Storms are breaking

[Tom Zurinskas]

It's common to say "waiting for a break in the weather" meaning when it's cleared up.  So a "break in the storm" fits right in.


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
see truespel.com phonetic spelling





>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Geoffrey Nathan
> Subject: Storms are breaking
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> CNN is quoting the President this afternoon as saying:
>
> 'We can be confident that the storms of the past two years are beginning to break.'
>
> That struck me as odd, since that's not what I think he meant,
> so I looked it up in the Cobuild Dictionary Online, where it says
>
> verb 'If the weather breaks or a storm breaks , it suddenly becomes rainy or stormy after a period of sunshine.
> I've been waiting for the weather to break...' V
>
> so, is 'the storm is breaking' one of those auto-antonyms? Or did Obama's speechwriter goof?
>
> Geoff
>
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
> Faculty Liaison, C&IT
> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)
>
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