[Ads-l] "snow farm", not in OED; 1970--? Bostonism?

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Thu Feb 16 19:30:44 UTC 2017


John Baker initiated a thread on "snow farm" back in March 2015 when
he offered the term as 2015 Word of the Year and listed some
citations:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2015-March/136151.html

Other phrases were mentioned: ice farm, body farm, fuel farm.

Garson


On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Joel Berson <berson at att.net> wrote:
> Does it go back to the older sense of "to farm" as "to collect taxes, fees, etc."?
>
> Joel
>
>
>       From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>  To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>  Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 11:28 AM
>  Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "snow farm", not in OED; 1970--? Bostonism?
>
> Is this a productive euphemism process?  Can we reconceptualize automobile junkyards “car farms”?  And town dumps “garbage farms”?  And sewers “underwater waste farms”?  Who says farming is in trouble?
>
> LH
>
>> On Feb 16, 2017, at 11:23 AM, Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>>
>> A quick peek into the Boston Globe shows an instance on Jan. 21,1970, in a picture caption:
>>
>> "Boston's snow farm in the Seaport District kept getting bigger."
>>
>> Another winter storm slams Boston (Photo 4 of 57) - Pictures - The Boston Globe
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>> Another winter storm slams Boston (Photo 4 of 57) - Pictures - The Boston ...
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>> And there are many instances from the notorious season of 2014--2015.
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>> Google Books seems tedious, since (as far as I know) it doesn't respect capitalization.
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>> The "Lexicon" column in today's Boston Globe defines it as "Where blizzards go to die."  Is it a Bostonism?
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>>
>> Joel
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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