Snain. Indeed. Snain.
OK, this is a made up word and a pretty stupid one at that.
On the other hand I hereby endorse graupel. Graupel totally works for me, graupel is obscure certainly, but does have the odor and patina of "completely made up."
On the other hand we have "snain".
The Urban Dictionary gives the following definition for "snain":
"A slushy mix of snow flakes and rain droplets. The outter (sic) layer of a snain flake is soft and slushy while the inner core is icy. This wintry mix makes walking and driving rather fun"
OK, stop right there. The problem seems to me to be that "snain" attempts to conflate several different precipitation types into a single type for the purpose of, technical term here, sounding hip.
What about this "snain". Well, if it is a slushy mix of snow flakes and rain droplets it is either freezing rain or rain turning to snow. These are both highly useful descriptions. Each gives you all of the information you need to know what sort of precipitation is falling from the sky. And both give you that information without you having to go out and expose yourself to the elements to determine which variation of "snain" is currently occurring. By this point in our lives we all know what each of those types of precipitaion is.
Secondly, if the outer layer is soft and slushy while the inner core is icy the precipitation event is sleet. And further more there is NO WINTRY MIX that makes walking and driving RATHER FUN. ON WHAT PLANET? Wintry mixes are miserable, miserable for walking but absolutely treacherous for driving.
I think this whole thing arises out of some sort of misguided effort to make our language more like the "eskimo" languages which are believed by lots of us in the snow belt to have an unusually large number of words for "snow".
There's a Wikipedia article, in fact a couple of Wikipedia articles seem relevant.
From the first of the two cited articles:
"In fact, the Eskimo–Aleut languages have about the same number of distinct word roots referring to snow as English does, but the structure of these languages tends to allow more variety as to how those roots can be modified in forming a single word. A good deal of the ongoing debate thus depends on how one defines "word", and perhaps even "word root"."
The article continues by citing an evaluation of the issue by at least one commenter referring to it all as the "Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax".
What are we to make of the fact that the large number of languages spoken by the large number of different northern indigenous peoples generally all have about the same number of words for snow as English?
We are to make that making up a new one, particularly a stupid new one which does a less adequate job of describing winter precipitation than words that we already have and use, is a fool's errand.
On the other hand, as always, I don't really have to decide so I guess I won't. Everyone is allowed to go ahead and refer to any given precipitation event as "snain" if doing so makes them happy.
Enjoy.
3 comments:
That whole driving in wintry mix is fun thing is mindless, of course.
Boots are needed for graupel, and other forms of slippery stuff underfoot. I need a new pair if I'm going to get enough exercise from now until the great departure date. Where'd you buy Emmy's?
Emily picked them out and sent us a link. We think REI, Emily may remember.
My boots did indeed come from REI. The last two pairs, actually.
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