As we prepare for a direct hit from Hurricane Irene, I find myself in a mood.
It is not the wind. It is not the rain.
If one more person uses the phrases “hunker down” or “batten down the hatches” I think I will scream.
Hurricanes I can deal with. The torrent of clichés is unbearable.
August 27, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Well said! Here is a partial list (Hurricane Sub-Category) of wind-blown (forgive me) metaphors I share with students. And for the hypercritical vultures, no, I'm not making fun of hurricanes or of victims; I'm poking at folks who don't use plain language when plain language is called for:
Rain event
We’re not out of the woods
Dodged the bullet
Storms that brew – what do they brew? Tea? Coffee?
Storms that gain or lose steam, as if they were teakettles or steam locomotives
Hurricanes that pound
Hurricanes that lash
Reduced to rubble
Wreak havoc
Swirling in the Gulf / spinning in the Gulf – well, okay, but perhaps used too often?
Left a swath of destruction in its wake — what’s a swath, eh?
Hurricanes that make landfall – well, what else would they make? A gun rack in shop class?
Hurricanes that slam ashore
Hurricanes that storm ashore – well of course they storm; they’re storms
Changed my life forever (did it really? but your life is always changing)
Mother Nature's wrath
Mother Nature’s fury
Mother Nature's anything
Decimated (unless precisely one out of every ten people was killed)
Trees snapping like matchsticks (do matchsticks ever snap like trees?)
Bodies stacked like cordwood (I’ve seen stacked wood; I’ve seen stacked bodies; ain’t the same)
Claimed the life (“Sorry pal, no claim check, no life.”)
Mother of all hurricanes (Saddamn lives on)
Batten down the hatches (Darn, I forgot to buy a hatch; I wonder if the stores are still open)
Hunker down
Cars tossed about like Matchbox toys / Cars smashed like matchboxes
Boats bobbing like corks / boats smashed like matchboxes
Roofs peeled off
Rain coming down in sheets (never blankets?)
Calm before the storm
Calm after the storm, almost always “eerie”
Visual cliché’ – a shot of a palm tree with some idiot in a slicker telling us the obvious
ANY allusion to Katrina – it’s been years, folks
Perfect storm
Storm of the century
A Hurricane that defined a generation
Looked like a war zone – no, it didn’t. We’d need a lot more dead 19-year-old PFCs.
Fish storm
August 27, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Any car accidents that will occur will be on "rain-slicked" roads, never just "wet" roads.
August 27, 2011 at 7:07 pm
Ha!! I wrote about this with Gustav in 2008.
http://vasavana.blogspot.com/2008/08/mightier-than-sword.html
I'm avoiding news coverage for sanity's sake. Best of luck to you guys.
August 27, 2011 at 7:33 pm
A guy on the weather channel said the other day that it was a storm the size and severity of which "has not been seen in our lifetimes." I looked at my husband and asked, "How old is this guy?"
August 27, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Anita, I defer to a superior list!
An acquaintance who is a retired fire chief advises me that we have all forgotten the obligatory visual of the spinning stop sign.
August 27, 2011 at 10:57 pm
Patrick – keep your head down, 'k?
What?
August 28, 2011 at 12:57 am
hunker down your hatches!!!
seriously, hope your basement doesn't flood too bad and that your internet and electricity don't go out. We went a little further inland from where we live in NJ.
August 28, 2011 at 2:55 am
Oh man, can relate, when we had the cat. 1 hurricane go through Florida in '05 we got tired of hearing "hunker down" and "feeder bands". My oh my.
August 28, 2011 at 4:45 am
Patrick – sorry about that cliche. Totally inappropriate.
Keep your chin up, though, and keep your head above water.
August 28, 2011 at 9:34 am
And they call the wind Irene! Scotju
August 28, 2011 at 2:03 pm
My dad has been warning us to "batten down the hatches" for 40-plus years right before each time he was about to sneeze (& my dad can sneeze!)…so I've kind of grown accustomed to this phrase… ;o)
August 28, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Historic.
August 28, 2011 at 3:17 pm
I would like to give them a new hurricane euphemism: Satan's Catherine Wheel.
August 29, 2011 at 2:33 am
Yes, and the one phrase that seems to be on the lips of every public figure, no matter what the topic: "At the end of the day."
August 30, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Dude, chill out. Go with the flow. Maintain an even strain. Let me be perfectly clear, let it all hang out….
August 30, 2011 at 3:27 pm
"Batten down the hatches!
They are battened down!
Well, batten them down again! We'll teach those hatches!" — B. Bunny