Here’s a really crude indicator of improvement in weather forecasting: I can remember when jokes about forecasts being wrong were a cliche. I haven’t heard a joke about weather forecasts for years, probably decades, which suggests that forecasts have actually gotten fairly good, even if they’re not as accurate as the probabilities in the forecasts suggest.
Does anyone remember when weatherman jokes went away?
Can we conclude that the prevalence of the cliche dropping is related to the quality of weather forecasting? All else being equal I expect a culture to develop a resistance to any given cliche over time. For example the cliche “It’s not you it’s me” has dropped in use and been somewhat relegated to ‘second order cliche’ . But it is true now at least as much as it has been in the past.
A fair point, though if a cliche has lasted for a very long time, I think it’s more plausible that its end is about changed conditions rather than boredom.
Here’s a really crude indicator of improvement in weather forecasting: I can remember when jokes about forecasts being wrong were a cliche. I haven’t heard a joke about weather forecasts for years, probably decades, which suggests that forecasts have actually gotten fairly good, even if they’re not as accurate as the probabilities in the forecasts suggest.
Does anyone remember when weatherman jokes went away?
Can we conclude that the prevalence of the cliche dropping is related to the quality of weather forecasting? All else being equal I expect a culture to develop a resistance to any given cliche over time. For example the cliche “It’s not you it’s me” has dropped in use and been somewhat relegated to ‘second order cliche’ . But it is true now at least as much as it has been in the past.
A fair point, though if a cliche has lasted for a very long time, I think it’s more plausible that its end is about changed conditions rather than boredom.