{"id":399,"date":"2022-03-14T17:02:51","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T17:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgenowik.com\/?p=399"},"modified":"2022-03-16T16:10:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T16:10:05","slug":"idioms-under-the-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgenowik.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/14\/idioms-under-the-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"Idioms: “Under the Weather”"},"content":{"rendered":"

– Or: The illness and meteorological comparative parallax<\/h2>\n

Yeah, I’m not exactly sure what that “Or” means in the context of being under the weather either but I really <\/em>wanted to use the word “parallax” and it kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinda fits so I’m running with it.<\/p>\n

This week’s blah(g) returns to the topic of Idioms.\u00a0 Initially I wrote this one off as being way too easy; under the weather?\u00a0 Not feeling well.\u00a0 You’re either sick because the weather sucks and you went out jumping in muddy puddles without your raincoat or because you’re sick the weather is spiritually gloomy.<\/p>\n

The end.<\/p>\n

Roll Credits.<\/p>\n

BUT WAIT!<\/p>\n

The more I started to dig into this one, the more fascinating it got and I couldn’t help but keep reading more and more theories about how this one came about.\u00a0 From my eyes to my fingers to your spam folder and your eyes, here are some interesting explanations for where “under the weather” really comes from.<\/p>\n

The common ground of being under the weather<\/h2>\n

All sources point to nautical originals of this phrase.\u00a0 Way back when upon ye yonder days olde, the life of the sailor was far more common than we would expect in today’s world.\u00a0 Conditions on the ships of ye olde days of yonder were also well beyond what we would consider to be sanitary today.\u00a0 It was what it was.\u00a0 There was also the fact that ships of ye days of yonder olde were not constructed with the same levels of stability that we are accustomed to today and waters for many of the sailors had chop level 9000.<\/p>\n

The germ farm possibilities are greater than your average current daycare.\u00a0 Except instead of worrying about hand-foot-mouth and strep outbreaks, it was more along the lines of lice, dysentery, plague, vermin, and diarrhea (yes, even that had the potential to be a death sentence).\u00a0 And so forth and so on and forasmuch.\u00a0 Medical knowledge was limited to poultices, leeching, and the casting of lots. Treatments were limited to that limited knowledge of limited practice (i just wanted to say limited three times) and unfortunately that meant that the reality of life aboard ship was potentially lethal.<\/p>\n

But not always, thankfully!<\/p>\n

The term “under the weather” comes directly from that same yonder of ye days olde era.\u00a0 Every resource that I was able to dig into agrees on that point.<\/p>\n

And really.\u00a0 Having agreement and accord is pretty darn cool nowadays.\u00a0 Better even than a breakfast burrito.\u00a0 (side note: did you know there’s a song about breakfast burritos<\/a>?\u00a0 it makes sense.\u00a0 if there are songs about ducks and grapes, there has to be a song about breakfast burritos.\u00a0 you’re welcome)<\/p>\n

The specifics of the origin start to diverge riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight HERE<\/p>\n

Option A: listy mclisterson of under the weather-isms<\/h2>\n

We have established that being under the weather equates to feeling like crap.\u00a0 Good.\u00a0 So what happened on ships when sailors started to feel ill?\u00a0 Did they go about their business anyway?\u00a0 Just vomit over the side of the ship if the seasickness was too overwhelming and get back to tying ropes, climbing up to the crow’s nest, or swabbing the poop deck? Depends on the illness.\u00a0 Even though medical knowledge was relatively basic, fever as a telltale sign of something Much Worse happening was pretty easy to spot.<\/p>\n

Send ’em below decks!<\/p>\n

All those episodes of Star Trek, did you ever wonder where the notion of a Captain’s Log came from?\u00a0 …… no?\u00a0 You already knew?\u00a0 Well -I- sure didn’t when I was a kid.\u00a0 Look at you mister\/misses KNOWLEDGEABLE IN THE WAYS OF THE FORCE.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah.\u00a0 Captain’s Log. (supplemental) Ships had logs where events and incidents were jotted down.\u00a0 Journaling, if you will.\u00a0 In those logs would be daily events like date and time, aspects of roster, the names of anyone who had fallen ill, weather conditions, whether the waters were behaving themselves, and such.<\/p>\n

Theory number A is that in the event of an outbreak of some form or another – widespread sniffles – there would be too many names of sailors to document in the log’s appointed space for the names to be notated.\u00a0 As such, the list needed to be continued and would spill over into the weather column.\u00a0 Thusly and forevermore: so many sick people under the weather column of the captain’s log.<\/p>\n

Option 2: Parts of the ship that tell us it’s under the weather<\/h2>\n

Ok so same as above.\u00a0 Sick sailors.\u00a0 Fever, vomit, spew, hurl, blow chunks, Wayne and Garth, you know the drill.\u00a0 Here’s where there might be a divergence.<\/p>\n

It is said based on the contents of a book Salty Dog Talk: The Nautical Origins of Everyday Expressions by Bill Beavis (no relation to Mike Judge) and Michael Howorth (Author) <\/em>that there is a literal section of the ship that sick sailors would get sent to while convalescing.\u00a0 The “weather bow” was the portion of the ship that faced into the wind.\u00a0 Also the spot where weather was at its worst as a result.<\/p>\n

So guess what?\u00a0 All those sick people were below decks and, literally, under the weather bow. Which was eventually shortened to being under the weather.<\/p>\n

Allegedly.<\/p>\n

This gets coupled with the notion that belowdecks was probably a really good place to go in general if not feeling well – especially seasick – because the back and forth was less pronounced down there closer to the center.<\/p>\n

Allegedly.<\/p>\n

Have you ever been in the bottom of a ship on rough seas and seasick?<\/p>\n

I sure have.<\/p>\n

Eight. Straight. Hours. of being seasick on a fishing trip.\u00a0 So yeaaaahhhh, I dunno.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s different on giant trading vessels instead of small charter fishing boats in waters that are supposed to be too choppy but the captain goes out anyway because he’s all like “WE GOT THIS” and stuff.<\/p>\n

A little of this, a little of that<\/h2>\n

So really, we’re not entirely sure which one of those things is correct.\u00a0 The fact that there is an actual literary reference to the second one lends a bit of credence to it.<\/p>\n

The bottom line (another idiom for another blog) is that it is a phrase that is used to represent feeling really sucky.\u00a0 No, we’re not going to send you below decks in this day and age, neither will there be leeches applied to your skin for the removal of unclean blood or whatever it was that they did that for I don’t even know.<\/p>\n

So the next time you’re under the weather, at the very least you’ll remember to put on a rain coat before jumping into muddy puddles in the future.\u00a0 Just saying.<\/p>\n

-= george =-<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,73],"tags":[74,100,102,104,101,103,99],"class_list":["post-399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-idioms","tag-idioms","tag-illness","tag-language","tag-seasick","tag-sickness","tag-silliness","tag-under-the-weather"],"yoast_head":"\nIdioms: "Under the Weather" - George Nowik - Voice Actor<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Being under the weather seems like something you try to avoid doing. Umbrellas are good for that. But where does the phrase come from? 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