Oh my word Climatic, Climactic, Climacteric

Irrespective of climacteric, she wanted to study climatic conditions in Madagascar but her husband did not consent to her wish because he is about to reach the climactic stage of his career. Climatic refers to the climate. Climate is the weather conditions (rain, temperature, winds, humidity,) in an area over a period of time. The grammatical variants of climate are climatal, climatic (adjective), climatically (adverb) and climatology (noun). Climatal is also an adjective relating to climate, or of climate.

Crops need good climatic conditions as well as fertile soil. What’s the difference between weather and climate? Weather refers to a particular day: How is the weather today? The weather forecast for tomorrow is rainy but punctuated with sunshine. Climate refers to weather conditions over a period of time. The difference between weather and climate is the measure of time wherein weather is the conditions of the atmosphere for a short period of time (day, or week), and climate refers to the atmosphere conditions over a long period of time.

Countries can be grouped on the basic of climate: tropical and temperate. Weather patterns mapped and studied over a period of time reflect the nature of climate in an area, country or continent. Study of climate is climatology. Climactic refers to resulting in climax, relating to a climax; when something is final, culminating, the end; forming a climax, denouement; the most interesting event or point in time, the culmination of something such as in a play or movie.

Climactic is an adjective. Climactic is a culmination of an event, forming an exciting climax such as in a play, movie or an election result. The couple went to watch the movie: husband did not like the movie but he stayed because the wife wanted to watch the climactic scene. Which is the climacteric (a critical period) phase of post-Independent India in 20th century? Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi, or the first non-Congress government headed by Morarji Desai?

Climacteric as a noun meaning a critical period; in medicine, climacteric means the phase or a period in life when fertility declines, sexual activity and potency wanes such as menopause in women, and androgen decline among men. Fall of Berlin Wall is a climacteric in continental Europe: it united East and West Germany. The God of Small Things written by Arundhati Roy is a climacteric in Indian English fiction.

Will there be any psychological change when a woman, and a man, reaches climacteric? After she got married for the third time, she wanted to have children but shed reached climacteric.

Kovuuri G Reddy