Rough weather
Sir: I really do feel sorry for Leslie Adrian (20 October) in his plight regarding Fahrenheit and Celsius. But, really, he is going about it all wrongly. He should not—not—try to work out the equiva- lent temperatures by inexplicable calculations. These are worse than worthless. The only way to
learn is the empirical way—and, we, on the, Conti- nent, are always told that this is what the English excel in. He should learn the proper Celsius (or centigrade if you English absolutely must be different from the rest of Europe) with the aid of his senses.
You only have to learn a few temperatures by heart (and begin by forgetting all about Fahrenheit): 0 degrees is freezing point; 100 degrees is (water) boiling temperature; and 37 degrees (more or less) is our body temperature.
When the outside temperature is about 16 degrees it is lovely spring or autumn weather, just warm enough for hardy Englishmen to go about without a top coat; ideal weather for women to wear a new spring suit with either a silk blouse or a very thin woollen jumper; definitely not hot enough to sit out in. However, if the sea water is 16 degrees, it is warm enough to bathe in, unless you are not all that brave and prefer to wait until it is 18 degrees. By the time it is 25 in the shade, it means that you prefer to walk in the shade. By the time it's 30 either in the shade or not, you don't want to walk any more at all.
If only Leslie Adrian—and Greenwich, and the entire population of the uic—could completely forget about Fahrenheit, they would all under- stand Celsius within a few months and it would neither be necessary for the newsreader to read both temperatures (which he hates doing in any case) nor for anyone to torture his brains by trying to work out what x degrees Fahrenheit are in Celsius and vice versa. Believe me, it really is terribly simple.
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