Word of the day – Mizzle
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Ok, I’ve gotta take a minute to write about a new English word. It never fails to amaze me that, even after 6 years of living in Britain, I still discover new and fantastic words and phrases here…
I’m currently in the car with Mr Nice Guy, we’re road-tripping down south on business even as we speak. Somewhere near Birmingham, it gets a little foggy, and slowly the fog starts to turn into rain. The conversation went like this:
Me: oh, balls… It’s raining…
NG (Mr Nice Guy): It’s mizzle
Me: What?
NG: It’s Mizzle
Me: Do you mean, like, ‘fo shizzle, mah nizzle’? Like Snoop Dogg?
NG: No, it’s more than ‘mist’ and less than ‘drizzle’… It’s Mizzle
Me: (hysterical laughter)
MIZZLE!?! It’s GENIUS!! It’s just like the Eskimo and all their words for snow (is that even true?). It makes perfect sense that the English would have just as many words for rain. And I LOVE it…
I think living in England is making me a rain connoisseur… Currently my rain arsenal consists of:
Pissing it down
Spitting
Raining
Misting
Drizzle
Raining cats and dogs
Peeing it down
Pouring
Torrential rain
Bucketing
and…
MIZZLE…
Genius…
If I’m forgetting any rain-lingo, bring it on my fellow Not From Yorkshire ladies!
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Tiling it down.
And in Scotland, if you say the weather is “dreech” (the ch pronounced as in loch, not as in church), then that means mizzle, or possibly drizzle.
“chucking it down” is one I remember
A variation of “peeing it down” – “weeing it down”, and also “fine rain”
And a classing Pacific NW term – “downpour”
i am from the uk and i can honestly say i have never EVER heard of the term mizzle. just asked a few friends and they backed me on this one…!
Hahaha, too funny yet so true! Nick and I once had the exact same conversation!
talked to my friend from ireland, she knew what mizzle was…love learning new words…oh, and as a parent with a child…raining puppies and kitties…and from hurricane land, squalls…rain mixed with sporadic wind…
Mist+drizzle= mizzle. Ain’t portmanteau brilliant!
“Raining stair-rods” is another, or “siling down”. For a dark storm cloud approaching, one could say: “It’s a bit black over Bill’s mother’s”!!
It’s East Midlands expression again, that last one. Who Bill is, or his mother, is anybody’s guess!
“It looks like it’s set in for the day”
“That really fine rain that gets you really wet” (whaaat????)
“Naah, it’s just sea fret” (For coast dwellers in the North East during light drizzle only)
“Horizontal”
“You’ll need your coat on”
“Rain before seven, fine before eleven”– usually true!
“Sea fret”… yeah… technically mist from drifting in from the sea. According to Jon Mitchell off Calendar it is, anyway!
“Flick wipe” is best way to deal with mizzle when driving. And courtesy of Peter Kay:
“It’s that fine rain that soaks you through”
“It’s spitting, everybody in”
“It’s that wet rain (as opposed to that dry rain!)”
I’m starting to wish there was some way we could donate this post to a thesaurus…
There is in a way… http://www.urbandictionary.com Not a thesaurus I grant you, but…
Or you could try Roger Mellie’s Profanisaurus (Viz) for the blunter ones
I’ve used mizzle for years.
Spotting
Sheeting
Dripping
Monsooning it
Coming down in stair rods
It’s a dreich day
It’s vertical
Pourinng