TBS The Nittany Lion's crowd was extremely loud and SMU had to take a time out. I'm not sure why there was a reference to a false start. Regardless, it should have been the crowd caused  a false start.  Perhaps The Pennsylvania State University should have an English major working the message boards. 😉

I'm certain that other professions have examples of poor English that have crept into their lexicons. Fine. But, in the case of meteorology, we serve the public on a day-to-day basis and people outside our field see what we write. Weather science is under-respected, under-valued, and, in some cases, underfunded. In spite of saving tens of thousands (yes, really!) lives each year and billions in property damage, we still have to deal with nonsense like this. With all of that said, we do not help our case when we continually undermine the quality of our work with bad grammar. And, we do it frequently. Example: "Severe limits." I hear this one all the time. What we actually mean is, "thunderstorms are expected to exceed severe thresholds."  The severe thresholds are hail 1" in diameter and thunderstorm-generated wind gusts of 58 mph. One inch and 58 mph are not "limits" because they can be, and often are, exceeded. Example:  From las...

Stamp Out Bad Weather Grammar!! Meteorologists, like every other profession, develop their own lexicon. But, two items are pet peeves of mine and we just had an example of one of them.  Who "broke" the line of showers? This term dates back to written radar summaries before we had the ability to transmit radar data from one place to another. The term "broken" was sent to pilots to let them know a line of thunderstorms was not "solid" and that they might fine a space between the storms where they might safely fly through. The other pet peeve is "these storms may exceed 'severe limits'." I don't know how this got started because it is just bad grammar. What they mean is the storm may exceed severe thresholds,  which are defined as hail at least 1" in diameter or wind gusts of 58 mph (50 knots, this, too, began with aviation).