Sometimes, a word simply sounds right. Such a word is mungy, with a soft, j-like G. Say it. Mungy. I barely feel it needs explanation, but in case you can't guess it means overcast and damp. You might find mungy stuff under a woodpile, although the word usually applies to the weather; and always applies to the weather in the Lake District.
Being the weblog of Mark Forsyth
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Mungy
Sometimes, a word simply sounds right. Such a word is mungy, with a soft, j-like G. Say it. Mungy. I barely feel it needs explanation, but in case you can't guess it means overcast and damp. You might find mungy stuff under a woodpile, although the word usually applies to the weather; and always applies to the weather in the Lake District.
Is this better or worse than oorie?
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought it was gungy stuff you found under woodpiles.
Well the Lake District manages to be both oorie and mungy, while that which is beneath the woodpile is mungy and gungy, if not grungey.
ReplyDeleteA particularly apt word for our weather here in NZ today! Thanks, I shall enjoy it much more now that I have such a lovely word to describe it. Mungy.
ReplyDeleteAny relation to manky? The meaning's similar. I've been puzzling over manky for the past few days, and by extension, whether there's a reason that people from Manchester are Mancunian instead of Mancestrian. Although I want to make it clear that this doesn't mean that I think Mancunians are at all manky... although their weather often is.
ReplyDeleteShould be careful you don't offend the mungers as you pass by this word. Some of them may be a bit mungy too, though they are generally minging. Mu/ing seems (in London at least) to be a young person's description of young ladies with negative physical attributes. It is probably obscene in origin?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if/how mungy relates to the verb "munge," which is used ubiquitously in the poison-ivied halls of Microsoft Corp. to mean, essentially, "mix up with," as in "We're going to munge the Getting Started topic and the FAQ into one document." Perhaps the notion involves one or both elements being "all wet"!
ReplyDeleteNever heard of Mungy, but could it be any relation to MUGGY, which in my experience generally means opressive, humid etc so a certain moistness is also applicable to this term!
ReplyDelete