[Ads-l] firenado (was Re: QOTY nominee: "Truth isn't truth")

[Jonathan Lighter]

Turdnado.

5,100 Google hits, incl. UrbanDictionary.

JL

On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 2:16 PM Chris Waigl <chris at lascribe.net> wrote:

> Even though Garson has already illustrated a usage from 1995, I'll add how
> and when I first came across "firenado". In 2013, a video from the Alaska
> (State) Division of Forestry was handed around in my circles. The WaPo even
> wrote an article on it. (At that point, full disclosure, I was in my first
> year of a PhD that deals with wildfire in Alaska. Those black spruce sure
> burn well. This fire ended up at ~20,000 acres without doing any major
> damage.)
>
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/08/20/firenado-wild-fire-tornado-in-alaska-video/
>
> Chris
>
> On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 3:36 AM ADSGarson O'Toole <
> adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > John Kelly mentioned that "firenado" was in use by 1995. Here is a
> > part of a Usenet message containing "firenado" in April 1995. This
> > might be the citation Kelly is talking about.
> >
> > Usenet message
> > Date: 1995/04/14
> > Newsgroup: sci.geo.meteorology
> > From: jcl... at lamar.ColoState.EDU (James Clarke)
> > Subject: Books: HEAVY WEATHER
> >
> > https://goo.gl/SuGT1N
> >
> >
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.geo.meteorology/iwuKG0uDY0g/YwisHuPXCYAJ
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > Boy, I wish that guy would have called me before he finished the book!
> >  With lower to mid stratospheric air and no clouds, the potential temp
> > is about 500F.  Instead of a COLD blast of air, he could have
> > described a funnel of this F6 setting fire to the dry plains, a
> > FIRENADO!   Oh well...
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Garson
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 10:47 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 8:13 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> On a less political and WOTYer note, how established was the blend
> > >> “firenado” before the conflagrations of the last month or two in
> Redding
> > >> and elsewhere?
> > >
> > >
> > > John Kelly has this to say on the Oxford Dictionaries blog:
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2018/08/10/weekly-word-watch-snapchat-dysmorphia-hothouse-firenado/
> > >
> > > "The Oxford English Dictionary currently enters _fire tornado_ in 1871,
> > > while the blended _firenado_ appears at least by 1995 and became more
> > > common in the 2000-10s. _Snownado_ and _gustnado_ are sometimes used
> for
> > > other strangely spinning weather events -- though many may best know
> > > _-nado_ as a combining form in the _Sharknado_ film series."
> > >
> > > More "-nados" in this 2014 column by Mark Peters:
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dictionary/snownados-in-hothlanta-the-world-of-weather-blends/
> > >
> > > --bgz
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
> http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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