Son of snowpocalypse

[Benjamin Zimmer]

As a Twitter hashtag, at least, "snOMG" has been popular. I've also seen
"snownami" and (more creatively) "Snotorious B.I.G."

As for "snowmageddon" and "snowpocalypse", Arnold Zwicky mentioned them here in
Dec. 2008:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0812C&L=ADS-L&P=R4663

Both of these have been with us since at least '05:

http://overhere-caitlin.blogspot.com/2005/12/snowmageddon.html
http://www.rexworld.com/2005/12/08/snowmageddon-2005/

http://rbohlender.blogspot.com/2005/12/snowpocalypse-is-upon-us.html
http://seattle.metblogs.com/2005/11/28/that-time-of-year-again/

And see Mark Peters' Good column on "-(ma)geddon" and "-(poc)alypse" more
generally:

http://www.good.is/post/wordgeddon

--Ben Zimmer


On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Alice Faber wrote:
>
> I could have sworn it was on this list, but a search doesn't turn up
> anything, but, in any case, in the past few months we've seen a bunch of
> references to the "snowpocalypse" (500,000+ ghits), with such variations
> as  "Snowpocalypse II: Electric Boogaloo" (1900 ghits), referring
> specifically to last week's storm in the Washington area, "snowmaggedon"
> (112,000 ghits), "snowmageddon" (804,000 ghits). Sports fans in
> Washington referred to last weekend's storm as "Snowvechkin" (only 800
> ghits, but see
>
<http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalsinsider/snovechkin-ends-with-a-hat-tri.html>).
>
> "Snowverload" seems not to have legs (200-ish ghits), but "snoverkill"
> (21,000 ghits)/"snowverkill" (3,800 ghits), which I noticed this morning
> in a friend's Facebook status, has potential.
>
> Of course, based on what I see outside my window, the folks who
> essentially closed down Connecticut for today, were suffering from a
> massive snowvereaction.
> --
> ========================================================================
> Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
> Haskins Laboratories                            tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
> New Haven, CT 06511 USA                               fax (203) 865-8963
>
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