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johnslat · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2016 12:13 pm Post subject: Snow job

You may have heard that "Eskimos" have 30 words for "snow." You may have heard that's not really the case, that it's a myth that's been debunked.

Well, now it's been undebunked Very Happy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/there-really-are-50-eskimo-words-for-snow/2013/01/14/e0e3f4e0-59a0-11e2-beee-6e38f5215402_story.html

Regards,
John

adventious · Joined: 23 Nov 2015 Posts: 237 Location: In the wide

This came up on my AWAD (A Word A Day) subscription today: snowclone

MEANING:
noun: A cliché adapted to a new use.
For example, a statement of the form “X is the new Y” (such as “Gray is the new black”). See more examples here.

ETYMOLOGY:
Coined by economics professor Glen Whitman in 2004, after the popular (but erroneous) idea that Eskimos have many words for snow, which is extended by others into the form: If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have N words for Y.

USAGE:
“The next time you read about a ‘hidden epidemic’, be aware that you are drifting into a snowclone: recent hidden epidemics have involved chlamydia, illiteracy, autism, and gambling.”
David Rowan; The Next Big Thing; The Times (London, UK); Dec 3, 2005.

This stood out:

Others also recognize the urgency of this work. As many indigenous people turn away from their traditional lifestyle, the expertise encapsulated in their vocabulary is fading. That is why researchers such as Krupnik are trying to compile and present their dictionaries to the local communities, as lasting records of their heritage.

Because what priority the welfare of indigenous people has been given has always been shameful and crises are too common.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/attawapiskat-suicide-first-nations-emergency-1.3528747

gregory999 · Joined: 29 Jul 2015 Posts: 372 Location: 999

johnslat · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2016 10:06 pm Post subject:

Boy, talk about a sore loser. The gist of the article: Yes, OK, there ARE 50 or more "Eskimo" words for snow. Boy, you write one essay called "The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax," and everyone laughs at you when it turns it it wasn't a hoax. But I wasn't REALLY calling it a "Hoax." " I mocked the credulous parroting and arbitrary numerical invention that one finds in newspapers and magazines, and critiqued the practice of repeating traveler's tales about exotic peoples without having any evidence. Forgive my pique, but I'm a bit annoyed to see Robson attributing my only contribution, the cutesy name, to folklore. . . . It is not true that "most linguists considered it an urban legend": many taught it in their introductory classes throughout the 1960s and 1970s and on into the 1980s, and I am sure there are some who still do."

Bottom line: It has never been a "hoax."