Well, since Max was so kind as to post our winter photos, I thought I'd start a thread on winter words. This may have been done before (a search turns up nothing, though), but I was waxing philosophic about winter yesterday ('tis the only way to get through it!). Besides, it's a well-known Canadian tradition to talk (more like complain) about the weather, so I invite you all to join me. Anyway, to talk about weather, you need the right words to describe it! So I start with the photos themselves...

Dag is sitting on snowbanks - the piles of snow created by shovelling or plowing. That is different from snowdrifts, where the wind put the stuff there. The pile of snow left on the end of your driveway by the snowplows is called a windrow. Slush is what the roads look like most of the time here in the winter, because they salt the roads to melt the snow. Windchill is a measurement of how fast your body cools when exposed to wind. Just the word makes me shiver. I look out the window right now and I see flurries (snow both falling and blowing around simultaneously). We have had about six blizzards so far this year, and undoubtedly more to come (I don't know what separates a blizzard from a snowstorm).

My brother once built a quinzee (http://www.call-wild.com/quinzee.html), which is a hut built by hollowing out the middle of a snowbank.

On the coldest nights, we have to plug our block heater in, which keeps the engine block warm so the car will start in the morning. In the colder parts of Canada, people drive around all winter with an electric plug hanging out the front of the car's hood. (Everyone has driven away once or twice with the car still plugged in, and dragged the cord around town with them!) You can also get an interior car warmer (now there's a creative name) to keep the inside of the car warm. Frozen seats are quite uncomfortable in the mornings! If you have the money you get a remote car starter to start the car from inside the house, so it can warm up without you ever having to set foot outside.

What about clothing? In the photos, we are both wearing toques, the only thing worth wearing to keep your head and ears warm in the winter. Dag's wearing what my dad would call a parka, a big fluffy jacket to keep you nice and warm. I've got a windbreaker on, with a layer of fleece underneath. We're both probably wearing long underwear, though much more high-tech than the cartoon kind with the flap on the rear! Another of my most important items of winter wear is my neck-warmer. No, not a scarf, more like a knitted tube (a toque with no top), like a turtleneck without the sweater, to keep my neck and face warm against the cold winds. On the windiest days I'll have it pulled up to just below my eyes, and the toque to just above, leaving only a small slit to see out of.

OK, now two word problems. I have thought of two winter things with no names:

(1) We have a tool to break ice on the walkway. It looks like the things used to put pizzas in an oven at a pizzeria (another thing whose name I don't know), but much smaller, and made of metal. Please don't tell me it's just an icebreaker.

(2) What about the slushy, icy snow that builds up on your car's mudguards in the winter, and makes scraping noises on your tires when you make a sharp turn? You have to kick it off with your boots. What is the word for it???

(2) What about the slushy, icy snow that builds up on your car's mudguards in the winter, and makes scraping noises on your tires when you make a sharp turn? You have to kick it off with your boots. What is the word for it???

(I'm hoping the red font will help you feel warmer...)

Last winter, a Minneapolis columnist had something of a contest to come up with a name for just that phenomenon, and I really liked the winner... I continue to use the term because it was so satisfyingly onomatopoetic. Great Grungy Underwhomps.

Great, naturally, because they have a tendency to grow to epic proportions before you know it.
Grungy because they're never pristine white snow, they're always utterly filthy.
Underwhomps because A: they accumulate under (and behind) the wheel well, and B: the sound they make when you kick them off.

That coinage did it for me! I'll see if the article is still in his archives. If I can find the link, I'll post it here...

...We have a tool to break ice on the walkway

I've just sort of automatically called it an "ice chopper." Though come to think of it the chopping motion has no similarity at all to chopping with an axe (that would be a wood axe, not an ice axe)

okay, first things first; the ice-breaking tool
http://www.brookstone.com/shop/product.asp?product_code=319723

fenderwell glorp:
http://www.pseudodictionary.com/snowberg

We had the Slush Festival here in Ithaca back in the '80s. We had one in '83 I believe it was and in '84 we had the 5th Annual. Skipped a couple of years and had another '87 if I remember. That was the 101st Annual.

Quick google shows that Rochester, NY explicitly denies ever having had a Slush Festival (http://www.rnychamber.com/relocating/residents.shtml).

Toadsuck, NE claims to have one (http://www.capnwacky.com/forum/messages/521.html) but there is some question whether Toadsuck, NE even exists.

I am impressed with your ability to find stuff, tsuwm. However, I assure you ours is a budget ice chopper ($34.95US =~* $56.37 CAD) Probably cost us $12.95, and probably was still the subject of a "can we afford this" debate. Still, a spade bounces off ice when you're trying to break it, and threatens your toes. However, I'm unimpressed that it's just called an "Ice chopper/scraper". I thought there might be a more picturesque word.

And what is the name of the similarly-shaped thing in a pizzeria?

*I wish the character map had an "approximately equal to" sign. That's twice in the last month or so I've desired one!

We had the Slush Festival here in Ithaca back in the '80s

Fadlage, what does one do at a slush festival? Aside from getting very wet feet, I imagine?

FB, I like the Great Gungy Underwhomps. Another neat thing is that when you do knock them off, if you then back your car over them, they usually go "pop". If it's cold enough.

>Probably cost us $12.95

ours too, Bean -- but you can't find a pretty on-line picture of ours.

check out the other link I added above for 'snowberg'...

several years ago we took a winter vacation, and there was a big snowstorm whilst we were away. we had arranged for snow removal from our walks by the neighbors, but we returned in the midst of the storm, were diverted to Duluth where we stayed in the tiny Duluth airport(?) for 24 hours, and returned home to find a 3-foot ice-dam (no mere windrow, this) at the end of the driveway, courtesy of the city snow plows. we had to use an ice-ax, as even the Brookstone ice chopper/scraper wouldn't have fazed it.

We had rusty car contests, winter fashion shows, comparisons of slush from different parts of the county. One year we had a weather guessing event in which contestants guessed the weather in selected towns around the world. Alice Springs was one.

Oh, and traditionally beautiful warm sunny weather. In Ithaca. In March.

One of the pillars of the community, the front singer and titular leader of a local bar band* and, later, a member of the Ithaca Common Council declared, after the 5th Annual, "We should have Slush Festival every weekend."

*The Low Down Alligator Jass Band.

I don't know what separates a blizzard from a snowstorm

This is really dumb, me replying to my own post. But I managed to find a great thing about blizzards (definitions of) and some great descriptive stuff, for all you who have never experienced such a thing:

http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2000/alm00jan.htm

In addition to the well known snow shovel, there is the motorized snow blower and the efficient snow scoop.

Our local paper has also had contests to name the gunk which accumulates in the wheel wells, but so far none of the nominations has hit squarely.

Michigan Tech University has a Winter Festival every year, with a spectacular snow sculpture contest. There is a photo of one of the entries on the bottom left of this page:

http://www.fannyhooe.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?target=14



EDIT: more photos of snow sculptures

http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~yinma/life/WinterCarnival2001.html

is called a pizza paddle. But somewhere in the back of my mind there's another word for it.

And have youy ever noticed that a peson who works around the oven has no hair on his or her forearms. Burnt off from the heat of the oven. Now: do NOT think about where those ashes go. I defy you to STOP thinking about it now that the image has been planted in your mind.

TEd -- who cooks his own pizzas, thank you

blobs in your wheel wells: we call them crud-budgies. NO idea why.

re:And what is the name of the similarly-shaped thing in a pizzeria?

a peel. and pizza ovens are technically peel ovens. from the latin pala, related to the latin word for a stake or stick..(leads into stockade, and pale..)
(some where in a RATA (or a yart, or what ever) in some food thread, i actually made a pun with peel.

Ny'ers call them ice choppers too, and since we don't chop wood, never thought to made that association.. but they do work like old fashioned choppers for nuts.. remember them? a cutter, in a jar with a wood block in the bottom, and you pushed down to chop nuts or parsley? not a food thread, not a food thread..think about chopping, a verb..

Here's another one: circular ice formations are pancakes. There's a photo of some pancakes on the middle right of this page:

www.pasty.com/cam/2001/cam012101.html

Note that the photo was taken with the Pasty cam!

crud-budgies.

My mom says "crud-bugs" when she needs a non-serious swear. No idea why.

Sparteye, I'm supposed to be working! But you tempt me to look up too many things. In this case, Newfoundland words for ice-related things, all of which I've heard but since I don't actually work on the sea I looked up the definitions for accuracy:

ice pans - seem to be like your pancakes
copying - jumping from pan to pan (rather dangerous, but used to be a childrens' pastime)
growler -"Piece of floating ice esp hazardous to vessels because of its instability or indeterminate size." (Dictionary of Nfld. English)
bergy bit - "large chunk of glacier ice (a very small iceberg) floating in the sea" (All About...Glaciers)
slob ice - "Heavy, slushy, densely packed mass of ice fragments, snow and freezing water, esp. on the surface of the sea; sludge" (Dictionary of Nfld. English)

All this talk about snow!! NYC has steam pipes under many streets, and many of them leak (steam!) (you know those scene in movies, where a scary character appears out of a fog..)

it's rare for manhattan to have very much in the way of snow accumulations. steam heated streets don't favor snow.

NYC has steam pipes under many streets

Am I missing something obvious here? Why would there be steam pipes under the streets? Or is that just incidental to some other use for the pipes? Needless to say, snow doesn't usually accumulates near a sewer grate...all that nice hot stuff (!) running into the sewer keeps it quite warm...YUCK!

NY local utility, Con Ed (Consolidated Edison Company) sell us NYs electrical services, gas (natural gas) and in Manhattan, it aslo sell steam. (for generators, and heating purposes.) the steam is a by product of its electrical generation..

Con Ed is pretty consistantly, year in year out, one of the most expensive utility providers. Last year, when all of California was complaining about the high cost of electricty, (as enron practiced price gouging), i notice that the average rate that drove our west coast denizens wild was $0.08 per kilowatt.. NYers regularly pay $0.12 to 0.14 -- i didn't have too much sympathy for them.

How many of you juvenile city slickers ever went on a real old-time New England Hayride?

Which one of you Northern sods stole our Summer?
Prolly the same one who stole my winter!!

Australian Winter Words

Footy

Footy

Footy

Beer

Meat Pies

Rain

Wind

Mud

I don't think there's any more.

We are but simple folk....

stales

How many of you juvenile city slickers ever went on a real old-time New England Hayride?

Dear Dr. Bill,

Not a New England Hayride (since I've never been there) but I've definitely been on hayrides. Horses, hay, sled, snow...I've experienced all those, so what makes it "real old-time"? Are you tempting us with a story?

In most large cities, New York and Baltimore included, there are openings in the sidewalks to allow ventilation for the subway (or Metro, or whatever the local term). The openings are covered with gratings and, in cold weather, are extremely popular with the homeless and other wretches who resort to them to keep warm from the warm air that rises up from below.

One winter word can bring misery: frostbite. It commonly nips kids' ears when sliding on a very cold night, if they fail to keep ears covered. The pain when they thaw out is quite disagreeable, but worse is the chance of developing auto-immune disease that has been alleged to be beginning of ankylosing spondylitis. Ask the man who owns one.

If you have the right kind of maple trees, it can be fun to make candy from the syrup, by boiling it down and pouring it onto snow.

"Jack Wax" or "Maple on Snow" is a maple product produced by pouring hot maple syrup over snow or crushed or cracked ice. It is most commonly eaten quickly, rather than stored for future use.

Make "Jack Wax" or "Maple on Snow" by heating maple syrup to a temperature 18 to 40oF above the boiling temperature of pure water and immediately pouring the heated syrup over snow or cracked or crushed ice. The nature of the product produced depends on the temperature attained. At the lower end of the temperature range, the "Jack Wax" will be taffy-like, and chewy; at the upper end of the temperature range it will be much harder, and more glass-like.

Dear wwh,

And, too, it would depend upon the grade of maple syrup. I went to a sugar house in Connecticut a few years back, and watched the syrup being made. Now that is a sight to behold--that big metal tray with horizontal channels for the white syrup to go boiling about--the sweetness in the air like cotton candy--the heat of the fire--the steam in the air--the darkening of the syrup.

I understood from the syrup maker, who is no longer with us, that the later in the season, the darker the syrup that is finally bottled after processing. I can't remember, however, which is considered better--the early light syrup or the later darker syrup. I avoid the stuff myself, but, oh, I would love to visit a sugar house or two again before my time's up here.

Wonder how your Jack Wax would be affected by these different grades of syrup? (I have no idea anymore what this thread is about--oh, that's right: winter things--and here I've gone and bounced into syrup making--when's that? Early spring?)

Brisk regards,
WinterWax

Dear WW: I was talking about making syrup from your own trees. Using purchased syrup is so g-d expensive it would be idiotic to make candy from it.

Mmmmmmmm, maple syrup - absolulely love the stuff. Eggs & ham cooked in syrup is my favorite spring-time brekky food.

Bill, it would take a hell of a lot of trees to make enough maple syrup to satisfy your own needs let alone any family member you may have. The sap has to be boiled for a good while before it thickens to syrup stage - most of water evaporates. One tree is not enough.

The light syrup is usually the biggest seller. There is so much of it during sap season that it isn't all that expensive.

OFFER: If anybody going to Wordapalooza wants some, I can always bring some down. Just drop me a note and I'll bring you a can.

Aaahhh...frostbite. Most Winnipeggers have experienced it. All you have to do is forget your toque on a cold day. My experience was my own fault, it was junior high, and I decided not to wear earmuffs (too un-cool!) on a day of -28 C with windchill 1800 W/m^2 (equivalent temp, -38, according to my sources). Very painful. I've had mild frostbite twice since then, once when the temperature was only hovering around the freezing point. I didn't expect to need a toque at 0 C. The wind was ridiculous, though, 70 km/h. So for the next week the skin on my ears was peeling happily. That was just last year.

And in Manitoba we didn't call it sliding, it was tobogganing. In Newfoundland, though, it's sliding.

ankylosing spondylitis - arthritic back pain -- I LIU!
but how frostbitten ears can lead to it seems pretty far fetched to me!

Dr B, noticed you used the phrase "Ask the man who owns one" ... wasn't that the ad motto for Packard cars?
Well sure nuf'! I found this link http://www.packard.ws/

Bean, you should put vaseline on your ears before going out. It provide a bit of coverage when you don't put on a hat 'cause it "looks" too hot. But, (mom alert, mom alert) PUT ON YOU HAT DEAR!!!

Ah - a blast from the past

Many years ago I saw a (pint/quart?) tin of "Staley's Maple Syrup". It was green with silvery writing as I recall.

Does this stuff still exist? I MUST get ahold of some - even an empty tin would be good.

PPLLEEEEZZ let me know - I'll be your friend....

stales