Names of the Wind

You’re listening to A Way with Words, a show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Grant, I have a short list here of some words in a particular category, and I wondered if you could guess what the category is.

Okay.

All right.

Three terms.

Brickfielder, Simoom, and Snoweater.

Let’s see where your mind goes.

Brickfielder, Simoom, and Snoweater.

Mm—

Good question.

And the middle one doesn’t sound like English to me.

Correct.

I don’t know what it is.

Snow eater.

What’s a snow eater?

I don’t know.

Terms used by Canadians in Inuit country.

I don’t know.

That’s not a bad guess.

You always say that.

I know.

Even when I’m completely wrong.

What is it?

Okay.

Well, let me give you a hint.

A snow eater is also a Chinook.

Oh, types of salmon.

Types of fish.

Oh, well, it could be.

A type of winds.

Types of winds, exactly.

Oh, that’s right.

Isn’t that cool?

Like a boob.

Yes, yes, exactly.

The richos.

That’s right.

And your ear was very good about simoom, which comes from Arabic, which it has to do with a dry, hot, suffocating wind that goes across the African and Asiatic deserts.

That’s cool.

And so the first one?

The first one is brick fielder.

That’s a wind from the desert of southern Australia.

And it has to do with the way the wind comes over sand hills, which are also referred to as brick field.

Okay, and then the snow eater is?

The snow eater is like a Chinook wind, which comes down in the Rocky Mountains.

And it’s called snow eater because it can happen after an intense cold spell and just raise the temperature really fast.

Interesting.

So the new front comes in and the wind is the symptom of that.

Yeah, it’s pretty fascinating how many different terms there are out there for different types of winds.

Because they do all different kinds of things and have all these different characteristics.

I’m going to share some words for cold winds later on in the show.

All right. Well, we’re waiting for your calls.

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