Stuff That I Have Noticed #27 Winter Weather

This is an observation about a bit of snow. It’s Just Weather!*

Why do we anthropomorphize weather?

We hear it every time there’s a storm: The angry wind, the vicious rain, the fierce snow etc., etc., etc.

It’s weather for gawd’s sake, neither your angry neighbor, a vicious schoolhouse bully nor a fierce Rottweiler.

It’s just weather.

Meteorological phenomena do not have emotions. They can be intense, damaging, powerful, frightening, disastrous and such-like but they are never angry or vicious.

Anger and viciousness are anthropomorphic conditions; emotional states. Yet the fashion models that serve as our local TV stations’ “meteorologists” always, with no known exceptions, apply these all too human characteristics to any kind of severe weather conditions.

So here we are in February (properly pronounced feb-ru-ary) 2020 in New York which, in case you haven’t noticed, is a northern city and snow falls from time to time. If you watch the local TV news when it happens you’ll think that the End-Of-The-World-As-We-Know-It was at hand. Even our Newspaper of Record, the vaunted New York Times prints headlines such as this one (fortunately not anthropomorphic) from January 2016:

Dire Warnings Along the East Coast as the Snow Piles Up

Five to ten inches of snow in January rates a “dire warning”? Gimme a break. At five o’clock that day there was a line to get into the grocery store which was out of whole milk. We New Yorkers, normally a hardy crowd, seem to be turning into a bunch of weather wimps.

It’s February. It’s snowing. Hello! This is big news?

In December of 2010 we got twenty inches. That was snow.

Real Snow on west 98th Street 2010

Real Snow Broadway & 96th Street (2010)

The next “storm” will probably be no Big Deal in the Big Apple. Clean up and mink-oil your boots. Shake out your parka and be ready to take a walk in the park. Two days after the snow snows it will all be either dirty, turned into hardly navigable ridges of filthy, frozen slush or … gone.

Now to revisit the subject of my September 2019 rant, “Words”

I continue to be reminded of common usages that put a burr under my saddle and didn’t come to mind in September.

When politicians are pushing or pundits are punditizing (This word was not found in the spelling dictionary.) they often use phrases such as “places like Florida”. Where are these places like Florida? As far as I know there’s only one. It’s called Florida. The same holds for any other country, state or city.

Then there’s this common sort of mis-verbalization: “When you consider your Eli Mannings or your LeBron Jameses … Who are these other Elis and/or LeBrons? (And how are they mine?) Looks to me as though there’s only one of each. Instead of this false plural one could say “professional athletes” or “team leaders” or even “tall guys”. (Eli is 6’-4” and that’s tall to a 5’-8” guy such as my own-self.)

There will no doubt be additional such codas in future Stuffs because these verbiage-related ideas do keep popping up. If any of y’all have any such peeves, send them to me. I’ll work up a comprehensive list.

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* An extreme rewrite/update of a blog from 2016