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No end in sight to this very warm to hot weather across the bulk of the United Kingdom. No significant rain in the forecast. It’s as you were this week the hot spots around thirty Celsius.
(BBC’s weather fore-cast)

In a BBC’s weather forecast, I don’t understand a phrase - as you were. Would you explain what it means in this case?

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"As you were" is a standard military command. It means, literally, "[return] to your previous posture". Soldiers must snap to a formal "attention" position when an officer enters their presence, and the officer issues this command to indicate they may resume their prior activities. The order is also used figuratively to command troops to moderate a temporary excitement. A poster on Urban Dictionary wittily describes the command as "The reset button of life."

In this case the writer means simply that the prevailing hot weather will continue; I think it is a misuse of the phrase, which would be better employed when the mild warmth the British call a heat wave finally breaks.

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    I agree it's at least bordering on a "misuse". But the weatherman seems to be stumbling over his words anyway, and I suppose maybe we can also slightly excuse him because he imagines his audience are still totally committed to dealing with the current UK heatwave since his last broadcast (so he means "carry on dealing with it as you were yesterday"). It hit 94F in my back garden this afternoon, which is quite hot enough for me.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 16:35
  • I've just been in San Francisco where the news was all ablaze with the term "heat-wave" to describe temperatures on the west-coast approaching 85F/30C. Whilst the British certainly don't understand Summer heat like someone from, say, Arizona might, there are many Americans who are equally capable of becoming confused and excited by temperatures anywhere above 70F/21C.
    – Matt
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 0:38
  • @Matt San Francisco is, I believe, a Foreign Country.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 0:39
  • @StoneyB: Part of the Republic of California, no less. Also Seattle considers anything that isn't raining to be part of a heat-wave :)
    – Matt
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 0:52
  • I don't find it to be a misuse of the phrase, because I think the words mean something slightly different in the context of a weather forcast. It's not the military idiom; instead, it means, essentially, "the weather will continue to be the same as it was last week." In this case "It's as you were" is roughly equivalent to saying "You will be as you were" – i.e., very warm. It's not a reset, it's a continuation, thus, the definition at Collins doesn't apply. At least, that's how I read it.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 18:15
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I'm in the military, and, especially when marching, someone in charge will use the term "as you were" to one that made a mistake, to order them to assume the state they were in before the mistake. Some other similar meaning terms would be "as I was" or "as you fucking were".

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  • @StoneyB on hiatus Great explanation but I've got a little confused about the usage of the word "posture" in your answer as I know that it's a military term that means "capability in terms of personnel and materiel that affect the capacity to fight a war" although I doubt this is the usage here. Does "posture" in this context mean "a state, situation, or condition"?
    – Static Bounce
    Commented Feb 2 at 16:35

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