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The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

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11–20 of 152 posts

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#11
post #6

"But the famous ‘insularity’ and ‘xenophobia’ of the English is far stronger in the working class than in the bourgeoisie. In all countries the poor are more national than the rich, but the English working class are outstanding in their abhorrence of foreign habits. Even when they are obliged to live abroad for years they refuse either to accustom themselves to foreign food or to learn foreign languages. Nearly every…

What's worse, that or not speaking a perfect Frankish language of when in the land of Franks? At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well.

Depends on which land of Franks you're talking about, but in most places the Franks eventually adopted the local language of the place they ruled (which is why French is a Romance language and not a Germanic one).

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#13

"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…

I doubt that it's to show ones manliness. When you are used to rain (I bet everyone that lived in London for more than a week is), you know when it's not strong enough to get you wet and when it's really time to take your umbrella or get a shelter. I usually carry an umbrella, but use it only when I see that otherwise I'm going to get soaked. Walking down a crowded street with an umbrella is often simply too much of a hassle.

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#14

As a former pedestrian commuter through the City, I'd love to see the goons who think a golf umbrella makes a suitable and sociable rainscreen pelted with fruit. I almost considered setting up a Tumblr of ridiculously oversized umbrellas at one point, knocking people off pavements.

I'm with you - I'm tall enough that the little metal tips of most umbrellas are usually at eye-level, and have received many uncomfortable jabs to the eyeballs (and more often than not people are annoyed that their umbrella was nudged, instead of being sorry)

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#15

"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…

This is definitely alive in Portland, OR. There's a pride in handling the rain.

If Portland is anything like up here in Seattle, it also doesn't actually rain that much (usually). More just a continuous drizzle for 8 solid months.

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#16
post #4

Those of us who live in Seattle tend to feel the same way. If you see someone carrying an umbrella here you can bet they're a tourist.

Seattle and Portland don't get the same kind of rain as lots of other places (such as Chicago or Boston). In the Northwest the most common rain is a light drizzle, downpours are very rare. Whereas in many parts of the country a normal rain storm would be considered a downpour in the Northwest. For that reason people in Seattle and Portland can get through the entire winter wearing a light jacket or even a cloth hoodie. Even though hoodies aren't waterproof, being exposed to the rain for a couple minutes will only make them slightly damp, rather than sodden through and through the way they might be if one attempted to use them in other rainy cities.

An umbrella is a bit of false protection from the rain as well. It's a nuisance to carry so often given that it will save you only from a mild inconvenience on most days. And as often as not it'll end up being a hindrance as you fight it from being destroyed or carried away by the wind.

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#17
post #4

Those of us who live in Seattle tend to feel the same way. If you see someone carrying an umbrella here you can bet they're a tourist.

There may be a significant difference, though. I haven't used my umbrella since moving to the Seattle area 24 years ago, but I don't recall feeling any kind of social pressure to not use it. I didn't use it because there just wasn't any point to it.

That will probably sound strange to people not familiar with Seattle, considering Seattle's reputation as a rainy city, but the truth is that in terms of total amount of rain Seattle is not actually a very rainy city.

Here are some cities that have about the same annual rainfall as Seattle (37.7 in), within 10%:

  Austin, Texas (34.2 in)
  Buffalo, New York (40.5 in)
  Chicago, Illinois (36.9)
  Dallas, Texas (37.6 in)
  Kansas City, Missouri (39.1 in)
  Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (36.5)
So why is Seattle the rainy city instead of one of those? Or one of the cities that gets a lot more rain, like like Miami, Florida (61.9 in)?

I think there are two reasons Seattle gets the rainy label.

1. The Seattle rain is more spread out. Seattle gets its 37.7 in spread out over 149 days. Compare to Dallas which gets its 37.6 over 81 days. The weather stats folks count as day as a rain day if it gets 0.01 in or more of rain.

Seattle's rain is fairly evenly spread among those 149 days. There will be a handful of times each year when there is a brief moment of heavy rain, but for the most part it is a fairly steady light rain.

In most of the other places, it is much less uniform. They get a handful of big rainstorms, and several fairly rainy days, and many "rain days" that are just small amounts.

2. There is no really bad weather in Seattle most of the time. Some of those other cities with similar total rain also like to dump tons of snow on you, or hit you with hurricanes, or temperature extremes.

Take Buffalo. 40.5 in of rain a year, over 167 days. Sounds like a better candidate than Seattle for the title of rainy city (although I haven't looked at the distribution to see if it is spread out like Seattle's)...but Buffalo also dumps 93 inches of snow a year on people. I think anyone cares about rain when they are getting 93 inches of snow.

Putting these together, Seattle has the perfect combination of many days with enough rain for you to think "it's raining", and a lack of anything else that distracts from the rain, so the rain becomes its characteristic weather feature.

So why are umbrellas kind of pointless here? It rains so often that you'd pretty much have to carry the thing with you all the time to keep completely dry. Eventually you'll forget it, and find yourself having to go out in the rain...and you'll find that it is no big deal. The rain is mild enough that unless you are out for a long time you just get a little damp. Damp hair can be a bit annoying, and if you wear glasses those getting wet can also be annoying...but both of those problems can be dealt with by wearing a hat with a brim, and that doesn't require dedicating a hand.

On those handful of times a year when we get an actual intense rainstorm, you can usually just wait it out. They tend to only last a short time, and then go back to the normal mild rain.

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#18
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely alive in Portland, OR. There's a pride in handling the rain.

If Portland is anything like up here in Seattle, it also doesn't actually rain that much (usually). More just a continuous drizzle for 8 solid months.

Yeah, I moved to Seattle about 6 years ago from the Midwest and was teased often by some Seattle natives for having an umbrella, which seemed to be fairly arbitrary to choose to pick on given that rubber rain boots were common enough to have fasionable variants made. Not everyone, of course, but quite a few of my colleagues would try to make it a point of pride.

Tangentially, most Seattle-lites also didn't understand what I meant when I said Seattle has a lot of drizzle, but it doesn't have rain; growing up in the midwest with midwest thunderstorms, a lot of them didn't seem to understand what I meant by the smell of a storm or the greenish color of the sky as a thunderhead approaches.

We all get prideful for various things, I guess though...I know far too many folk from back in WI who insist they can drive perfectly in any weather, despite having wrecked multiple cars in winters past.

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#19

"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…

It's inconsiderate to use an umbrella in a densely packed city like London. Get an overcoat.

Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User

#20
post #13

"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…

I doubt that it's to show ones manliness. When you are used to rain (I bet everyone that lived in London for more than a week is), you know when it's not strong enough to get you wet and when it's really time to take your umbrella or get a shelter. I usually carry an umbrella, but use it only when I see that otherwise I'm going to get soaked. Walking down a crowded street with an umbrella is often simply too much of…

The same is true in Seattle which has similar weather.

Coats, hats, and hoodies are much more common than are umbrellas, unless it's raining cats and dogs.

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