Friday, October 26, 2007

Monkey's Wedding

One of the interesting bits of South African English is the term "monkey's wedding" for a sunshower (rain falling when the sun is shining). It turns out there is a common theme in the folkloric names for a sunshower - many cultures talk about weddings between animals. (See this Wikipedia page).

Whenever I see a sunshower I still automatically think of "monkey's wedding" - it's amazing how phrases like this from your childhood get cemented in your head. Anyway, now some of my American friends will have a clue what I mean when I say this...

No comments: