The World’s Worst Disasters. Season 1; Episode 4-Alpine Avalanches. Lazy Saturday of indulging in ‘this type of show”, when this episode’s discussion included an explication of the types of avalanches, gave me the “hey, I never noticed that” experience and also triggered a memory. I’m a native, English speaker who grew up exclusively in the ‘Deep South’ region of the US; and, I did not have experiential knowledge of ‘snow’ whatsoever. (ref. ” ‘Snowmageddon’ in Birmingham, AL 2014″ vis a viz internet search engine results).
Two decades ago, in 7th grade, I took a class entitled “French I”, and that was also my 1st formal exposure to foreign language. One of the first words the class learned was “après–ski.” My experience-to date at the time-of 13ish years of reality could not conceive of a reality where the need to express such a thing would exist was an outrageous concept. How could it be a noun? Do you go to an après–ski? If it was a revelation when linguists discovered how many words Aleutians possessed to denote “white”; it was a revelation to a 13 year old girl in Tuscaloosa, AL that whatever it was these people did after skiing would require a formal symbol for representation.
WrittenCasey 