Tuesday 6 July 2010

Vocabulary: It's Freaking Hot!





Hi everyone, sorry about the late posting. I was basically melting at home, couldn't lift my fingers to do much typing. Anyway,...


Diego Maradona. Image from cbc.ca




Nothing seems to interest me these days except the fact that Argentina lost 0-4 to Germany, which I totally blamed it on Diego Maradona, for not choosing the right players with experiences into the team (say, Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso), for not playing those who actually performed great with the club (say Diego Milito), and for knowing no game strategies. I may be a little too biased with the players from Inter Milan, but hey! Come on! They are the European Champions! Details on Sports & People: Inter Milan wins UEFA Champions League!!

Diego Milito. Image from SkySports


Anyway, well done, Germany! You have woken Maradona from his naive coaching dream. For football teams, please refer to my previous articles: Slang: Football Commentary and Slangs, and Sports: Common Terms in Football.




Image from TrustedReviews



Football aside for now (I'll write another article on Maradona's mistakes next round), the next thing that interests me the most is my camera search. I have kind of changed my mind after comparing the image quality of the Canon Powershot S90 with my current IXUS 860IS, because there isn't that much of a difference (to my surprise), so I guess I will just wait for the right camera to fall price to my margin. For earlier discussions, please read: Website: DigitalRev Camera Reviews & Videos


Lastly, it is the weather. Yeah, weather again! Remember the Vocabulary: It's raining cats and dogs! article?

After writing that article, now there is no more rain, just the sun. And have you ever thought about the words we can use to describe sunny hot weather?


The same page on the Hong Kong Observatory website offers us their options:




Bright
Bright
The sky is covered by a large amount of thin cloud with sunshine occasionally.


Fine
Fine
The sky is covered by a total cloud amount of less than six eighths. However, it can still be described as fine even though the total cloud amount is greater than six eighths if the cloud layer is thin enough to let plenty of sunshine to penetrate.


Sunny
Sunny
Plenty of sunshine for most time of the day.


Sunny intervals
Sunny intervals
The sunshine is intermittent and the total sunshine duration is shorter than half of the forecast period.


Sunny periods
Sunny periods
The sunshine is continuous and the total sunshine duration is longer than half of the forecast period.




And of course, the usual ones:


Hot28 - 32 oC
Very Hot>= 33 oC


But in English, we tend to be more dramatic than simply using these words, we tend to use ...


Words of cooking:
Image from OneInchPunch


burning -- (adj) The sun's ~! It's ~ hot. 
searing -- (adj) ~heat.
bake -- (vb) [I] It's ~ing.
roasting -- (adj) It's a ~ day; I'm ~!
sizzling -- (adv) ~ hot.

Words of physics:




Image from Words


It's (way) past human melting point! -- [metaphor] 
boiling -- (adj)[Informal] ~ hot
blazing -- (adj) ~ sunshine
scotching -- (adj) ~ summer day; ~ hot. 
carbonise -- (vb) [I or T] [Specialised] to change or be changed to carbon by burning. I'm so carbonised!


Words of constructions:

Image from Tralee

tar/tarmac -- (vb) [T] to put tar on a surface. I'm tarred / tarmacked! It's tarmacking hot!



Words of funeral ceremony:
immolate -- (vb) [T] [Formal] to kill yourself or someone else, or to destroy something, usually by burning, in a formal ceremony. I'm being immolated by the sun.




But be careful, one word of cooking we never used in hot weather talk is steaming.


eg. She's steaming hot! After looking at her, he's now steaming.


The meaning is nothing to do with weather, but something else.

Homework: What is the meaning then?



Resources:
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2010/05/sports-people-inter-milan-wins-uefa.html
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2010/05/slang-football-commentary-and-slangs.html
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2009/05/sport-common-terms-in-football.html
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2010/06/website-digitalrev-camera-reviews.html
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2010/06/vocabulary-its-raining-cats-and-dogs.html


http://www.hko.gov.hk/wxinfo/currwx/flw_description/flw_e.htm#0103


http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/burning-burnt-and-on-fire/definition-of-burning_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/searing
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/bake
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/roasting_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/sizzling#sizzling__3

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/point_2#point_2__3
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/hot-and-heat/definition-of-boiling-hot
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/burning-burnt-and-on-fire/definition-of-blazing
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/scorching
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/burning-burnt-and-on-fire/definition-of-carbonize

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/tar_2

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/topics/burning-burnt-and-on-fire/definition-of-immolate