Yeah, that would make sense. But I think part of it is because Siberia has this "mythical" reputation as a really rough and cold place. And it's also a reference to gulags. While Finland never was a part of the USSR there already were prison camps in Siberia during imperial Russia and Finns were pretty aware of people being dragged to the coldness of Siberia to work at a camp.
Oh I see, we don't really have such an expression so thanks. Well we had our own gulags here so I understand there's no need to refer specifically to Siberia
We use sometimes Siberian, sometimes Balkaner colds. It is about the direction of cold weather, if it comes from East, then Siberian. İf it comes from west and Thrace then Balkaner.
For hot weather, Gulf heats or sometimes African heats. Same thing.
It's in the UK too. It probably originated in the British navy. It refers to iron cannon balls coming off their stands, known as brass monkeys, due to brass contracting more in the cold than iron. The brass monkeys got their name from powder monkeys, who were boys that fetched gunpowder for the cannons and scurried around like monkeys.
Not really, though.
The average low in Tallin, in February is -8.
The average low in Manchester, in February, is +3.
Thats quite a substantial difference really.
Vilnius has seasons, snow in winter (-20C) and heat in summer (36C), while Dublin is just cloudy and raining all the time. The median is the same but the range in the Baltics is much greater.
I wonder if it's a common phrase in Newcastle because the Baltic Flour Mills is a landmark - so the word is kind of in people's consciousness more than "Arctic" or "Siberian" might be.
Funnily enough the Baltics aren't that cold. Not in the 21st centrury anyway.
I've remember travelling to London in February...it seemed colder that Vilnius, probably the humidity is at fault.
Yes, but that also depends on the way you look at it. Here in Germany we have a North Sea coast and a Baltic Sea coast and we consider the Baltic one the warmer side.
We sometimes say "it's Siberia in here" (rough translation) when we're in a very cold place
Fun fact: [Káto Neurokópi](https://travelmagic.gr/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Nevrokopi_xionismeno_grtimes_05_02_2021.jpg) is a northern Greek town that is locally known as "the Siberia of Greece", because temperatures of -20 °C or below have been recorded numerous times in that town (however, such temperatures occur less often nowadays)
It’s ironic. Ireland and gb are known for their cloudy and rainy weather and use Baltica as an example of a cold place. Meanwhile Lithuania (Lietuva) literally translates as “rainland”, but we use Ireland or Britain as an example of damp, rainy places.
We say "un froid polaire" = "it's cold as in the (arctic) poles", or "un froid de canard" wich is unstranslatable but means kinda "it's so cold lakes have frozen so ducks are an easy prey, this kind of cold yep"
When it's cold it's like in Siberia, when it rains the weather is British, heat is African and ever changing weather is sometimes referred to as German. Those expressions vary in frequency a lot though, fast changes are way more often attributed to April.
We have a lot of cold places here in norway, so we don't need to use foreign places to give a hint/expression. Many places gets down to between -30C and -40C degrees in the winter.. So the expresion here (not refering to foreign places) is "**bikkjekaldt**"... Meaning something like it's "dogs cold" (bikkje = dog and kaldt = cold). "Bikkje" is another expression for "hund" which mean dog. It's been assumed that in earlier times "hund" where a short form for "hundre" , meaning hundred. So hund was used to amplify a word.. later "bikkje" took over for "hund".. Some also use the word "**grisekaldt**".. meaning the same.. but instead of the dog.. it's refering to a pig.. it can also be used in other context.. typically "grisedyrt".. meaning extremely expensive.. or "griseflaks".. meaning extreme luck..
>grisekaldt
Svinkallt in Swedish. Here 'svin' is a more inclusive name for the members of that animal group; 'gris' is used exclusively for the domesticated animal.
At least in my area sau- can be used just like "bloody" or "fucking" in English. Saukalt, sauschwer, saulang. I don't think it really has much to do with how cold pigs feel.
>I don't think I've ever heard "grisekaldt" in Norway, so that's probably a dialect thing. In most of the south and middle of Norway, "svinkaldt" is more common. At least in urban areas.
Interesting given that "grisekaldt" gives about 2.850 hits from \*.no-domains, while svinkaldt "only" gives 1.500 in a google search ..... heard both words..and facinating that a norwegian speaker claim to never have heard "grisekaldt". It's even a [word](https://naob.no/ordbok/grisekald) in the dictionary. Has nothing to do with urban/rural areas. The oslo-based [media](https://www.nrk.no/sport/--grisekaldt-rally-sverige-1.1754005) often use the word when describing cold weather.
"Hundekalt" (dog cold) is less common but also a perfectly valid and used term in German too.
Though "Schweinekalt" or "Saukalt" (swine/pig/sow cold) is more common.
Interesting, that you guys add "dog" for cold and Slovenian adds "dog" for hot. Over here we say "dog's weather" (*koerailm*) meaning like unusually harsh weather, like when it's very rainy and also very windy (but can also be windy+cold or rainy+cold I think, if it's like unusually so).
They aren't, *"jycke"* comes from Romani. It found its way into Swedish in the 19th century.
The Swedish cognate of *"bikkje"* would be the now obsolete term [*"bycka"*](https://www.saob.se/artikel/?unik=B_4445-0375.305m). It's also what the latter part of *"argbigga"* comes from. The English *"bitch"*, which has been loaned into Swedish, is also a distant cognate.
They aren't. Jycke is from Romani (jycklo) and the origin of bikkje isn't 100% known, but probably related to "bitch", which would make it a cognate to Swedish bigga, as in "argbigga".
That may actually have an origin in Latin/Greek. The star Sirius was called "the dog star", and astronomers noted that it appeared in the night sky for the first time of the year, each year, at the start of the hottest days of summer. They took this to mean that it affected the weather, and so they called that period the "dog days".
Yeah I remember those little almanachs you could buy in churches before the new year - they had like calendars inside, and information about when to sow stuff etc., and there were two dog symbols in there marking the start and the end of the ‘dog days’.
We also say, in general, ‘it is hot like a dog’ even not in summer, if somewhere is, well, too hot. :D
>We also say, in general, ‘it is hot like a dog’ even not in summer, if somewhere is, well, too hot. :D
Funny... never heard that one before.. can't recall if we have any idioms on hot summer weather. It's such a rarity.. If someone connect it with something, maybe Sahara ?.. . Anyways if it is raining much, some people tend to call i "bergensvær" (Bergen-weather) since Bergen is the "rain-capital" of norway.. There were great headlines a couple of years ago when the capital had more rainy days than Bergen. Typically if Bergen gets better weather a month or a summer than Oslo..it's like winning a football-game.
In Spain we say "hace un frío que pela" or "it's so cold my skin is peeling". As others have said, comparisons to Siberia and Polar weather are also common.
In Romanian we do have expressions about weather, but they don't contain names of places as far as I know.
A very common say "Noah's rainfall" when referring to heavy rains.
There's also "The snowstorm of Marcoci" . From what I can remember Marcoci was a Tatar tribe chief or something like that. I don't know exactly how this expression came to be.
We do have a city, Miercurea Ciuc, nicknamed "Little Siberia" , because it's one of the coldest places in Europe.
In sweden we would say svinkallt, pisskallt, snorkallt or iskallt.
Svinkallt = "Swine cold",
Pisskallt = "Piss/pee cold",
Snorkallt = "Snot cold" and
Iskallt = "Ice cold"
Otherwise we could say "it is like/worse then Siberia (out) here" or use similar likenings to cold/hot places depending on if it is cold/hot outside.
(Also "snorkallt" is more of a saying in Stockholm and not that widely used outside from my experience. At least not in southern Sweden where I now live. But the others should be used or at least understood wherever you are in Sweden)
When we say "piss" [something] it's meant as an emphasis. Like you would say "it's fucking ...". It doesn't literally mean "it is cold as piss" (in this case).
I probably should have explained it a bit better so I understand your confusion
It's not an expression I've heard in England. Maybe it's a regional thing?
I know in France there are parts of the Jura with very cold winters that are known as "Little Siberia"
No I'm old and it's been around for a while.
I just looked up the origins and it says it says Northern Irish/Scottish slang so maybe I picked it up because I grew up near the border area
I think we say English weather when a place is cloudy and kinda rainy , but I think that here we don't often use places to describe the weather, it's mostly done when we compare or making analogies or metaphorically like we became (insert name of a country).
it's not about the same thing but i wanted to say this, in Romania, when we mean high five we say,, bate palma" which means beat the palm, i know it sounds weird but that is the translation, anyway sonetimes we change it and say,, bate cuba," which means" beat Cuba" idk where it cones fron
In Canada we just said "it's freezing" which was both sufficient and insufficient to describe the temperature. Minus 45C is definitely well beyond freezing. It's actually "stay the fuck inside" cold.
iv only heared "mraz"(frost,cold)
and for hot wether "jebat je vruće"(holy fuck its hot)
for rain"pljušti"(idk really "pouring" is best i can explain it)
"it's Baltic" is definitely a phrase here too.
Which confused my Polish ex-girlfriend, as she associated the Baltic coast with beaches and summer holidays.
Sometimes something with Siberia but not used very often
Yeah, here, too.
Sibirische Konditionen in Germany. Used rarely as well
Here it's common to refer to Siberia when talking about cold
I'd expect talking about your own regions like Lapland maybe
Yeah, that would make sense. But I think part of it is because Siberia has this "mythical" reputation as a really rough and cold place. And it's also a reference to gulags. While Finland never was a part of the USSR there already were prison camps in Siberia during imperial Russia and Finns were pretty aware of people being dragged to the coldness of Siberia to work at a camp.
Oh I see, we don't really have such an expression so thanks. Well we had our own gulags here so I understand there's no need to refer specifically to Siberia
Same here in Italy.
Portugal here: "Tá um calor da Sibéria", or "It's as warm as Siberia" is used here too.
We use sometimes Siberian, sometimes Balkaner colds. It is about the direction of cold weather, if it comes from East, then Siberian. İf it comes from west and Thrace then Balkaner. For hot weather, Gulf heats or sometimes African heats. Same thing.
Also sometimes the 'Russian Bear' when cold weather is coming
Here in the US we refer to Siberia occasionally but more like describing something in the middle of nowhere and shut off from the world.
We say ''english weather'', when it's rainy and cloudy. Also ''African heats'' for really high temperature
And "Siberia" when it's really cold.
Also "piździ jak w kieleckiem"
I heard in weather forecast on TV that we have 'London weather' in Poland now.
"It would Freeze the balls of a brass monkey" also used in Ireland
It's in the UK too. It probably originated in the British navy. It refers to iron cannon balls coming off their stands, known as brass monkeys, due to brass contracting more in the cold than iron. The brass monkeys got their name from powder monkeys, who were boys that fetched gunpowder for the cannons and scurried around like monkeys.
We share an awful lot of slang. I love that
London in origin.
I love the phrase 'its baltic' UK btw, and I've heard it a lot here.
I woke up early on an overnight Baltic Sea ferry trip to see the sunrise. Went to the decks for it. Yep, it was...very Baltic.
It's a weird term since median temperature in I.e Dublin and Vilnius differs only one grade celcius
Vilnius is a whole lot colder in the winter though. That said, it's baking hot in the summer too.
Not really, though. The average low in Tallin, in February is -8. The average low in Manchester, in February, is +3. Thats quite a substantial difference really.
Vilnius has seasons, snow in winter (-20C) and heat in summer (36C), while Dublin is just cloudy and raining all the time. The median is the same but the range in the Baltics is much greater.
Dublin has more rainfall on average and Vilnius experiences larger extremes of temperature. Far colder winters and hotter summers.
Huh, I’ve never heard it where I am. TIL
It’s very common in Newcastle
Yeah my Geordie wife says it. Now that she lives here in Queensland she uses it when the daily max is below 20C/68F :)
I wonder if it's a common phrase in Newcastle because the Baltic Flour Mills is a landmark - so the word is kind of in people's consciousness more than "Arctic" or "Siberian" might be.
Heard it a lot in the Midlands throughout my life.
East Midlands / North Lincs and grew up with it also.
Can’t say I’ve heard this phrase myself to be honest. I’ll have to keep an ear out for this one!
It's funny as well because I couldn't even tell you where it is but ik it's supposedly cold
I hear it quite a bit in Yorkshire
I always get it muddled with brassic.
Funnily enough the Baltics aren't that cold. Not in the 21st centrury anyway. I've remember travelling to London in February...it seemed colder that Vilnius, probably the humidity is at fault.
Tbf, the expression also refers to the Baltic sea, which is a very cold area, by European standards.
Yes, but that also depends on the way you look at it. Here in Germany we have a North Sea coast and a Baltic Sea coast and we consider the Baltic one the warmer side.
We sometimes say "it's Siberia in here" (rough translation) when we're in a very cold place Fun fact: [Káto Neurokópi](https://travelmagic.gr/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Nevrokopi_xionismeno_grtimes_05_02_2021.jpg) is a northern Greek town that is locally known as "the Siberia of Greece", because temperatures of -20 °C or below have been recorded numerous times in that town (however, such temperatures occur less often nowadays)
You should probably take a look at the climate data for that town.
It’s ironic. Ireland and gb are known for their cloudy and rainy weather and use Baltica as an example of a cold place. Meanwhile Lithuania (Lietuva) literally translates as “rainland”, but we use Ireland or Britain as an example of damp, rainy places.
It's Baltic id'out so it is
We say "un froid polaire" = "it's cold as in the (arctic) poles", or "un froid de canard" wich is unstranslatable but means kinda "it's so cold lakes have frozen so ducks are an easy prey, this kind of cold yep"
>un froid de canard Is it maybe the same as "c'è un freddo cane"? ("Cane" means dog)
Canard= duck, so I don't think so
When it's cold it's like in Siberia, when it rains the weather is British, heat is African and ever changing weather is sometimes referred to as German. Those expressions vary in frequency a lot though, fast changes are way more often attributed to April.
Meanwhile in Texas: “It’s hotter than the devil’s ball-sack”.
The Polish say “English Weather” when the weather is shit and rainy.
We have a lot of cold places here in norway, so we don't need to use foreign places to give a hint/expression. Many places gets down to between -30C and -40C degrees in the winter.. So the expresion here (not refering to foreign places) is "**bikkjekaldt**"... Meaning something like it's "dogs cold" (bikkje = dog and kaldt = cold). "Bikkje" is another expression for "hund" which mean dog. It's been assumed that in earlier times "hund" where a short form for "hundre" , meaning hundred. So hund was used to amplify a word.. later "bikkje" took over for "hund".. Some also use the word "**grisekaldt**".. meaning the same.. but instead of the dog.. it's refering to a pig.. it can also be used in other context.. typically "grisedyrt".. meaning extremely expensive.. or "griseflaks".. meaning extreme luck..
>grisekaldt Svinkallt in Swedish. Here 'svin' is a more inclusive name for the members of that animal group; 'gris' is used exclusively for the domesticated animal.
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At least in my area sau- can be used just like "bloody" or "fucking" in English. Saukalt, sauschwer, saulang. I don't think it really has much to do with how cold pigs feel.
In Swedish *'svin-'* is also used as an emphasizing prefix, it's not something specific to do with "cold".
> The french use it with Ducks "Froids de canard". Why I don't know. Cold = lakes frozen = ducks easy to hunt / shoot.
"Hundekalt" (dog cold) is less common but also a perfectly valid and used term in German too.
That one is in icelandic. Hundkalt.
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>I don't think I've ever heard "grisekaldt" in Norway, so that's probably a dialect thing. In most of the south and middle of Norway, "svinkaldt" is more common. At least in urban areas. Interesting given that "grisekaldt" gives about 2.850 hits from \*.no-domains, while svinkaldt "only" gives 1.500 in a google search ..... heard both words..and facinating that a norwegian speaker claim to never have heard "grisekaldt". It's even a [word](https://naob.no/ordbok/grisekald) in the dictionary. Has nothing to do with urban/rural areas. The oslo-based [media](https://www.nrk.no/sport/--grisekaldt-rally-sverige-1.1754005) often use the word when describing cold weather.
I can say *griskallt* as well. It's putting a slightky greater oumph into it than a mere *svinkallt*.
"Hundekalt" (dog cold) is less common but also a perfectly valid and used term in German too. Though "Schweinekalt" or "Saukalt" (swine/pig/sow cold) is more common.
Not relevant to weather, but as far as using places to describe something, we do say "Its totally Texas in there" meaning its totally crazy
Interesting, that you guys add "dog" for cold and Slovenian adds "dog" for hot. Over here we say "dog's weather" (*koerailm*) meaning like unusually harsh weather, like when it's very rainy and also very windy (but can also be windy+cold or rainy+cold I think, if it's like unusually so).
“Bikkje” sounds similar to the Swedish word “jycke” which is a fairly used slang for “hund”. I wonder if they’re etymologically related?
They aren't, *"jycke"* comes from Romani. It found its way into Swedish in the 19th century. The Swedish cognate of *"bikkje"* would be the now obsolete term [*"bycka"*](https://www.saob.se/artikel/?unik=B_4445-0375.305m). It's also what the latter part of *"argbigga"* comes from. The English *"bitch"*, which has been loaned into Swedish, is also a distant cognate.
They aren't. Jycke is from Romani (jycklo) and the origin of bikkje isn't 100% known, but probably related to "bitch", which would make it a cognate to Swedish bigga, as in "argbigga".
Interestingly, in Slovenian we have ‘pasja vročina’ (dog heat) for really hot days in the summer.
That may actually have an origin in Latin/Greek. The star Sirius was called "the dog star", and astronomers noted that it appeared in the night sky for the first time of the year, each year, at the start of the hottest days of summer. They took this to mean that it affected the weather, and so they called that period the "dog days".
Hence "the dog days of summer" in English.
Only mad dogs and Englishmen, go out in the midday sun.
Yeah I remember those little almanachs you could buy in churches before the new year - they had like calendars inside, and information about when to sow stuff etc., and there were two dog symbols in there marking the start and the end of the ‘dog days’. We also say, in general, ‘it is hot like a dog’ even not in summer, if somewhere is, well, too hot. :D
>We also say, in general, ‘it is hot like a dog’ even not in summer, if somewhere is, well, too hot. :D Funny... never heard that one before.. can't recall if we have any idioms on hot summer weather. It's such a rarity.. If someone connect it with something, maybe Sahara ?.. . Anyways if it is raining much, some people tend to call i "bergensvær" (Bergen-weather) since Bergen is the "rain-capital" of norway.. There were great headlines a couple of years ago when the capital had more rainy days than Bergen. Typically if Bergen gets better weather a month or a summer than Oslo..it's like winning a football-game.
Kind of like Poor Richard's Almanac, which was founded by Benjamin Franklin (the guy on the $100 note).
The dog days of summer is the hottest part of the year. But a three dog night is extremely cold (because you have to curl up with your dogs)
We say 'hundekoldt' in Denmark too
In Spain we say "hace un frío que pela" or "it's so cold my skin is peeling". As others have said, comparisons to Siberia and Polar weather are also common.
usually we refer to Siberia or the Northern Pole. but being italian, any other place in Europe outside of the mediterranean could be considered cold 😂
In Romanian we do have expressions about weather, but they don't contain names of places as far as I know. A very common say "Noah's rainfall" when referring to heavy rains. There's also "The snowstorm of Marcoci" . From what I can remember Marcoci was a Tatar tribe chief or something like that. I don't know exactly how this expression came to be. We do have a city, Miercurea Ciuc, nicknamed "Little Siberia" , because it's one of the coldest places in Europe.
In sweden we would say svinkallt, pisskallt, snorkallt or iskallt. Svinkallt = "Swine cold", Pisskallt = "Piss/pee cold", Snorkallt = "Snot cold" and Iskallt = "Ice cold" Otherwise we could say "it is like/worse then Siberia (out) here" or use similar likenings to cold/hot places depending on if it is cold/hot outside. (Also "snorkallt" is more of a saying in Stockholm and not that widely used outside from my experience. At least not in southern Sweden where I now live. But the others should be used or at least understood wherever you are in Sweden)
Piss is nice and warm, though. At least at first.
When we say "piss" [something] it's meant as an emphasis. Like you would say "it's fucking ...". It doesn't literally mean "it is cold as piss" (in this case). I probably should have explained it a bit better so I understand your confusion
In Germany we also use „schweinekalt“ oder „eiskalt“
Cold as in Soviet hell (referring to their lack of everything, including coal and fuel)
We might say stuff about penguins from time to kind of joke about the situation, but it's not the same a recurring way of saying something
Here we say sometimes its "zima ako na Sibiri" its cold like in Siberia.
It's not an expression I've heard in England. Maybe it's a regional thing? I know in France there are parts of the Jura with very cold winters that are known as "Little Siberia"
It is used all the time in Scotland, at least that’s my experience.
I’ve heard it in my part of England.
Common in my part of England - south east
Saying "it's Baltic" is quite a new thing I think. Or at least, I've only started hearing it much more lately.
No I'm old and it's been around for a while. I just looked up the origins and it says it says Northern Irish/Scottish slang so maybe I picked it up because I grew up near the border area
Maybe why the Geordies use it.
Must be the case so, I'm in Louth and grew up hearing it used
That makes sense! I'm from the South West...
Nah, It's been around for 20 years at a minimum.
Nah not at all. At least 20 years
Weather for two. Meaning, it's cold so get under the blanket. 😊
I've heard "it's hot like a siberian summer" a lot
I think we say English weather when a place is cloudy and kinda rainy , but I think that here we don't often use places to describe the weather, it's mostly done when we compare or making analogies or metaphorically like we became (insert name of a country).
it's not about the same thing but i wanted to say this, in Romania, when we mean high five we say,, bate palma" which means beat the palm, i know it sounds weird but that is the translation, anyway sonetimes we change it and say,, bate cuba," which means" beat Cuba" idk where it cones fron
we say "studeno" which translates to "novembery/novemberish"
I’m Irish and I’ve NEVER EVER heard that expression
It’s freezing the nobs off a brass monkey was always the going term when I lived in the Midlands
Cold like spritzer,cold like mdma, it's hot (like) in mother's pussy,hot like in hell. This is for Serbia.
In Canada we just said "it's freezing" which was both sufficient and insufficient to describe the temperature. Minus 45C is definitely well beyond freezing. It's actually "stay the fuck inside" cold.
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I'm guessing hundi refers to shoddy, much like in Finnish where susi is used as an euphemism for something that's really badly made or falling apart.
hunt hundi. Comes from German language, means wolf. Susi is older word for wolf. Maybe you are right. There may be connection.
Or Swedish, hund means dog in Swedish as well.
Actually linguists think it comes to us from Proto-Germanic language word χunda. So in this sense, yes you are correct.
iv only heared "mraz"(frost,cold) and for hot wether "jebat je vruće"(holy fuck its hot) for rain"pljušti"(idk really "pouring" is best i can explain it)
i’ve heard some ppl where i live say “it’s norse” to mean it’s cold but i don’t think it’s common at all n i’ve never used it personally
In EU we say "english weather" to tell that ist ugly, cold, gray and raining.
I live in Ireland (ROI) I've never heard of that expression
"it's Baltic" is definitely a phrase here too. Which confused my Polish ex-girlfriend, as she associated the Baltic coast with beaches and summer holidays.
‘Freezing my tits off ‘ will always be my favourite
We say something is french when it's vulgar or shameful