One day last week we experienced what may very well have been the last of the year that could be described as somewhat ‘close’. The children played outside in the evening in short sleeves. Clothes hanging on the line were dry as a bone, without the unpleasant “is this damp or just cold?” sensation on the fingertips.
I swam in the sea and while the water had an autumnal bite, the air afterwards was pleasant and mildly humid. A woman passed me on the beach, stripping off her woolly hat and scarf – I truly do not know what kind of day she thought she was dressing for – and we exchanged the usual pleasantries. She: aren’t you very brave, is it not very cold, oh I could never, etc. Me: it’s actually grand once you’re in, it’s not that cold yet, it’s always worth it, etc. We both agreed that the day was close. Then I stood barefoot on an abandoned dog sh**e, but that’s a story for another day.
I was reminded of a conversation I had towards the end of the summer. I entered a group meeting room and when asked what it was like out, I replied that it was ‘close’. It was a heavy day, the kind that sends a rivulet of sweat from the back of your head, past your collar and down your spine. The kind that sees you proclaim that “it’s not so much the heat, it’s the humidity”, and then wonder when you became 87 years old. The woman who had asked about the state of affairs outside looked at me strangely. “Close?” she asked. “What does that mean?”
To say I thought she was pranking me is an understatement. “Close. Like, warm and heavy. You know, close?” She was baffled, and I was floored at her ignorance of such an apt description for the meteorological phenomenon of feeling like you’re trapped under a 15-tog duvet with an encroaching migraine and a heavily panting golden retriever. I wondered briefly if it was a culchie versus jackeen thing, but this woman was from the Midlands.
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A few days later, I was recounting this tale to someone else, and they too adopted a puzzled look. Another “close” virgin. And again, just the other day, a good friend revealed that he had never heard such a thing in his life.
All these years I have been existing under the misapprehension that describing an oppressive day as “close” is as Irish as talking about a “grand stretch”. Now, I learn that not only is it not a part of our universal island language, but it’s also not even uniquely Irish. The Oxford English Dictionary, in its sixth definition of “close” as an adjective, identifies it as the “opposite of fresh”. It cites several historic usages, including, “We had now for several days together close and sultry weather,” from 1748′s Voyage Round the World, written by two Englishmen.
Maybe it’s arrogant to assume that Irish lyricism can claim such a wonderfully evocative term. However, we do have form in this area. A misty, drizzly existence, which doesn’t seem like it should be anything to be thankful for, but I suppose if we didn’t laugh about the weather we’d cry. James Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus imagines a “soft day” in Ulysses, and the opening lines of The Quiet Man set the scene as a “fine soft day in the spring”.
There’s a slim line between the drizzle of a soft day and the heavy yet almost imperceptible precipitation we like to call “wet rain”. Wet rain makes the atmosphere so soggy that it’s impossible to dodge, even with an umbrella. It gets inside your clothes and under your skin, turning a regular rainy afternoon into a “dirty aul day”. The Inuit may have dozens of words for snow, but in Ireland the vocabulary around rain is bountiful and necessary.
[ Ireland’s best-kept secret: our climate is heavenOpens in new window ]
It’s not all muggy closeness and getting “drownded” though. We have the Irish language to thank for the phrase “the sun is splitting the stones” – “tá an ghrian ag scoilteach na gcloch”. And we have that phrase for getting us through manys an excruciating Irish oral exam – “Go tobann, bhí an ghrian ag scoilteach na gloch agus bhíomar ar mhuin na muice”, followed by some halting statements about how many siblings we have and where we went on our holidays.
The Irish for humidity is “bogthaise”, which feels apt for the heavy, soupy nature of a close day. If that’s what you call it.