Happy Birthday, welah!

[the_gneech]

Here's Today's Forgotten English:

pluvial
Pertaining to rain; rainy. From Latin pluvialis, rain.

--Daniel Lyons's Dictionary of the English Language, 1897

Gravel Day
On the second Monday of the first term in the year, if the weather be at all favourable, it has been customary from time immemorial to hold a college meeting and petition the president for Gravel Day. ... The faculty grant[s] this day for the purpose of fostering in the students the habit of physical labor and exercise, so essential to vigorous mental exertion.

--Benjamin Hall's A Collection of College Words and Customs, 1856

In old times, when the students were few and rather fonder of work than at the present, they turned out with spades, hoes, and other implements, and spread gravel over the walks to the college grounds. But in latter days they have preferred to tax themselves to a small amount and delegate the work to others while they spend the day in visiting the Cascade, the Natural Bridge, or others of the numerous places near us.

--Boston Daily Evening Traveller, January 12, 1854

-The Gneech

Comments

[tr-wolf.livejournal.com]

Pluvial is still used here. The weather girl said tomorrow's outlook was pluvial (ITV Lunchtime News, Regional news: Granada)

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

All righty then! :)

-TG

[russ-arulo.livejournal.com]

In my angsty, "nobody understands me" phase, I wrote a lot of poetry which, quite honestly, would be put to better use lining a birdcage. I do remember using "pluvial", "plumbic", and other such words to flex my atrophied Latin muscle.

[frustratedpilot]

In the neighborhood of Pittsburgh where my family lived in the late 1970s, we had our own variation on Gravel Day. It would be the first nice day after the end of the snow season, when everybody would pull out an old broom and we'd sweep away the gravel and other junk left by the salt trucks/snow plows. This was generally the end of February or the start of March.