One often hears about Eskimos having 53 different names for snow. But what do we know about these different kinds of it? Until the research that I used to produce this article, the answer was nothing.
To compile this list, I have used a new journalism technique called CIR, Creative Imaginative Reporting. This merges 1) my experience, 2) the results from good old-fashioned investigative bullying, 3) Wikipedia articles / old movies, and 4) guesswork.
Here, then, are the 53 kinds of snow that Eskimos know as intimately as we know our own makes of cars and pants.
(Since Inuit languages feature many consonants that are indistinguishable to a Western ear – e.g. QQU’, KKR’ and WT’F – instead of alphabetic order, these are listed in the order in which I picked up the index cards after they fell off the reading ledge of my exercise bike.)
- FNAFF: an amusing little snow that falls around you like baby bunny feet on cotton balls.
- PRUDD: an hour’s worth of snow that comes down in one big, van-denting flake.
- PURSKIYA: a Russian Orthodox snow, but it’s hard to tell unless you spend about a week in the same house with it.
- KREBB: snow that falls on the just and the unjust alike.
- TRALL’PEW: snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes and are a son of a bitch to get off .
- DÉJÀ SNOW: snow that falls, goes back up, then falls again, but snowier the second time.
- LA’AAB NARK: snow that you don’t remember being there when you went inside to get something you forgot, but you come out again like five minutes later, not even, and there it is all over the ground, and you’re like, where the fuck that come from?
- POLT: snow that remains liquid at armpit level and above, but turns to moist air below that, with the result that you get home looking like a giraffe pissed on your shoulders.
- REMM’OQ: snow that looks like scaled-up snow-globe snow: shiny-white and the size of playing cards.
- MU’DERT: snow that seems to sing light opera. To this day nobody knows how.
- LANKK-PLITT: snow that falls like it’s late for something.
- HANGGK: very considerate snow. It lands only on the shovel.
- OR-GRIFF’T: snow that somehow falls in the original packaging.
- MY’UH: the snow that dare not speak its name.
- HLLEPT: snow that manages to be crunchy even before you walk on it.
- SMUUP-MELL: snow that self-identifies as hail.
- DREBB DREBB: an unpleasantly sarcastic snow. As if falls it asks you what you think you’re gonna do about it.
- LIFFSIKK: the kind of snow Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne were thinking of.
- J’RR’GRIGG: snow that falls at the muzzle velocity of a Sig Sauer 556 swat patrol 16” with the 1-7 twist, shooting a federal 62 grain tbbc LE223T3 round. This snow ain’t fucking around.
- PATCHOI: snow that gits with tha, gits with tha, gits with tha, gits with tha beat.
- HUMPLEBONK: a snow that no other form of precipitation, most of which have known the snow all its life, can possibly take seriously.
- YVERPO’OL: snow that fakes you out. You totally thought it was someone tapping you on the shoulder. Wow it sure got you.
- TR’UMM: snow that grabs the pussy of the snow that fell the week before.
- NNUURK: snow with its own press agent.
- CAFFGUP: snow that happens in Vegas and stays in Vegas.
- TAPPLE SU’UR: snow that, due to extraordinary conditions of wind, humidity and ground radiation, stops in mid-air as if hanging on invisible strings, so that when you walk through it, melting individual flakes with your body, you make a you-shaped tunnel. In Kenya, video taken during this snow has been used as evidence in giraffe thefts.
- BLEGG: snow that bounces. Sounds like fun at first, but Jesus.
- SYUUPP’OL: gay snow. You have to look really close at the flakes, but they’re identical and they’re holding hands.
- MESKK: not so much a snow as a way of life.
- PALDERAY: jalapeño snow that you put out at a party next to the regular snow but afterwards it’s mostly still left in the bowl. Which you always somehow forget the next time you go shopping.
- GLEMMF: the kind of snow that used to fall back when you were in high school but none of these kids today will believe you.
- A’ANUQ: les neiges d’antan. (Où sont-elles?)
- KRO’QIL: quantum-indeterminate snow. It only has either precise position or velocity when you collapse the wave function by having a driveway.
- JORR-QUNT: a snow that inspires poets, because it smells of divorce and wine.
- UINT: snow that, due to unique properties of high-altitude flake formation, falls like maple keys, in fluttering spirals. Also, under a microscope, it looks like Dick Button.
- WALLF: a good, sturdy, frolicking-in snow, the life of every outdoor party. Now available in Fun Acre Size ™.
- SIFF’UM: a popular snow that has an even cuter sister who likes to tease boys while flinging her hair back and laughing.
- AP-APP: the ideal snow for making snowmen, because it comes with its own carrots.
- PLONT: a snow of almost unbearable poignancy. I mean, just look at it.
- JIKK: snow that, amazingly, is even better the next day microwaved for lunch or in a salad.
- DELLA’Q: the snow used in 1930s and ‘40s movies, where the actors pretend to shiver in it and it’s like, fuck off, I’m bits of white plastic.
- POOSELL: snow that reminds one ineluctably, but wherefore one knows not, of the late great Gig Young.
- ROOW: tis snow unwalks the paths of youth… / suffers sweetly some to come without a fuss / and gristles up the rest of us
- HADDTH: a plain, persistent snow with no discernable sense of humor.
- FLEPPO: snow that doesn’t so much fall as zip line.
- ULLOO’T: snow that reminds you of the carefree woodsy days of your small town childhood, until you remember that terrifying thing at the back of the barn that they warned you never to touch.
- YUOO: show that always seems to be more fun over there.
- LAGG: snow that brings its “A” game, cos it’s all ‘bout representing.
- WULLON-PYTT: snow for which there’s no charge if the appointment is cancelled at least 24 hours in advance.
- FREEP: a nerdy kind of snow that you laugh at at first… then you realize, holy cow, it speaks a basic truth that the more hipster-y snow can’t even see. Man, you really have to reappraise your prejudices.
- ZNOW-ZURR: a snow that you really never see coming. It’s a nice night, maybe some stars, you look up, and BLA-DOW! right in your face! and you’re all, “Whuuu?”
- BINNT: snow that really misses the good shows, like the kind they made back in the 70s; McMillan And Wife, Starsky & Hutch, Columbo. What happened to that guy? Didn’t he die?
- ZEFF-DURR: basic snow, no extras. If you want cold, you want clumpy, magical, if you want anything else at all that’ll be extra. No not powdery are you listening to me, what did I just say?
Dave & Margie Hill / Kleerup
http://tinyurl.com/q5bfg63
