Weather sayings
Rude weather sayings, explained
Rude weather sayings are what people reach for when “very hot”, “very cold” and “very wet” don’t cover it. Here is what each one means, where people say it, where it came from when anyone knows, and what I think of it.
Swamp ass
Sweating through your clothes in hot, sticky weather, specifically in the part of you that sits down.
Where people say it: American slang, and a summer word: searches for it climb every July and August.
Where it comes from: Nobody has pinned down where it started. The radio show A Way with Words logged it as slang in 2006.
Swamp ass is what happens when the humidity follows you indoors and takes a seat.
Source: A Way with Words, “swamp ass” (2006).
Hot as hell, hotter than hell
Very hot. The kind of heat where the air feels like it has been switched on.
Where people say it: Everywhere English is spoken, and in a lot of song titles.
Where it comes from: No origin story needed. Hell’s reputation for heat does the explaining.
Hot as hell is a comparison nobody has checked, which is exactly what makes it so popular.
Cold as hell
Very cold, said by people who aren’t going to let a small contradiction slow them down.
Where people say it: Mostly American, alongside its hot twin.
Where it comes from: It sounds backwards, but Dante’s Inferno puts the deepest part of hell in a frozen lake, so the phrase has better backing than it looks.
Cold as hell: the one saying where Dante would back you up.
Source: Dante, Inferno, Cantos 32 to 34.
Colder than a witch’s tit
Very cold. Also said as “cold as a witch’s tit”.
Where people say it: Mostly American, mostly about winter mornings.
Where it comes from: Its first known appearance in print is a 1932 mystery novel, Spider House by F. Van Wyck Mason. An Illinois paper had “cold as a witch’s kiss” in 1918. A link to old beliefs about witches’ marks is possible, but nobody has shown it.
Colder than a witch’s tit is very specific data, and nobody wants to ask how it was collected.
Source: The Phrase Finder (phrases.org.uk), “Colder than a witch’s tit”.
It’s brick
It’s very cold outside. Not rude at all, just blunt.
Where people say it: New York City, and spreading.
Where it comes from: Merriam-Webster traces it to African American English in and around New York City. It was in VIBE magazine by 2005.
It’s brick: one word, no wasted breath, because breath is cold too.
Source: Merriam-Webster, slang entry for “brick”.
Brass monkeys
Brass monkeys is British for very cold, and the full saying is ruder than it looks. The story behind it, myth included, has its own page. What brass monkeys means
The polite opposite, from Glasgow: taps aff, for a day warm enough to take your top off. What taps aff means
The really rude ones
Three more that this page keeps behind a tap, because they use words some people would rather not see.