Tom 7 Radar: Today's Radar Game

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Today's Radar Game (09 Dec 2005 at 12:25)

Today's radar game is one that exercises your powers of description. Sick of mere adjectives to describe the weather ("It is cold today"), hack weathermen and -women in 1992 turned to the use of flowery adverbs. How is the weather? It's bone-chillingly cold.

When I'm walking outside and it is at the extremes of hot or cold, the appropriate adverb "bone-chillingly" (for cold) or "oppressively" (for hot) always sets firmly in my brainpan, sort of like how some obsessive-compulsive persons count each step as they walk. But what if, some day, I'm thinking, Boy, today is bone-chillingly cold and then the next day it's twenty degrees colder? I don't even know any adverbs that imply more freezons per unit volume.

So here I solicit the help of my fine radar-readers, a fun game: Please respond with your most extreme adverbs for describing both hot and cold weather.

Your answer must be in the form of an adverb. Adjectives are too weak.

To get the snowball rolling, I will start with one: paint-strippingly cold.

The winner of the contest wins one life-time supply of entropy. Contest end date: End of universe. No purchase necessary or possible. Chance of winning: 0/∞

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William (gs4082.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 12.09.05 13:17:55

<i>invariant-violatingly!</i> Do i win with undefined probability?

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Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 12.09.05 13:55:16

First, 0/infinity is defined, and it is zero.

Second, you do not win because there is zero probability of winning.

Third, is your entry for coldness or hotness? Do you think it applies to both? Somehow, if the entry is to truly embody the climatic extreme, it should be asymmetric.

Sorry to be so particular. But comparative meteorology is no joke!

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Noam (gs3084.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 12.09.05 14:05:20

one-shillingly cold.
totalitarianly hot.

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William (gs4082.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 12.09.05 14:25:17

I think violation of invariants is sufficiently terrible to be able to apply to both extreme hotness and extreme coldness.

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Mike Nolan (207.160.210.253) – 12.09.05 15:23:53

teeth-shatteringly cold!
teeth-mashingly cold!

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jcreed (wittgenstein.wv.cc.cmu.edu) – 12.09.05 15:59:23

Ice-main-breakingly cold

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Alex 7 (pool-151-201-46-251.pitt.east.verizon.net) – 12.09.05 16:06:16

soul-splinteringly cold
spontaneous-combustibly hot (is combustibly a word? It sure is fun to say .. )

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Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 12.09.05 16:20:15

I think the word you're looking for is "combustionly." ;)

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Sridhar (cmu-155125.res.cmu.edu) – 12.09.05 16:39:28

An authoritative source tells me the Eskimos have two hundred adverbs for describing the intensity of cold... out of which their favorite is, in fact, "bone-chillingly cold". Something universal about that one.

Unfortunately, the cruelties of Sapir-Whorf being what they are, there is no proper Inuit way to describe excessive heat other than as "too hot for TV".

-Sridhar

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Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 12.09.05 16:48:30

Sridhar, you and I are speakin' the same language.

Permit me to expand the game to other weather dimensions, namely, barometric:

"eye-buggingly low pressure"
"triple-pointingly high pressure"

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mike (h-72-244-69-245.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 12.09.05 17:42:16

"Fusionly hot" and/or
"Cold fusionly cold"

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Marc (c-24-128-249-112.hsd1.ma.comcast.net) – 12.09.05 17:45:29

nipple-crackingly cold
pore-gapingly hot

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mjn (pool-70-23-34-103.ny325.east.verizon.net) – 12.09.05 19:14:58

Must it be an adverb? My favorite is "colder than a dog's ass on the moon."

(P.S. Man, "nipple-crackingly" is painful even to think about!)

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Anonymous (pcp01935919pcs.hamden01.ct.comcast.net) – 12.09.05 22:50:14

Teeth-Grinding(ly) icy chill (Canadian term)

and

Sweat-heapin, tongue-swellin hot (Cajun) -just add ly for adverb form, and say with a French accent.

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Tom 7 (h-72-244-69-245.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 12.10.05 01:06:56

"colder than a dog's ass on the mooningly cold."

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moira (burke.hcii.cs.cmu.edu) – 12.10.05 18:40:55

We mustn't forget the psychological consequences of temperature:

ennui-inducingly hot
social-obligation-cancellingly cold

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Max (mheath.stu.wesleyan.edu) – 12.12.05 17:34:19

Hot-Pocket-preservingly cold

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jetfuel (rhydon.omnigroup.com) – 12.12.05 19:51:47

Brownian-motion-haltingly cold?
Face-sublimatingly hot?

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Don (acs-24-154-50-225.zoominternet.net) – 12.12.05 21:15:47

cryogenically cold
pyrogenically hot

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Max (mheath.stu.wesleyan.edu) – 12.12.05 21:58:14

Hot-Pocket-preparingly hot

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Don (acs-24-154-50-225.zoominternet.net) – 12.12.05 22:23:08

stone cold banned from armenia msg board
human suffering incredible by modern standards-ly hurricaned

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Chuck (63.170.55.63) – 12.13.05 17:44:49

McDonald's-apple-pie-fillingly hot!
Mexican-restaurant-fajita-plateingly hot!

and thinking about McD's own hot coffee scandal:

litigiously hot!

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Anonymous (lgb.resnet.bloomu.edu) – 12.13.05 23:13:20

Cardiac-arrestingly cold
Tanning bed sunburnly hot

Malkovich in Dangerous Liasionsly cold

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