The Inuit’s have over 50 different words for snow they say. Actually that’s a completely bogus factoid. They don’t. Be we Americans really do have at least 50 different words that mean “good”. Or at least those words do now. Examples:
- cool
- awesome
- dank
- dope
- wicked
- tight
- neat
- groovy
- on point
- boss
- nifty
- keen
- drippin’
- swell
- hunky-dory
- gucci
- 100
- lit
- goat
- etc.
I believe it was Dorothy Sayers who lamented that all males are now called “gentlemen” with faux-respect in the public square. The word “gentleman” used to communicate something about the person’s class, occupation, and family. Now to say a man is a gentleman simple means that he is good. But we already have a word for good. Aaaaaand now we DON’T have a word for “gentleman”. Not helpful and it makes everything we say a little less true.
In a similar fasion and more recently, Finnish comedian Ismo expressed his confusion that if someting is “ass” it’s bad, but if it’s “bad ass” it’s good. Wait, what?
Meanwhile, we in the Pacific Northwest still only have one word for snow and it’s meaning hasn’t drifted much as far as I can tell. We may not be Eskimos, but we are no strangers to the fluffy white ice. We just had some just a few days ago, even though it’s only the second week of October. Time to put some totally boss snow tires on my minivan!