Provençal expression

fai lou tèms di damo

Nature

Literal translation

It's the weather of the ladies.

Meaning

the weather is mild and fickle

Explanation

This expression describes weather that is neither clearly rainy nor clearly sunny, mild, uncertain, prone to change without warning. The image rests on a folk stereotype linking a feminine temperament to variability and unpredictability, with damo here meaning ladies, women, unrelated to the verb damer, to tamp, despite the similarity in form. The weather described, mild but changeable, is thus compared, in the somewhat dated spirit of many folk sayings about women, to a disposition once judged fickle and indecisive. The expression belongs to a set of Provençal weather sayings that personify or compare the weather to human figures or behaviours, avoiding purely technical description. It is said in ordinary register, generally without conscious offensive intent from today's speaker, but it carries the trace of a worldview best understood in its own time, and read with due critical distance.

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Other expressions on the same theme

fai soulèu à la Santo-Baumothe sun is shining over la Sainte-Baume quand li gabian vènon en terro, marco de marrit tèmswhen gulls come ashore, bad weather is coming fai un fre de loupit's bitterly cold fai fre que peloit's a freezing, biting cold fai un caud ensucantit's a dazing, heavy heat fai mi vèire uno oulivo à Sant Jean, t'en farai vèire milo à toussantshow me one olive at Saint John's, I'll show you a thousand at All Saints'