Snow in NYC

Since I've lived all my life in warmer climates, snow is a rare experience for me. When I was in NYC, it started snowing, and I was enchanted. I loved feeling the random snowflake land in my eye and hearing the snow squish under my feet. Snow was magic.


The magic wore off by the second day, when the delightful powder under my feet melted into brown sludge and the soft flakes landing in my eye were replaced by bullets of sleet pelting me on the forehead.

While exploring the streets of NYC, I took many pictures of snow. The Inuit have many, many words for snow, some of which I learned in my choir for this amazing piece called Snowforms by R. Murray Shafer. Others are terms stated by linguist Franz Boas. I will use proper Inuit words and a few Emily-invented words inspired by NYC snow for the following captions:



apingaut

first snowfall

aput

snow
on the ground

patuqun

frosty sparkling snow

(or NYC blue prints)

pokaktok

snow like salt

mauyk

soft snow

sucrostok

snow like
powdered sugar

smileygaut

happy snow

sitidlorak

hard snow

qimuqsuq

snowdrift

akelrorak

drifting snow

organpoq

fallen musical snow

And finally....

streetsuq

white footsteps and brown tire tracks

When I got tired of looking down, I looked up to the origins of the snow: