The British Obsession with the Weather

It seems as if the British people are obsessed by an incessant attachment to the weather. This idea earns its validity easily if we implement cursory eavesdropping on everyday conversations by people in Britain. Yes, they are really talking about the weather a lot, as is often represented in the following interesting situation: when the two British men who are strangers to each other share a railway compartment together face to face, they somehow start their conversation by referring to the weather (Trudgill, 13). Today, there is a perennial debate as to what exactly makes them persist in the seemingly trivial topic of the weather. Perhaps the most convincing reason is that the British weather is extremely unpredictable and changeable, and therefore draws people's attention. In fact, it is often said the drastic change of temperature in Britain makes it possible for people there to experience four seasons in one single day, and as a result a famous phrase to describe the meteorological condition was invented ― “Other countries have a climate; in England we have weather” (Mackenzie, 113).

However, the purpose of this paper is to prove that such meteorological peculiarity in itself is not enough to establish a unanimous rationale for why the British are preoccupied with the weather so much; we must notice that it cannot be necessarily said that people in Britain refer to the weather because they are really interested in the topic. In this paper, it will be shown that their obsession with the weather primarily results from the subconscious desire that they want to establish a superficial mood of sociability with others (often strangers), having two main purposes: first to grasp others’ personal background, and second to secure themselves against possible assaults from the complete strangers. Both of the two will be confirmed in subsequent paragraphs respectively, proving them to be particular in British society.

First, generally speaking, when confronted with total strangers in public places like a jammed train, no doubt we unconsciously feel inquisitive to their praivacies, sometimes exciting our imagination by arbitrarily conjecturing how old they are, what they do, and even whether they are married or not, mainly judging from their outlook. Therefore, this section will firstly deal with an intriguing theory about how the topic of weather contributes to acquiring information about others’ personal background, and then explain how exactly the theory can be applied to elucidating the British obsession with the weather.

In the previous example of a jammed train, taking such a desperate measure of totally depending on our groundless speculation in order merely to know people’s personal information is based on the unspoken agreement that it is impolite and undignified to reveal our interest in their private lives overtly. However, the topic of the weather, due to its innocuous and hackneyed nature, smoothly provides us with opportunities to talk with strangers casually without us feeling any sense of awkwardness. Therefore, as a result, one is allowed to make the first step to build intimate relationships with others so as to exchange personal information with each other without hesitation. Thus, seemingly trivial topics like the weather, bringing with themselves subtle and inoffensive verbal intercourses, function as indicators for people to decide how much they should open their heart to strangers (Mason, 77).

Now, it must be worthwhile noting that such a harmless way of verbal communication is of especial use and efficacy in Britain. This is precisely because of the undeniable fact that the whole country of Britain is made up of four nations, and people there are divided into three social hierarchies. Considering the previous situation in which two British people are seated sharing the same railway compartment, probably both of them subconsciously want to know what exact regions the other is from, and what social class he belongs to. In order to satiate his such curiosity, it is very important for him to engage his partner in conversation and to analyze closely how he speaks, because no one can reveal his own accent, speech, and some other verbal traits without exposing his personal background (Trudgill, 14). This principle is especially true in the case of British people; many of whom have distinctive accents and dialects according to their region and social class such as Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Cockney and so on. Thus, it can be safely said that preliminary verbal interaction is quite useful in discerning others’ private information, especially in Britain. Now, what we have to bear in mind is that it is talking about the weather that most smoothly carries out that kind of information intercourse; the topic of British weather is easily accepted between strangers, being justified in their superficial concern about its notorious high capriciousness. As we have seen so far, to satisfy their inquisitive curiosity about others, talking about the weather is crucial, maintaining social links between speakers.

Second, we can detect the importance of talking about the weather to create social connection with strangers in terms of protection of one’s own self; one intuitively wants to secure himself when confronted with an unfamiliar person, who is completely mysterious and therefore can be dangerous to him. That is why keeping us “speaking terms” by referring to the weather has a great significance in that we can indulge ourselves in a sense of security ― to avoid assaults from a stranger, it is important to make up the comfortable situation that we are talking at all. However, to apply this theory to the British is to totally negate the stereotyped image of British gentleness. Who could imagine that a courteous, sophisticated, and rectitudinous British gentleman, taking you into a back alley violently, suddenly shows his open hostility, and scares you to death? In this section, the image of British gentleness will prove itself to be only a myth, and therefore we will be convinced that talking about the weather, from the view of securing ourselves, has crucial importance in Britain as well as in other countries.

It might be well-known that Colin Firth, a famous British actor who played a “perfect English gentleman” in the movie “Pride and Prejudice”, said that the so-called quintessential gentleman did not exist in real life and was only a figment of folklore among British people (Firth). Sometimes a traditional, and strongly stereotyped image can permeate our mind so deeply and irrevocably that we unrelentingly reject adjusting ourselves to realities and modifying the forged assumption; those obsessed by the image of British gentleness might believe that it makes no practical sense in Britain to be ostensibly eager to talk about the weather merely to secure themselves against a total stranger, because British gentlemen, they believe, must be far from savage, terrifying and dangerous attackers. However, as Colin Firth pointed out, Britain cannot be said to be a dream-like country filled with gentlemen. According to Alexander Gross, the forged impression of British gentleness is constructed upon what he calls “the least substantiated statistic”, the yearly murder rate, which shows there are fewer murders in Britain than any other country; however in fact even government spokesmen have denied its accuracy before, being faced with the undeniable reality that the murder and violence rate, to all appearance, was growing. It is proper not so much to say Britain has fewer murders as to say a number of murders have been kept away from discovery by the police (Gross). Also, some foreign captives of imaginary “gentle and friendly” British people might be taken aback faced with a flabbergasting article issued in July this year: “14,000 Knife Victims a Year”. The article says that as much as 14,000 victims were taken to hospitals in Britain last year, getting injured by assaults involving knives, and some other sharp weapons. It is claimed that this number of victims was far worse than official statistics had expected (Green).

Thus, the fact that the stereotyped image of gentlemen is in fact not true in modern British society is brought home to us as a convincing reminder of how serious a problem public disorder in current Britain is. Again, it must not be forgotten that more noteworthy is that referring to the topic of weather, building temporary mental connection with two strangers, must be an indispensable solution to their hidden sense of crisis coming from the potential for nasty assaults by the other.

As we have seen so far, it is quite obvious that one of the causes without which the reputation of British tenacious attachment to the weather could not be produced is blatantly to establish a seeming bond of superficial friendliness with strangers, in terms of grasping their privacy and making sure the safety of oneself. By being sensitive to the weather, we can successfully continue to talk with the British people without producing the most embarrassing moment ― being in the company of someone alone, but having no proper subject about which to keep talking.


Works Cited


Firth, Colin. "Quintessential Englishman Is a Myth”. Icelebz . com. 7 March 2008. 7 December 2008
<http://www.icelebz.com/gossips/2008_03_07/9.html>.

Green, General. “14,000 Knife Victims a Year”. The Association of British Ex Service Personnel. 11 July 2008. 5 December 2008 < p="365">.

Gross, Alexander. Violence In Britain. 1992. 7 December 2008
<http://language.home.sprynet.com/otherdex/violbrit.htm>.

Mackenzie, M. D. Munro, and L. J. Westwood. Background to Britain. London: Basingstoke: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 1965. 113 – 114.

Mason, Tom, and Caroline Watkins. Stigma and Social Exclusion in Healthcare. London: New York: Routledge, 2001. 77.

Trudgill, Peter. Sociolinguistic: an Introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974. 13 – 14.