Mist, Fog and Haze - Climate and the English Language
Last night I posted a photo of a very foggy street - which, due to the fog, was pretty much invisible - and asked myself what would happen if flesh-eating zombies suddenly came out of the fog to roam our streets. Trying to find descriptive words that somehow work well with vague photos of trees and descriptions of fog and mist and zombies, I came across the following explanation for the word haze. I like language and am no stranger to complaining about Dutch / European weather, which makes this description a must-share. Do enjoy!
Haze
n.
1706, probably a back-formation of hazy. Sense of "confusion, vagueness" is 1797. The English differentiation of haze, mist, fog (and other dialectal words) is unmatched in other tongues, where the same word generally covers all three and often "cloud" as well, and this may be seen as an effect of the English climate on the language.
Word Origin and History for haze | Dictionary.com