How's the weather?

I finally understand why so much weather starts with English reading and speaking.

This article refers to Cicero by the sea.

In the English novel Sense and Sensibility, Eleanor and Marianne are sisters with different personalities. They often quarrel about one thing. Once their mother couldn't help it, so she taught them to say, "Stop arguing. If you can't find a suitable topic, you can talk about the weather. "

"If you can't find a suitable topic, just chat." This is really a common sense in the early19th century England where the author Jane Austen lived.

At that time, Britain was undergoing an industrial revolution, and economic development brought about a rapid fission of people's ideas, and the international situation was complicated. The emerging middle class and old aristocrats, physiocrats and mercantilists, religious figures and Malthusians, opponents and sympathizers of Emperor Napoleon, etc. are all tightly crowded on the island, and the air of public opinion is unprecedentedly tense and antagonistic. As soon as people meet, they will talk about other things first, and the probability of quarreling is very high.

Fortunately, there is still weather to talk about, because that is an obvious fact. No one will object if you say it.

So the British gradually formed a kind of * * * knowledge-talking about the weather before meeting, so that people can at least achieve a kind of * * knowledge in one fact, have a basic sense of trust, and then start other topics, which is much smoother.

So in those days, the chat between two English gentlemen probably started like this:

"Good morning, it's always cloudy and cold recently. The weather in Britain is really bad!"

"Yes, the cold weather in recent years is really abnormal. How to treat the shortage of industrial coal in Manchester? Some people accuse people there of burning too many stoves. Do you think our government should do something? Barabara ... "

You see, with this basic knowledge, it will be easier and more constructive to talk about other things.

"If you can't find a suitable topic, just chat." Let's start with the fact that both sides agree. This is a necessary lubricant to help a changing society gain understanding.