ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 20, 1997 TAG: 9701200080
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: MONTY S. LEITCH
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
I KNOW YOU'VE heard this: that the Eskimos have 83 different words for "snow." I've heard it, too.
I've also heard that it's not true. That they have one or two words for snow, along with lots of descriptive terms that they can tack on.
Eighty-three words would really be a superfluity.
How many English words for "snow" can you think of? Off the top of my head I can come up with snow, slush, frozen precipatation, blizzard, flurries and whiteout. With the help of a thesaurus, I can add drift, glacier, rime, flake, avalanche, driven snow, nor'easter, blow, spill, pack, powder and squall.
That's 18.
OK, so some of them are a bit of a stretch. But you get the idea: We have a fine variety of descriptions for the white stuff in our language, too, without unnecessary excess. I know you can think of other synonyms that I've not listed. And both of us, you and me, can think of still more words that we've applied to snow, from time to time, that are nevertheless unsuitable for publication in a family newspaper.
Now, you know how cold it was last week, don't you? A week of "three-dog nights." Nights so cold it takes at least three dogs in the bed with you to keep warm enough to sleep.
This, too, I've heard is an expression from the Eskimos. I don't know. But if any people would need dogs to help keep them warm, it makes sense that it would be the Eskimos. Although three dogs does sound a plethora of dogs to me.
I don't have a dog. Not even one dog. So last week, in the cold and snow, I had "one-cat nights." One cat is warm enough, believe me, especially if that cat happens to be sleeping on your chest. And if that cat happens to be about the size of a medium dog.
"Keep an eye on that cat," the vet told me, last time I had him in for a check-up. "You might come down one morning and discover that in the night he's divided into two cats. There's enough of him there to do it."
Yes, he's a big cat.
And very warm.
Which comes in handy when the snow is ankle-deep for days on end; and when it freezes again every night into a glaze of icy sheets across the back yard.
I've been out in the snow hunting for tracks. Someday, I imagine, I'll find bear tracks or wildcat tracks in the woods. So far, I've found only dog tracks; squirrel tracks; rabbit tracks; mice, mole and shrew tracks; turkey tracks - and cat tracks.
Cat tracks everywhere. Could one cat, even one very big cat, be making all these tracks? I don't think so. For one thing, he likes his "one-woman nights" too much to go outside with any regularity. For another, he never walks as far away from the house as do these tracks that I've seen. These tracks go down to the barn and all away 'round it, to its back. These tracks mosey through the woods nearest the house. They seem to lead in and out of the root cellar beneath my office shed.
Might there be some "two-cat nights" in my future?
I'm not sure I could stand it if there were. In the Land of the Midnight Sun, in the Land of Snow and Ice, in the Land of 83 Words For Snow, three dogs might make a cold night more bearable. But here in the Land of One Very Picky, One Very Big, One Already-Spoiled and Too Warm Cat, two cats would be a superfluity.
They'd also be A Fight.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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