Please settle an argument between me and DP..... what does 'mild' mean?

[Limth]

You may be preventing a fucking divorce here, so please help by answering this question -

Question: If I said "It's milder today than it was yesterday", would you take that to mean:
A: Its warmer than it was yesterday
B: Its colder than yesterday

Very many thanks!

Warmer. How the fuck do English speakers not know this???

Warmer.

Is he getting confused between weather and a curry??

Agree with all the 'less extreme' voters.

I'm a member of a professional body with hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. A money saving tip published in our fascinating monthly magazine recommended turning the thermostat UP a couple of degrees.

The person making the suggestion assumed we were all working in air conditioned offices - in Asia. Not sure if that is more or less mild.

A.

Try asking him the question:

if we scheduled a meeting at 12:00 and then asked to move it forward by 2 hours what time would we meet?

It is a real divider when it comes to relationships.

The English language is a beautiful thing.

During a summer heatwave I would take it to mean cooler and in winter I would take it to mean warmer!

I take it as 'more comfortable'. So in the UK it would normally mean warmer - but if you are in an uncomfortably hot country it would mean colder.

Now that is a hard one which I always have trouble with! I would say 10am.

Warmer.

My x husband was just like this. He would flash cars on narrow lanes, then drive forward...his logic, I'm flashing them to let them know I'm going first!! FUCKING idiot and divorce was the best option, if they're faulty divorce them.

It's depends on whether yesterday was hot or cold. Milder means, it's now more neutral, if yesterday was freezing then it's now warmer, if it was scorching then it's cooler. In the UK I would say we often use it to mean the weather is now warmer, but we would use it to say a curry is cooler. So it depends on the context

On a similar theme, you could divert him onto talking about beer. Then you could argue about the definition of mild, and of bitter.

(Am ancient, so my pathetic joke is probably lost on 99.99% of posters)

At this time of year milder would definitely mean warmer or possibly less windy.

I'm not sure I've ever heard 'milder' being used in summer to denote less extreme heat even though that would technically be a correct usage.

What does your DH make of the dictionary definitions, OP?

You two do seem meant for one another.

It depends on the weather - in winter it would normally mean less cold. In summer it would mean less hot. That is, less extreme weather

Definitely A

Another warmer

If the weather is described as "mild" I would think it's a comfortable temperature, neither particularly hot nor cold - temperate / tepid.

So depending on what the weather has been like, or what it was like yesterday I guess it could honestly mean either hotter or colder than yesterday. If yesterday was quite cold then today being milder would mean it's slightly warmer than it was yesterday. Mostly people use it to mean not cold though - so whilst you could both be right I'd say you are just a little bit more right than him.

Oh mind you looking at that dictionary definition it does seem to indicate it only refers to warmer than X...

The definition itself - as opposed to just the example, which may have left room for variability depending on context - refers to it meaning not very cold/not as cold as usual.

So maybe I was correct in going straight to 'warmer'.

In any case, that's about as much thought as I'm going to give to this topic of discussion. Language is a funny thing, and a fantastic one!

This reminds me of the arguments about what "next Saturday" means. Is it Saturday coming, or the next one?

Because that is not what it means? It doesn’t mean warmer. It means less extreme. That’s the official definition and that’s also the same for weather, less extreme weather. So whilst it may not be that common to use it in the sense of colder, it is correct within the English language.

Warmer

Less extreme. The weather in the UK is milder than on the continent due to its coastal climate.

But most people use it to mean 'warmer than expected during the winter'.

You can start that thread if you want 😂

Divorce the stupid twat. I couldn’t stand to be married to someone that thick. Seriously.

Hahaha on that one I know exactly where I stand!