UKH

....are brilliant this evening and now. Massive cumulus, hail, watching lightning spark around bellowing cumulus. Text book stuff. Impressive. 

None up our way, just grey and mizzly. 

I am conflicted on thunderstorms now I have a stressy dog. Thunder storms have long been one of my favourite things, but now it means calming a stressy dog they are less appealing!! 

My springer doesn’t bat an eyelid. He’s still a pain at times, but well chilled with thunder, fireworks etc. 

It’s actually getting better. Sheet lightening every few seconds, one of the best I’ve ever seen

Off and on torrential downpours here. No electric light show sadly. I do love a good electric storm. 

I feel for you GM - Bertie the Jack Russell hates thunder. He's so rough and tough the rest of the time (as Jack's often are!) but thunder gets him very worked up. 

Ours is better with thunder than he is with fireworks, but to be honest he can get very upset with a van turning round outside our house!! He is generally getting calmer with most things than he used to be, but because thunder is a bit more of a rare event, it takes longer to desensitise him to it! He came to us at 6 months and had not been socialised at all. Not just with dogs, but hadn't been socialised to the general world and didn't really know how to deal with anything in life. It's a slow process from there. We are getting there, but it's never quick!

Poor Bertie! Hope he manages to calm down soon!

One minute ago, straight from my phone camera

And one minute before that, my wife took this on her phone, WOW!!

I live in North Manchester. Somehow, and I didn't even know this was possible, all those heavy rainy thundery showers have missed where I am. I mean it's Manchester FFS, staying dry whilst others nearby are getting wet. What is wrong with the world?

I only became aware of this from your post, thought you lived somewhere not too far away (Wigan?) but thought "I've heard nowt". Checked the rain radar and it confirms my dry predicament 🌩😎⛈ 

Very, very frightening.....

Here be hail, hail here

The BBC have been forecasting lighting here for 3 days; they dropped it this morning.

No flash no boom, but we have swung between atmospheric clag and little atmospheric clouds hanging in the valleys.
 

Now you’ve got me picturing Richard E Grant as Withnail singing Queen 

Why not?
There's been so many interpretations of it, then why not add another one?

In reply:

There are a refreshing number of spelings on this thread:

lightening

lighting

lightning

Just saying

Signed, profitofdoom, self-appointed pedant-in-chief

It’s not pedantry if people are plain WRONG! 😃

As is tradition, a pedant's post must be scrutinised for errors. Any errors detected must be flagged up.

Probably while you were watching that I was reading about a connected phenomenon known as a microburst which I'd never heard of before, scary if you're on the ground but terrifying and potentially deadly if you're in a plane.

Lightningmaps is great. Looks like it kicked off everywhere yesterday:-

https://www.lightningmaps.org/blitzortung/europe/index.php?bo_page=archive&...

Shouldn't this be "is a refreshing number", number being singular?

Ironic that you have put only one l in spelling.

Just saying...

Not everywhere - the Morecambe Bay microclimate kicked in, so we had a lovely sunny afternoon and evening. BTW we can do without the hail and the damage it can do in the garden.

Standish. The storm was south west of us. We probably had the perfect view. I now need to delete all those duff photographs I took!

Just counted: 7 strikes in 4 minutes and probably more frequent a few mins before that when I was simply watching.

A bunch of us were sat up at Pym Chair near Windgather watching the storms track NW out across Cheshire, and mighty fine viewing it was.

Excuse me and thank you muchly but please scrutinize the following from a grammar website:

"The phrase "the number" is singular. For example: The number of visitors is increasing. The number has dropped dramatically. The number of votes was twenty-two. The word "number" is singular when it refers to an arithmetical value. When used in this way, it is preceded by "the". "The phrase "a number" is plural. For example: A number of visitors are leaving. A  number have disappeared.  A number of votes were lost."

Therefore I humbly put it to you that my statement "is a refreshing number" woz correct. Thank you

PS only one "l" in spellink was correct speelling... Just sayink

Several variants on spelling the noun but what about the verb?

Dictionaries seen to disagree, some say "lightning" is a verb and thus "lightninged" a form of the past tense:; others say that " lighten" is the verb so "lightened" would be the way to say it in the past.  The problem with the former is that the  continuous version would be "lightninging"

Always been a problem to me and simply saying that the sentence should be constructed in such a way to avoid the problem is very unsatisfactory, I feel.........

wouldn’t the verb be more along the lines of arc or strike?! 

Yes, if you want to change the word entirely.

"If you are on the tops and it starts to thunder and ...... you need to seek lower ground"

Well that sort of language used to irk me as a child already! 

If you are on the tops and it starts to thunder and    .......... then you need to seek lower ground.

Didn't realise I hadn't written a sentence, sorry. Or is it "on the tops" that wrankles with you?

People who end sentences with 'already' ...... aaarrggggh!

was everyone Kung-Fu fighting?

What are you on about now? Quite obviously I was referring to “...it starts to thunder and lightning” 

Is that grammatically incorrect? I did not know! So for example you can’t say “I’ve done it already”, it has to be “I’ve already done it”? 

It's a new one to me if so. A quick google suggests otherwise: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/already

Obviously.

Enough, already. 

We were supposed to be getting it down South tomorrow, but the forecasts have all changed to just rain.

Best thunderstorm I've ever seen was in Grenoble - amazing view from the balcony of our Airbnb.

I also remember a hasty retreat from one of the tops of Cinque Torre with hair standing on end - we could see the storm approaching down one of the valleys, but oddly fizzled out before it got to us.

During a hasty retreat from the top of Grande Fache I saw a few lightning strikes on the ridge below me and basically panicked. I ran for the nearest gully and followed it down for a thousand feet, arrived at a col , took my bearings and  realised that I'd come down on the Spanish side  rather than my French starting point. It was quite a trek back round.

I must say I don't like 'scrutinize'. I prefer 'scrutinise'.

I did mean rankle.

I know it's possible to juggle your sentence around to avoid using "lightning" as a verb. I'm trying to find out about its status as a verb and how it should be used.

Your suggestion is fine but uses it as a noun and dodges the issue.

Grammar.com solves the problem by saying that lightning is always a noun. Neat solution but wrong.

Surely the verb is "lighten" so you'd get lightening as the present participle which would only be connected to lightning (the noun) in the effect that it (lightning) has on what you see as in "the lightning was lightening up the sky".

PS. A quick google has just turned up another noun usage of "lightening" - a drop in the level of the uterus during the last weeks of pregnancy as the head of the fetus engages in the pelvis.

Bet you weren't expecting that one! Hopefully I've not made any slips or had auto-correct fouling me up there 😁

East Cheshire just now. Torrential rain like I’ve never seen in the U.K. plus 10 minutes plus of continuous rolling thunder. Stunning

Edit: and it just keeps going! Not seen anything like this in 50 years. Cat’s not keen though.

Why?

I am not “dodging” anything and don’t consider there to be any issue.

Is it wrong? 

Academic interest.

Your solution does not address the usage of lightning as a verb.

I haven't counted them all up yet but most sources accept that lightning can be a verb: they tend to disagree about how it should be conjugated.

Edit: it seems that a lot of dictionaries dodge the issue as well.....   

Is this the new Tombstone? 

In the sense that tombstone can be used as a verb?  Or a particular fixation of mine?

Lightning and lightening are two completely different things. 

Lightning is a noun. It’s something that exists when it happens. No one does it.

Lightening is a verb. It’s the act of making something lighter. Reducing weight or increasing luminosity, or in the case of enlighten, make something more obvious. 
 

Two different words. Describing different things. 

Merriam Webster and several online sources ( though not as many as I thought) list "lightning" as a noun, adjective and verb.

It's further complicated by several authorities suggesting that the word "lighten" be used as a verb to describe the phenomenon of lightning, so you would get a sentence like "It started to thunder and lighten across the valley" or " It was thundering and lightening across the valley".

Not really. If the lightning was lighting up the valley then yes lighten would be correct, but that doesn’t mean lightening is correct. 

Shakespeare would disagrre with you...

He couldn’t even spell his own name. He’s hardly an authority on spelling. 

Not a matter of spelling : he uses the word "lightens" meaning "produces/flashes with lightning". 

That use also cited in a few other online dictionaries.

I agree with the word lightens. No issue with it. Doesn’t mean lightening is then used in place of lightning. Thundering is what you have when it thunders. Lightning is a stand alone word to describe what happens when you have lightning. You don’t have a clap of thundering and you don’t have a flash of lighten. 

I don't agree with any particular word but am trying to establish what the verb form of lightning is.

At the moment there seem to be three options : to lightning, to lighten or  -  deny the existence of any such verb.

I find it a bit odd that its existence can be denied when it has a listing in one of the major English language dictionaries in the world, though.

Lightening is a verb. But you don’t lightning, therefore there is not a separate verb for it. You do lighten, and therefore we have lightening.

Lightning is a noun, the verb of lightning is lightning. Lightening is a verb, but it is with the act to lighten, not the act to lightning. 

The latter. 

Right, so lightning can be a verb, as Merriam Webster and Wiktionary say.

Simple past tense "lightninged", continuous past " was lightninging".

I was always ready to accept that but the "lighten" version as offered by several  sources ( and WS) just made it confusing. As did the assertion that lightning cannot be a verb.

Lots of people have fixations . Someone on UKC used to have one about Dennis Quaid but seems to have grown out of it.

Exactly what is not grown up about a Dennis Quaid “fixation”, Tom V? 

It seems clear that 'lightning' as a verb is largely a recent development that, while accepted in some (mainly US?) sources, has yet to gain universal acknowledgement. These things are rarely black and white or fixed in stone; it's how language evolves.

You don’t add -ing to all words. 

Rugby, football, snooker, tennis etc. don’t have -ing endings added. “It was lightning“ is fine. 
 

The list you have provided is one of sports nouns which don't end in  - ing.

However, boxing fits the bill and  stays the same in some of its forms so.......

Ok so it was lightning is ok.

Just the matter of the simple past/ imperfect tense now

"While we sat round the campfire it thundered and l............  continuously."

Merriam Webster would go for "lightninged", Shakespeare would have said " lightened" and Blue Straggler would simply have rewritten the entire sentence.

“It was thundering and lightning continuously”

Cop out

Why? Because they didn’t use “lightnining”? It’s interesting that you admit that most dictionaries don’t have it as a verb so you are using the one established one that DOES, as the paragon. Personally I’d have grown out of this a few days ago. 

And yet, here you are   

I don't hold up MW as a paragon by any means but I can't deny its existence as one of the major English dictionaries in the world and as such any entry in it has a certain amount of validity. Wiktionary has probably less weight behind it but I wouldn't discount it outright, any more than I'd discount a Wikipedia article  simply because of its source. 

So basically it's back to square one:  either lightning can be used as a verb or it can't, and there's no consensus on this; and if it can be used as a verb, there's no agreement on how it should be conjugated .

Strange that you think I should grow out of an interest in the quirky nature of my native language. I also collect archaic names of birds and animals.

I didn't claim you said that : I drew an inference about your thoughts. I may well have been wrong but I absolutely didn't claim ( or want to claim) that you said it.

You seem a bit schoolmarmish today for some reason. At least my post didn't get dismissed as infantile and petulant so I should be grateful for that