antedate: vog (volcanic smog), 1991

[Mark Mandel]

My sister, a medical transcriptionist, encountered the word "vog", a
portmanteau of "volcanic smog", and sent it to me. It's not in OED or M-W.
"vog volcan*", without quotes, gets about 50k raw ghits. It shows up once in
the archives -- posted, not surprisingly, by the inexhaustible Barry Popik:

>>>
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0002C&L=ADS-L&P=R2568&I=-3
Date:         Sun, 20 Feb 2000 05:06:44 EST
Subject:      Coinages (part ten)

I think it's part ten. This continues a series of checking the word "coined"
on computer databases. These may or may not be correct. This is from
Readers' Guide Abstracts 1983-2000, which yielded 224 hits.

6 May 1995, SCIENCE, pp. 285-6--Hawaiians have coined the name vog, for
volcanic smog, to describe the problem.
<<<


This poster presentation --
    http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/MET/Faculty/businger/poster/vog/
    Concentration and dispersion modeling of the Kilauea plume
-- cites a 1991 use --
>>>
Morrow, J.W. (1991c): Volcanic effects on the elemental composition of
inhalable particulates in Hilo and Captain Cook. Vog and Laze Seminar, Hilo,
Hawaii.
<<<

-- which is listed in the Hawaiian Collection Acquisitions List (Jan.-June
1996) of the University of Hawai`i:
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~speccoll/hawaiiacq696n.html
>>>
University of Hawaii at Hilo. Vog and Laze Seminar, 29 July 1991. Hilo,
Hawaii: [The Center; 991]. TD883.5.H3 V64 1991.
<<<

http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Volcanic_gases.html
has definitions of "vog" and "laze" (< "lava" + "haze").

The search also turned up this cute URL, for "Important Information about
VOG" (Office of the Governor, State of Hawai`i):
    http://hawaii.gov/gov/vog

Mark Mandel

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