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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Language Etymology of the Day: Snowpocalypse

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 10:43 AM

A 2009 blog post from the New York Times says the term is Western Washington's own, first appearing in 2006 and snowballing (ahem) from there:

"Snowpocalypse” appears to have made its way into the vernacular; ABC News even used the term in a Web headline on Saturday. However, the word might be more familiar to those in the Pacific Northwest. Urban Dictionary suggests the term emerged in Seattle in late 2008 to describe a Dec. 20 blizzard. But the term seems a bit older than that... our adventure in Google etymology yielded uses of the term in 2007 and even 2006 – both those years apparently referring to northern Washington State storms as well.

That cited 2006 blog post—by one "snickerpants"—claims that the blogger's husband coined the term:

The denizens of the Seattle area are not used to snow. This results in an entire Metropolitan community being physically unable to cope with lots of snow in a short amount of time. In rare circumstances this results in something my husband has termed a “Snopocalypse.”

HOWEVER! I found a 2005 usage on the now-defunct Seattle MetBlog site. So even if the husband independently invented the term, it has older origins. And I'm guessing the word is as old as jokes.

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Comments (18) RSS

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These like one of those "everybody invented it" kind of deals. pocalypse isn't exactly an unusual template.

Posted by Ben on January 17, 2012 at 10:51 AM

Brenden! You need to try to get yourself copies of the UK series, "Balderdash & Piffle". In it, various words around the same theme are looked up in the OED but then members of the public are invited to find even earlier occurances of each new word. With enough documentation, they get the OED to change its "first used in 19--" designation. Great show!

Here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2xyE-6sC…

Posted by Chefgirl on January 17, 2012 at 10:55 AM

That settles that. Now we can all stop repeating it.

Posted by Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

on January 17, 2012 at 11:01 AM

I used the term in 2006: http://tiff-seattle.livejournal.com/1133…

Posted by Tiffany

on January 17, 2012 at 11:03 AM

Looks like snickerpants beat me by a few weeks though :(

Posted by Tiffany

on January 17, 2012 at 11:05 AM

What about 'snowlocaust'?

Posted by biffp on January 17, 2012 at 11:14 AM

Being from the east coast originally, I've always preferred "The Snotorious B.I.G."

Posted by psbirch on January 17, 2012 at 11:27 AM

Oh damn, that was supposed to be '<whatever>pocalypse' up there. Guess that's what I get for not actually looking at the preview.

Posted by Ben on January 17, 2012 at 11:36 AM

snOMG spread quick via twitter during last year's snowfall. Being of a more modern text-driven origin, I imagine it's birth would have to be even more recent (perhaps, even last winter?).

Posted by drake

on January 17, 2012 at 12:06 PM

It probably was Tiffany. A lot of us RT and RP things our friends say.

SNOMG works better as a twitter tag - official abbrev is wasnow of course.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on January 17, 2012 at 12:21 PM

Nathan Myrvold now owns the rights to Snowpocalypse.

Any further use will be subject to licensing fees.

Call Intellectual Ventures for a bulk discount.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on January 17, 2012 at 12:24 PM

What about 'snowstorm on acid'?

Posted by biffp on January 17, 2012 at 12:54 PM

I bet it was used even earlier than Tiffany by somebody on LiveUrinal.

Posted by SchmuckyTheCat on January 17, 2012 at 1:03 PM

@10, notice the deft way Will in Seattle shifts from something someone else has done, someone he has never met, into something done by "us", meaning himself. Because he has recently learned how to "RT" something, he can take credit for pretty much anything that happens, even if that thing happened before Twitter and RT even existed.

And, if it's a girl-sounding name he will make his patented move here for us all to see.

Posted by Fnarf

on January 17, 2012 at 1:27 PM

For those of us who didn't grow up in Seattle or southern California it's not the snowpocalypse or snowmageddon, but just snow big deal.

Posted by SPG on January 17, 2012 at 1:34 PM

Wait, the New York Times cited Urban Dictionary? Seriously?

Urban Dictionary can be entertaining reading, but its credibility as an etymological reference is nil.

Posted by lostboy

on January 17, 2012 at 7:49 PM

Actually Fnarf, I met Will at a Slog meet-up / drink-up a few years ago. We got drunk and argued about computers :)

Posted by Tiffany

on January 17, 2012 at 8:01 PM

Chefgirl is right -- "Balderdash and Piffle" is lots of fun. I helped antedate a phrase ("Jack the lad") for the OED during the Series 2 wordhunt and they thanked me on the OED website. I have to say, as a language geek, that's one of my proudest moments.

Snowpocalypse was certainly popularized during the 2008 storm, but as Ben said, "-pocalypse" is a pretty obvious suffix for this sort of thing.

Posted by litlnemo