What’s With The British Talking About Weather All The Time?

The British….

They always begin their conversation with “THE WEATHER”. There won’t be a day when you won’t hear them comment on the weather. If you see your next door neighbor across the fence the first thing they will definitely comment on is how lovely or how horrible the weather is. If you meet a total stranger, they could either ignore you or some who are in a talking mood would stop and say “Hi! Good weather today, isn’t it?

In the British culture, this weather talk has actually several meanings which I am not sure if they are aware of. I find that weather talk could be:

1. a simple greeting

2. could be used as a way of initiating a conversation with a stranger and incidentally of course meeting a girl including obtaining his/her number.

3. as an ice breaker

Number 1 is self explanatory, which is, when one uses it in its context. An example of number 2 is when you meet a stranger who’s walking his/her dog in the street and he absently says “hey, nice weather today” and continues to walk without waiting for you to reply. In this case, he only means hi or hello.

To meet a total stranger or let’s say a girl you fancy in a gathering or a pub, it is always safe to start by commenting on the state of weather. To initiate a conversation, you comment on the weather and follow it by a question of agreement like, “Horrible weather today, isn’t it? Here you are actually using weather as a way of knowing weather the person you are talking to is interested to talk. Pretty much similar to saying, “I am interested to talk to you, would you talk to me?”. The answer would be indicative of whether they want to talk to you or not.

The answer could be construed as follows:

“No” – I don’t want to talk to you, buzz off!< “Yes”- means “yes, the weather is horrible but I don’t want to talk to you” tantamount to a polite refusal.

“Yes, isn’t it?” – “yes you can talk to me”

The clue is actually in the question at the end of the answer. It opens itself to further conversation.

It seemed a little weird but you get use to it when you stay in England for a bit as it becomes the norm.

Weather talk is actually present in most English conversation hence the impression that the Brits talks of little else. When there is a lull in a conversation, the weather is actually an acceptable ice breaker as it oftentimes open to a whole new topic. One very important rule though, never contradict a person who is discussing or commenting about the weather. When someone says, “it’s cold today”, you do not reply “no it’s not” as it is considered impolite. One is always expected to agree no matter what one actually feels. For example, 2 people are talking about how horrible the weather is and another one came and says, “no, actually it’s mild today”. Those two will feel very offended and most likely ignore you and continue talking among themselves about how horrible the weather is.

If you are a foreigner and happen to come to England for a holiday, never criticize the weather as the Brits see this as unacceptable.

No matter how they criticize their own weather, they consider this as their own personal privilege. I’ve read once in a book that the most common mistake committed by foreigners, particularly Americans, is to belittle the English weather. For example, when a Brit say, “oh Lord, what a hot weather this is!”, they would not take it kindly when a foreigner would reply, “You call this hot? You should come to Texas if you wanna see hot!”. The reason for this is that British treat the weather pretty much like a family. Just when you don’t want your guests criticizing their children, they don’t want them to criticize their weather as well.