Son of snowpocalypse

[Benjamin Zimmer]

More on snow-portmanteaux in my latest Word Routes:

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2166/


On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 12:49 PM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>
> 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.
> > --

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