Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 November 3

= November 3 =

word for fear of snow
I am looking for the word for phobia of snow. Can you help thanks 71.114.56.28 (talk) 04:36, 3 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Chionophobia - I love search engines. &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss  &#9742;  04:39, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I hate snow. Sadly, the only Google result for "chionocide" is about a rhododendron (after first telling it I'm not looking to kill time). InedibleHulk (talk) 04:56, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * If you're looking for information on killing snow then Greek has to go with Greek and Latin with Latin. So either "chionoctone" or "nivicide" (both are unknown to Google). And how do you propose to kill snow? With a blowdryer like Calvin? Contact Basemetal   here  05:19, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * PS As to the rhododendron that seems to be a common typo. The real name is Rhododendron chionoides Contact Basemetal   here  05:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Right, my bad on the Classics. Thanks for killing one of my last hopez with that typo, too. Every hairdryer will have to pull its weight, though I think combining Greek fire and Latino Heat may do just the trick. A little Heliosol, perhaps. Snow's close enough to fungus. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:37, 3 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Fearing snow and hating snow are not particularly the same thing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:11, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You can fear it without hating it, but can't hate it without fearing it. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:19, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I've dealt with snow all my life (so far). I don't like snow. Sometimes I hate it. But I don't fear it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:55, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You may be right, or you may just dislike it, the way I hate Snow Patrol or others hate Mondays. Though Googling "I hate Mondays" finds mostly "I Don't Like Mondays", so I guess words aren't what they used to be. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:24, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Whether hating or disliking, I should have recalled what someone once told me, "You can't hate something unless it is capable of hating back." So "I hate snow" is shorthand for "I am unhappy that there is snow on the ground." But I don't fear the snow. I fear that other drivers will drive as if there isn't snow on the pavement. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:37, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't see what any of this has to do with the topic. If you just want to shoot the shit online, Facebook is that way --->. &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss  &#9742;  06:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Words and fear. Two out of three ain't bad. Besides, I'm not on Facebook. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * As you suggest, this is the language desk, and we're talking about language. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:55, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

With regard to the problematic nature of many of these -phobia terms, and chionophobia in particular, see Articles for deletion/Chionophobia. Deor (talk) 06:34, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I hear that the Eskimos have thousands of words for chionophobia. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 08:14, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Grin Since they're supposed to have a hundred words for "snow" they only need another hundred words for "phobia"  Apparently Boas's four "Eskimo words for snow" got inflated to a hundred in about 70 years. (Read the article). Then Kate Bush halved that figure 30 years later. There's hope we'll get an accurate count around 2050. Contact Basemetal   here  08:57, 3 November 2014 (UTC)


 * This is all wrong. You are trying to base the word on khio- which is a recent development.  Ancient Greek is used for phobias, hence niphophobia. μηδείς (talk) 18:51, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily; χιών did exist in Ancient Greek, and had plenty of compounds in χιονο- too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:06, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I see it's listed in Lidell and Scott, but what's the etymology and time frame? (I know Modern Greek is khionidzi; "it snow-izes")  Niph- comes from PIE sneigwh-, cognate with the Latin and English. That's got to be the preferable root.  Khion is like medeis, you only use it because outis was already taken. 21:15, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There are 5 google hits for niphophobia. There are even fewer for nivophobia – all of 2.  (One of the 3 hits turned out to have the meaning: Fear of using any translation of the Bible other than the one most familiar to the phobic.  Who knew?) --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:29, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Nivophobia is based on the (pseudo-)Latin, not the Greek root, Jack. Still waiting for the etymology and time frame of khio-, since when I studied Attic Greek the word was niph- and I have given sources. μηδείς (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * BTW, ponaszomu, to je "snig pada". μηδείς (talk) 23:18, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Χιών was certainly used in Homer, and so was the verb νέφω ("to snow") and other νιφ- words. Both χιον- and νιφ- words occur in the Attic tragedians and later works, so I'm not sure what you mean by "time frame". There's some indication that χιών referred primarily or originally to snow on the ground, whereas νιφ- words referred to falling snow, but the recorded usages and compounds don't consistently reflect that distinction. Deor (talk) 23:44, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You seem to have answered a question I have asked, so thanks. And I think a fear of fallen, rather than falling snow is about as absurd as one can get.  So, again, thanks, . μηδείς (talk) 02:42, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Tell that to the chionophobes! Contact Basemetal   here  17:14, 4 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Absurd if you're dealing with ankle-deep stuff. Not so much when you're trekking through waist-deep stuff, with hidden snags and crags underneath. Even in an open field, with the sun smiling down, there's snowblindness (photokeratitis, for the academics among us). Fallen snow can weigh down branches onto power and phone lines, leaving you in the dark with your car snowed in. Then you hear the wolves howling and soon realize the call is coming from inside the house! InedibleHulk (talk) 21:52, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Wow!! Where in Canada are you? Contact Basemetal   here  04:51, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Not true North, but north enough. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:56, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * "There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls" (George Carlin). --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:00, 9 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Though that last thing isn't so common. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:52, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Whew. Contact Basemetal   here  04:51, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowblindness is niphablepsia. μηδείς (talk) 04:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * And snow is leprosy is God's bosom, according to Exodus 4:6 in the King James Version; the only version for certain nivophobes (though whether they were truly afraid or made to look afraid by fearmongering is uncertain). InedibleHulk (talk) 04:55, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Numbers 12:10. Miriam had a little leprosy, and her skin was white as snow. This guy, too, and his seed. In fact, this whole results page is terrifying. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:02, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Frequencies of the first letters of a word in Latin
Where can I find the equivalent of this data for Latin? I already found the letter frequency of Latin, but I also need the letter frequency of the first letters of Latin words. WinterWall (talk) 06:12, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Get any large Latin text, search for sequences "space plus a letter" (" a", " b" etc.), in a table of Excel or similar write down the occurrences and count out percentage. You can write a mini-program, or do it manually with any text editor with "find all" function (like Notepad++).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 17:44, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

There's two ways to define frequency: with respect to the corpus and with respect to the lexicon. Contact Basemetal   here  04:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

American committing crimes abroad
Moved to Humanities desk. Sorry, my bad! --50.46.159.94 (talk) 07:36, 3 November 2014 (UTC)