Flipboard Culture DeskIs it true that there are 99 Irish words for rain? Author and broadcaster Manchán Magan, who died last week at age 55, wasn't sure, so he wrote a book about it, "Ninety-Nine Words for Rain (and One for Sun)." Here's an excerpt, which was published in the Irish Times. "The word for a sudden, heavy shower is spairn; as opposed to sprais, a sudden, heavy, spattering shower; or búisteog, which is simply a sudden shower; or múirling, a sudden heavy shower that moves like a wall of water; or liongar ceatha, a particularly nasty sudden shower; or tuile shléibhe, a sudden shower near a hillside," he writes. "I could fill this entire page with rain words, but what’s more interesting is the insight this abundance of terms gives into our forebears; the countless sodden, shivery experiences that led to the creation of each word."
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