warm banks
noun phrase

- places where people who need warmth will be able to go if their homes get too cold

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PHRASE ORIGIN

Anticipating fuel shortages in the coming winter, the term “warm banks” started appearing in the British press with increasing frequency at the beginning of August 2022.

With local authorities gearing up for a cold winter, this phrase is likely to gain increasing currency in the coming months.

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SURVIVING EXTREME COLD

Anna Elisabeth Johansson Bågenholm (born 1970) is a Swedish radiologist from Vänersborg, who survived after a skiing accident in 1999 left her trapped under a layer of ice for 80 minutes in freezing water. During this time she experienced extreme hypothermia and her body temperature decreased to 13.7 °C (56.7 °F), one of the lowest survived body temperatures ever recorded in a human with accidental hypothermia. Bågenholm was able to find an air pocket under the ice, but experienced circulatory arrest after 40 minutes in the water.

After rescue, Bågenholm was transported by helicopter to the Tromsø University Hospital, where a team of more than a hundred doctors and nurses worked in shifts for nine hours to save her life. Bågenholm woke up ten days after the accident, paralyzed from the neck down and subsequently spent two months recovering in an intensive care unit.

Although she has made an almost full recovery from the incident, late in 2009 she was still having minor symptoms in hands and feet related to nerve injury. Bågenholm’s case has been discussed in the leading British medical journal The Lancet, and in medical textbooks.

Wikepedia

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SYNONYMS

- uncomfortably or unpleasantly cold:

antarctic, arctic, below freezing, below zero, benumbed, biting, bitter, bitterly cold, blizzardlike, bone-chilling, bracing, brass monkeys, breezy, brisk, chilled, chilled to the bone, chilling, chilly, circumpolar, cold as ice, coldish, coolish, crisp, freezing (cold), fresh, frigid, frigorific, frost-bound, frosted, frosty, frozen (over), frozen to the marrow, glacial, hibernal, hoary, hypothermic, ice-bound, ice-capped, ice-cold (-covered, -over, -up), icicled, icy-cold, intensely cold, invigorating (US), keen, knifelike, nipping, nippy, numbing, one- (-two, -three) dog night, parky, perishing, piercing, polar, refrigerated, rimy, shivering, shivery, Siberian, snow-covered (-cold), stinging, sub-zero, wintery

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“As winter approaches it remains to be seen whether other countries will adopt the Anglicism ‘WARM BANKS’ or whether they’ll invent a local language equivalent.”

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THANKS TO F.D.P. for suggesting today’s phrase.

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HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations at:

https://donorbox.org/please-become-a-friend-of-owad-3

and,

Paul Smith, IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40