz 8y agoI think that another factor is that they have quite different effects in day-to-day life. If it's cloudy you can still do most of the stuff you would normally do, but you wouldn't want to ride your car/horse/chariot/whatever at full speed in a foggy day (and in general, things that require good visibility). It's a useful distinction. I'm not familiar with the Portuguese climate, but is fog somewhat common? If not, that might be a reason why you never felt the need for a word expressing the concept.
- de_watcher 8y agoThere can even be two different words for the fog: for one that's low above the fields and the other one that's everywhere.
- bjackman 8y agoRelated: I've explained the difference between "damp" and "humid" to bemused Italians on a couple of occasions.
- baud147258 8y agoI'm not a native English speaker. What's the difference?
- wil421 8y agoHumid is usually related to weather or air. Damp is usually a negative term to use for something that feels wet but it could relate to air inside, as in my basement feels damp or my raincoat is still damp from yesterday. Humid is usually related to I weather and a lot of the time hot weather but not always. It’s so humid today it feels like a jungle outside.
- baud147258 8y agoThank you. I'm not a native speaker, so I'm usually mixing close enough expression/words
- Anarch157a 8y ago>Incidentally, the same lack of distinction exists in Portuguese. Depends on the idiom. In Rio Grande Do Sul, where fog is a lot more common, we used to say "tempo cerrado", while "tempo nublado" means cloudy wheater. A better candidate for an ambiguous term in portuguese is "tempo". It means both "time" and "wheater".
- Natsu 8y agoObrigado. That's interesting, when I lived in SP I only ever saw nublado for either. But I've only been around SP and Brasilia, so I haven't been to Rio Grande Do Sul at all.