原标题：吴聊英国：英国人为什么热衷聊天气？

一直觉得学习英音，需要对这个目标国家的人有所了解。这个闷骚的国度里，有太多潜规则和一碰就碎的玻璃心。彬彬有礼的绅士风度之下有太多动不动就炸的雷区，关键是被轰上天了后还不知道究竟是怎么得罪了这些绅士淑女们。

所以，我就再开一个专栏「吴聊英国」，和大家将这些腐国人的小心思慢慢道来吧。

Weather-speak is a form of grooming talk.

Any discussion of English conversation, like any English conversation, must begin with the weather. I would quote Dr Johnson’s famous comment that ‘When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather’, and point out that this observation is as accurate now as it was more than two hundred years ago.

Most commentators either stop, or try, and fail, to come up with a convincing explanation for the English ‘obsession’ with the weather. They fail because their premise is mistaken: they assume that English conversations about the weather are conversations about the weather. In other words, they assume that British people talk about the weather because they have a keen interest in the subject. Most of them then try to figure out what it is about the English weather that is so fascinating.

I’ve been convinced that their conversations about the weather are not really about the weather at all: English weather-speak is a form of code, evolved to help them overcome their social inhibitions and actually talk to each other.

In other words, English weather-speak is a form of ‘grooming talk’ as a means of social bonding.

obsession /əbˈseʃ.ən/ 沉迷 着迷

premise /ˈprem.ɪs/ 前提

keen /kiːn/ 热衷的

inhibition /ˌɪn.hɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ 拘谨的 入群后，首先查阅群公告，了解点评时间，作业递交方式等关键信息。

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