"snow day" superstitions

[Barnhart]

_Snow-day_ appears in 1913 (at least, maybe earlier):

"We have a man who plays at cleaning off the snow every snow-day."

In "The Social Secretary," _Lincoln [Neb.] Daily News_, Dec. 26, 1913, p 4

This sense is, however, not quite the same--just a day of snow.  I
remember more than one "snow day" in the blizzard of 1947 (suburban NYC
region).  But, I don't remember at that tender age what people called it.

One local school librarian (Hyde Park, N.Y.) remembered no special
superstitious behavior.  However, her assistant says her daughter will put
her pajamas on backwards and dance around the house.  There has been no
study on the efficacy of this behavior on the atmosphere.

Regards,
David

barnhart at highlands.com

American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on Thursday, March 3,
2005 at 10:58 AM  wrote:


>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Barbara Need <nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: "snow day" superstitions
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 07:07 -0800 03/3/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>Also, what's the earliest date fro "snow day" ?  This seems to me to
>>be from the ''80s - not that I ever took notes on it.
>
>1980s? No, it is certainly earlier than that! I got snow days in
>Andover, MA in the 70s. Five were built into the school year, so if
>we didn't have any, we ended school a week earlier than planned.
>
>Barbara
>