[Softers] the Dutch have a fairly regular set of verb endings, and have co-opted quite a few English words, which they adapt by tampering with the verb endings. So, you'll get something like 'Checken' - to check; Ik checkt, u checkd, etc. And 'Springen' - to jump. Although I was disappointed to learn that they hadn't bothered to co-opt 'trampolinen' - to jump on a trampoline. Ik trampolint would be very useful, I thought. [INJ] Correct.
French has done the same thing, except worse. They don't just text LOL, and write G instead of j'ai, they say LOL in conversation. No sign of 'j'ai LOLé' for the moment, but it's only a matter of time until I see my nieces again.
It's sop foggy here in Rotterdam this morning that from the window of my 6th floor office, I can see nothing but mist. But I can hear the pile-driver thud-thud-thudding away on the building site in the middle of campus.
Getting weathered on near Southampton. Walked from the hotel to the office (through woods) and in half an hour got a sharp shower, mist, a beautiful sunrise and mirky greyness. Plus a couple of roe deer - always a bonus.
Max 14.0°C here and sunny. The sky is still clear (8.15 pm) and it's only gone down to about 9° so no excuse not to get the telescope out, though I'm sure I can find one. The snowheads on the weather group have gone very sulky and are reduced to looking at charts 16 days ahead which everyone (including the snowfreaks) knows should be labelled "For entertainment only". Ho ho, hee hee.
Not quite so warm a forecast for Dujon's place. About 30°C today. Tomorrow though is different. 36°C is the current guess. I do hope that the BoM is wrong.
(Dujon) Hmm, 36° is a bit much. It exceeds my record by the smallest possible amount. (10 Aug 03). Last December 36°F (2C) would have been a bonus. (Monthly mean 0.1°C, should be just over 5°).
Yes, when I moved down here I was somewhat unaccustomed to the heat. My first day of 42°C was somewhat of a revelation. When the wind blows it's a bit like living in a hairdryer. Still, it's a fairly dry heat in Melbourne, not like that nasty humid heat you get in the tropics.
[nfras] Indeed. I vividly remember 43+ degrees combined with gale force winds as something I had never encountered before. 43 degrees, been there done that. Gale force winds, likewise. The two together -- a completely new meteorological experience.
(Raak, CdM) It's the wet-bulb temperature that counts. This is the temperature of a wet or moist surface, lowered by evaporation of water or in this case sweat. I know that the hot blast from the interior is very dry and the wet-bulb could be as low as 20° if the humidity is about say 10%. So the stronger the wind the cooler you'll feel. My guess is that those conditions are far from intolerable. Was that actually the case?
[Rosie] Yes and No. Remember that it's relative humidity that is normally quoted. Then there is the problem of how much an individual sweats and thus the effectiveness of its cooling. Perhaps this is why some people enjoy warm weather whilst others find it uncomfortable. I cannot speak for others but in my case when it becomes really hot and the relative humidity is high (say, over 20%) my sweat pores open and drench me in my own perspiration but affords no relief.
[Rosie] Yesterday I went for an experimental hop around town and it was fine. Very pleasant in fact. Then again I don't perspire much, and have a famously warped sense of temperature. The wind was strong enough to affect how easy it was for me in my somewhat delicate state to move about (out at Tulla it seems to have measured a constant 40-50km/h all day; in the city it was all over the place). Temp was 34°C with rel hum of 23% and "wet bulb depression" according to the BoM of 14 - so i suppose that made it a nice 20°C day.
(flerdle) Those figures all tie up according to my Tables of everything to do with meteorology. It seems to me that the climate of Melbourne is mostly rather bland and pleasant but every now and then someone leaves the oven door open and SE Australia gets scorched but that's probably preferable to the constant high humidity of somehwere near the equator even if the the temperature rarely rises above about 33°. Power to yer lallies, BTW. Kangaroo motion sounds hard work.
In just over a week Mrs Software and I will be landing in Melbourne. We plan a trip along the coast to Narooma to meet an old coleague and then Sydney where we fly to NZ for my daughter's wedding. so lets hope the weather is up to speed by then.
[Software] When do you arrive? And are you staying in Melbourne for any period of time? Because if so we should definitely organise a meeting in your honour. I think flerdle is game to walk just about anywhere now.
Will only be in Melbourne briefly as we are heading down the coast to Warrnambool. Sadly we have planned a tight schedule visiting relatives and friends so on this occasion it may not be possible. But as I now have a daughter down under this will not be my last trip!
[KS] Ah, OK. I thought I had missed something. :) I was pretty sure you were female but admit that sexual orientation hadn't crossed my mind. Reminds me of an interesting (well it is to me) story. When I was in high school we had a mock exam in English. I was talking to one of the teachers afterwards about the two examples given in one question. Both were travel pieces, neither was attributed. My teacher explained that almost everyone had identified the writer of the first piece as a male and the second as a female. Neither piece had anything that clearly identified the gender of the author. The funny thing was the writer of the first piece was male, and the writer of the second was female, and they were both written by the same person. The journalist had undergone a sex change between writing the two articles (there was a gap of about 5 years between them) but somehow most people had picked up a difference in the way each article was written. Spooky!
[KS] Those of us who went to your book website some time ago had guessed at the gender (either that or your parents really didn't like you!). Sexual orientation has never been an issue in the morniverse as far as I can tell.
(KS) It's been obvious to me almost from the word go that you were female, just as I reckon it's equally obvious that I am not. Gay or straight, nobody's bothered here.