Snowpeople

[George Thompson]

Snow figures are not necessarily sexless.  Much depends on where the carrot
is placed.

GAT

On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 2:10 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:

> With Seattle under a huge blanket of snow (for Seattle), I turned to the
> OED to find out about snowpeople. Neither the OED nor the AHD have
> "snowperson." Wiktionary has it, along with snowman and snowwoman though
> without citations.
>
> While we don't see snowpeople on a yearly basis here in Seattle, I've used
> "snowperson" for many years when applicable because it seems odd to
> identify sexless and female figures as men. I believe my twelve-year-old
> niece uses the word as well. My dog walker did, though, advise me this
> morning to make a snowman.
>
> The query ("snowperson" OR "snowpeople") gets 1.1 million raw Googits.
>
> According to
> http://www.neighborhoodarchive.com/mrn/episodes/1245/index.html, Mister
> Rogers' Neighborhood introduced a Snow People opera in 1972 (not likely I
> watched it as Mr. Rogers was passé then for my age group). Searching on
> that site reveals other snow people episodes.
>
> According to
> http://christmas-specials.wikia.com/wiki/Frosty's_Winter_Wonderland, the
> 1976 "Frosty's Winter Wonderland" discusses snowpeople.
>
> The word does not get many hits until the period between 1995 and 2000 and
> usage skyrockets after that.
>
> For ("snow person" OR "snow people"), there is a book "Snow Magic"
> published in 1988 that talks about snow people (
> http://www.worldcat.org/title/snow-magic/oclc/018622345). The
> chronological use of this spelling patterns in a way similar to the
> spelling without the space.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org