A Few Choice Words

I am sure you have heard about the last heat wave that hit the Midwest a week ago, and astute weather-watchers will know that another heat wave is beginning as of today - the "heat dome" effect that is becoming so popular to talk about. However, it takes a real fan of weather trivia to know that this is also the 31st anniversary of the great heat wave that hit Chicago, taking over 700 lives with it before things cooled down from their 105-degree peaks. It was a genuinely miserable three days in the city, and for people without air condition (as was the case in my apartment), the heat was something I will never forget.

The part of the heat wave that applies to today's post, however, has nothing to do with fatalities or the weather pulling the sweat right out of us. Rather, I recall how people were so amazed and overwhelmed by the heat that the temperature apparently melted away their vocabulary, reducing people to as few words as possible. A discussion in the morning with my then-girlfriend would go something like this:

Me: "How bad is it outside?"
GF: "It's hot."
Me: "Hot?"
GF: "Really hot."
Me: "Like how hot?"
GF: "Like really really hot."

Looking bad, I can appreciate how this did, in fact communicate the temperature in a very human way. Really hot was a few degrees higher than hot, and really, really hot was a few degrees higher still. In the midst of a heat wave, not much more needs to be communicated. However, as writers we have an opportunity to write about hot environments from the luxury of a more temperature-controlled place (if we choose), and use the full breadth of our vocabulary to express to our readers just how hot it is. Or we can surrender to the ease and comfort of "really, really hot."

This is one of the areas where we can make our writing really shine without too much work, and it's by keeping a lookout for words like "really" (or its cousin "very") as a way of amplifying our adjectives. Instead of emphasizing how hot it is by the number of times we use the word, "really," we can switch words altogether. Temperatures can rise from "hot" to "exhausting," to "scorching," and up to "hell-on-Earth." Save your very, really, incredibly, etc. for a special occasion, or for a fallback when you are just too tired to flex with a stronger word. 

For a little elaboration on this, I recommend my post, "Dirty Modifiers," to get more of the point across. Otherwise, my only advice is to be careful outside the next few days, because it's going to be hot. You know... really hot.