I have to admit, I’m a sucker for snow. As soon as I see the first flake fall, I’m digging my boots out of the closet, hopeful for a significant accumulation. Unfortunately, where I live, the chances of that hover somewhere between slim and none – but I can dream. I’ve heard it said that the Inuit have 50 different words for snow – why wouldn’t they – but I’ve recently discovered that BBC reports that the Scots language of Northern Scotland claims a whopping 421.
Snow & Snow Behavior
snaw – snow
sneesl – to begin to rain or snow
skelf – a large snowflake
feefle – to swirl
flindrikin – a slight snow shower
snaw-pouther – find driving snow
spitters – small drops or flakes of wind-driven rain or snow
unbrak – the beginning of a thaw
Your Turn
What words do you use to describe snow? If you don’t live in a snowy area, what words do you use for the weather you get most often?
Help your kids create a list of the words they use for weather – from fog to wind to drizzle.
Help them to see that these words do not have exactly the same meaning, but they are all shades of meaning from the original word!
Try This
Ask your child to draw a picture of what each of these words calls to mind. If they, like me, are not facile with drawing, ask them to write a sentence or two, or create a comic with stick figure characters. And again, if snow is not your thing, use the weather they know best.
Bottom Line
Look around, and if the word to describe what you see doesn’t exist, do what Nick does in Frindle by Andrew Clements, when he uses the word frindle rather than pen. It may take some time for people to catch on, but the more closely your new word describes something about the object – or not, the more likely people are to use your word.
Read more: BBC, Scots Thesaurus