OT: Saturday 11:30 AM - 26 inches

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 6:54 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> So what -- and when, and why -- were A--- through M---??  (The 2012
> *hurricanes* were not Nemo and Orko, but Nadine and Oscar.  And the
> list ended at Tony, so U--- and V--- are available if we were to
> continue that line.)

A moment's Googling reveals Weather.com's full lineup, along with
glosses for the names:

http://www.weather.com/news/winter-storm-names-20121001

Some interesting choices, such as "Gandolf" (not "Gandalf") for "G" --
glossed as "A character in a 1896 fantasy novel in a pseudo-medieval
countryside." Turns out that's _The Well at the World's End_ by
William Morris, one of Tolkien's inspirations. Perhaps they were
avoiding having to deal with the Tolkien estate by going with the
public-domain spelling.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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