Hazes, ranked

Seescape, Gerhard Richter. Image: Guggenheim

Jorge Luis Borges gave an interview late in his life in which he praised the multiplicity of meanings in English words. English is a great rubbish heap of a language, made of loose and cast-off ends from many other sources, affording many subtle shades of meaning.

Speaking of shades, I’m on the US-Canada border in upstate NY this week, experiencing intermittent effects of the Canadian wildfires. I’m inspired to present my definitive list of “haze” synonyms, ranked from most to least pleasant:

• Mist - a pure and lovely word, all early mornings and gathering sunlight.

• Cloud - even though it’s describing a blockage, I think of “cloud” as a single bright illuminated edifice aloft. 

• Brume - such an uncommon word that it can’t carry any of the unpleasant associations of what it actually means

• Fog - even though fog can be literally deadly, it still strikes me as whimsical. I expect to see Peter Pan peeping out of the fog. 

• Haze - Vladimir Nabokov, who knew his way around a word choice, named his Lolita “Dolores Haze” for a reason. Haze is warm and overpowering but not inherently unpleasant. The etymology dictionary says, delightfully, “The differentiation of haze, mist, fog (and other dialectal words) is unmatched in other tongues […] this may be an effect of the English climate on the English language.”

• Smoke - typically carries pleasant associations for me (fireplaces, flavoring compounds) which is why this week’s air is such a betrayal. But the word itself still isn’t unpleasant to me.

• Dimness - seems highly technical but carries hints of other meanings, from the intellectual to the visually impaired.

• Fume - similar to fog, but less fun. 

• Vapor - carries very little sense of visual obscurity; makes me think of chemistry experiments

• Steam - straddles the line between the cleanly technical (powering the Industrial Revolution!) and the “hot sunlight on a swamp” vibe.

• Murk - now we’re starting to get seriously unpleasant. Dark and hazy at the same time. Also somehow humid.

• Smog - gross air quality but from a clear source. Only this high on the list because it’s less common than it used to be in the US.

• Film - fully gross and from indeterminate source. Conjures images of conjunctivitis or uncleaned medical devices. 

• Miasma - gives the sense of being not only cloudy but ill as well.