On Wednesday, 8 October 2014 10:42:30 UTC+1, Dave Cornwell wrote:

I was thinking about this and I don't have as much of a problem as some others with it. Clearly most of us know what a temperature means and everyone may "feel" different anyway due to their inbuilt resiliances. For example what feels chilly to most of us will feel absolutely tropical to Will ;-) Nevertheless most people don't really appreciate the absolute temperature as much as what they feel. Often my wife come in and says things like "it's hot out there" and I will retort with " ..it's only 16C actually!" etc. Part of the issue is the lack of general understanding that temperatures are measured in the shade. How often do year hear Sports commentators coming out with stuff like it's 120 degrees on court etc. So taking into account that the public forecasts aren't just for weather nuts like us I think it is useful at certain times. These might be for instance when there is strong on shore breeze on an early sunny summer's day, or early in the year , say late March, when there is strong sunshine, little wind but the actual temperature is only 7C and so on. It has its place , "I feel" :-) Dave

I find the "feel" thing pretty annoying; we are being infantilised. When I hear it I shout at the radio "just tell me the temperature and I'll tell *you* how I feel, (expletive deleted)". "Cooler" - yes, "feeling cooler" - no. The humidity and wind speed may well be relevant, of course, but I don't think I trust them even with that when they can come up with rubbish like "the wind will take the edge off that temperature" when that temperature is 10°C. I'd have thought the wind would have added to the edge rather than take it off. Maybe they'd misplaced their Dictionary of Idiomatic English Usage. If they're going to make qualitative judgements they should at least not get them upside down.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.