Dear Geist,

What’s the difference between weather and weather conditions? CBC Radio hosts use both, in equally solemn voices, but “weather conditions” sounds somehow more threatening than “weather.” Is it?

Dear Evelyn,

No. We love CBC, but we’re guessing “weather conditions” sneaked in there to jazz up the daily drill. How many times a week can one say “And now, the weather” without nodding off at the mike? Or perhaps it’s just another fingernails-down-the-blackboard CBC redundancy, like “in twenty minutes from now.”