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I heard a “contest” on “All Things Considered” back in the early '80s, a word for that nasty snow-ice combination of slush that accumulates on the underside of our cars, especially in the wheelwells; that word is snard. I always thought that that was a very good word for a substance that has no other name (that I know of). Comments?
As an addendum, I just heard (1-16-09, on PBS's "All Things Considered", about the airplane crash in NYC) a new word very similar to this one. That word is snarge. It refers to the goo which is left behind on an aircraft after a bird strike; the remnants of the bird. I just thought I'd add that comment.
Great word. I first came across it a year ago but never did full research on it.
I heard that report on NPR, too, heathbug! "All Things Considered" host Melissa Block couldn't contain her excitement over learning the word "snarge." I was thinking in my car, "Oh, I'll have to tell Grant about that one!" Of course, I got home and checked his site, and he'd already written about it, long before that report. Figures.
Btw, heathbug, did you catch the aptronym therein, which we discussed in our "Almost Up To Possible" episode? Melissa Block was interviewing the head of the feather-identification lab at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, who is named, aptly enough, Carla Dove.
Martha Barnette
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