A single extra irritation on top of the low temperatures

The last few days have been painfully cold, and I have been putting to good use the advice in my cardiac rehab programs to be very careful about breathing cold air. I have been bundling myself up well, and covering my face with a scarf so that I don't directly breathe in the cold air. I have been pretty successful, but even with the best of care I have found that my lungs were irritated after only the shortest periods outside. I am looking forward to the temperatures coming back up into a milder range.

But while I have been contending with the health effects of the cold, I have realized I face an additional irritation throughout this period. The TV meteorologists keep talking about the temperatures as "single numbers" when they mean that the temperatures will be measured in single-digit numbers. It is as if they don't realize that 60 is just as much a single number as 2.

When the local forecasts are for these bitterly cold temperatures, the word choices of the local meteorologists give me one more reason to cringe.

File under : health, literacy