Thursday, May 29, 2008

A bid for assistance, help from blog-land!

Eldest has a homework assignment, that is actually pretty fun, but we need your help.

She needs to bring in short pithy poems of weather advice, like:

April showers
Bring May flowers

or

Red sky at night
Sailor's delight

Red sky in the morning
Sailors take warning

We need as many languages, with the translation into English as we can manage, so if you know any, or know a neighbour or brother or brother-in-law who may know some, please please please leave them in the comments.

This actually seems sufficiently fun that I will then post them...if we get enough I'll use them as the poem on the side bar as long as they last....

Come one
Come all
bring out your weather wisdom!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Rain, Rain, go away,
Come again another day."

I'll keep thinking...... perhaps I'll remember some more .

Beth said...

At all helpful?? (English only!)

Clear moon, frost soon.

Cold is the night when the stars shine bright.

Button up your overcoat,
When the wind is free,
Take good care of yourself,
You belong to me!
(song)

elPadawan said...

those are rhymes more than poems...

"Araignée du soir, espoir
Araignée du matin, chagrin"
(Lit: Evening Spider, hope
Morning Spider, sorrow)

Means if you see a spider in the evening there's hope (for a nice next day?), and if you see a spider in the morning, there's sorrow to come (bad weather?)

"Noël au balcon,
Pâques au tisons"

(Christmas at the balcony,
Easter at the embers)

If it's warm for Christmas, Easter will be cold.

"En Avril, ne te découvre pas d'un fil.
En Mai, fais ce qu'il te plait."

(In April, do not uncover yourself from even a thread.
In May, do as you wish)

Even if April seems to get warmer, wait until winter to lose the sweater ;).

Esben Agersnap said...

In Danish we say:

En snegl på vejen
er tegn på regn
i Spanien

(vejen and regn rhyme in Danish, pronounced roughly "vaayen" and raayen")

Translation:
A snail on the road
is a sign of rain
in Spain

A Norwegian one:

Aften rød og morgen grå,
da kan du trygt ute gå.
Aften grå og morgen rød,
da blir nok din kappe blød.

Translation:

Evening red and morning gray,
than you can safely outside stay.
Evening grey and morning red,
then your cape will soon get wet.

I gave it a very slight rewrite to make it rhyme in English. Stay in stead of go and wet in stead of soft. But meaning is the same.

Alice said...

I thought it was,

Red sky at night,
Shephards delight,
Red sky in the morning,
Shephards warning.

Do cultural variations count?!

A xx

Anonymous said...

Hilarious,

Is a Shephard a very tough Shepherd?

Blog Pedant

Alice said...

Ah Blog Pedant, you've spotted my obligatory morning spelling error...

Anyway... Here are some I have heard but couldn't remember until I googled them:

St. Swithin's Day if it do rain,
for 40 days it will remain.
St. Swithin's Day if it be fair,
for 40 days will rain no more.
(In old english more would sometimes be pronounced as mair)

Rain before seven, fine by eleven

A sun shiny shower, won't last half an hour

Mackerel sky and mares' tails, make tall ships carry low sails.

Flies will swarm before a storm

The moon and the weather may change together
but change of the moon does not change the weather

Snow like cotton, soon forgotten -
snow like meal, it'll snow a great deal

When sea birds fly to land there truly is a storm at hand


Sadly I am not bi-ligual so don't have any other languages... But these are all very typically english.

A :o)

Alice said...

Another spelling error... I really need to learn to touch type. Of course I mean bi-lingual...

:o)

Alice said...

Oooo... here are some scottish ones... I wonder if they'll make any sense... they're a different dialect...

Geese tae the sea,
guid weather tae be;
Geese tac the hill,
guid weather tac spill.

Mist on the hills, weather spills;
Mist in the howes, weather grows.

Snailie, snailie. shoot oot yer horn,
And tell us if it’ll be a bonny day the morn.

I am far too excited about this task! I'll not look for any more now... :o)

Boo and Trev said...

Your favourite nonagerian and mine must have said the scottish expression
Ne'er cast a clout, till May is out!" (Not too sure of the spelling and I don't want blogger pedant having a pop)
There is some dispute whether May is the month or Mayflower (Hawthorn)
Also we used to say that if the cows are lying down in afield together it's a sign of rain. Can't get that to rhyme unfortunately. It also adds to Trev and Erin's fear that cows are in a global conspiracy to conquer the world. How do they know it's going to rain? Also how do the cows get to the field behind Kings College Cambidge? It's in the middle of the city and I've never seen them walking through the town. They are cunning!
However I digress.
Two swallows do not a summer make.
I will stop now.
xxx

Anonymous said...

That would be nonagenarian then!

And I suppose Cambidge is near Ambidge!

I like all those Scottish ones. Should be a fine project.

Anonymous said...

April showers bring May Flowers.

Spring is in like a lion, out like a lamb.

What a fun project!

oreneta said...

Ok, she is going to ACE this homework...anyone else who wants to chime in, please do!

Lynda said...

Ok... so I want to see the A+ on this homework!

Schlechtes Wetter
Bad Weather
Leise, es regnet Seile;
Silently, its raining ropes
Ich sterbe vor Langerweile.
I am dying from boredom
Ich glaube, die Blasen schwimmen dort -
I believe the bubbles are swimming there
Jetzt regnet's vier Wochen immer so fort.
its raining since four weeks continuously
Ich sollte der liebe Gott mal sein.
If I should be the dear god
Da gäb' es Regen bloß bei Nacht,
It would rain only at night
Und immer wär' es Sonnenschein,
and the sun would always shine
Wenn ich im Bett wär' aufgewacht.
when I wake up in my bed

Anonymous said...

Wow, I love sayings. A few in Catalan:

Cel rogent, pluja o vent

Quan llevant visita ponent,
se'n torna rient
Quan ponent visita llevant,
se'n torna plorant

(llevant and ponent are two opposed winds. Depending on which one blows, there's rain = tears, or good weather=laughs).

Si la Candelera plora, l'hivern és fora. Si la Candelera riu, l'hivern és viu.

(I think Candelera refers to 2nd February, and depending on the weather on that particular day, winter is finished or not)

Anonymous said...

Wow, I love sayings. A few in Catalan:

Cel rogent, pluja o vent

Quan llevant visita ponent,
se'n torna rient
Quan ponent visita llevant,
se'n torna plorant

(llevant and ponent are two opposed winds. Depending on which one blows, there's rain = tears, or good weather=laughs).

Si la Candelera plora, l'hivern és fora. Si la Candelera riu, l'hivern és viu.

(I think Candelera refers to 2nd February, and depending on the weather on that particular day, winter is finished or not)