snow-eaters

[George Lang]

I think part of the problem is that people, including journalists -- one of whom
recently asked me this same question -- are not always very good with anaphora, as
it were

Thus they leap to the conclusion that "chinook" means "snow-eater" when someone
tells them that it is the Indian word for the phenomenon which in English is called
"chinook" that means "snow-eater".  I'm sure that someone with knowledge of Cree
etc., could tell us the Plains Indian word(s) which mean "chinook winds".

My own understanding of where the word "chinook" came from is the same as that
expressed in the recent email, the upriver winds emanating from the village the
Salish called "chinook" and which became the general name for the lower Chinook
in that village -- an exonym -- and then the name of their language and then that of
Chinook Jargon, etc., which then became the general term for warm winds from the
west, even on the other side of the Rockies.

;-)
George