Snowy McSnowface

Susan here, wishing everyone a great winter holiday! We’ve had very little snow in our area the last couple of years, but we did have a mild, pretty snowfall a couple of weeks ago. Those few inches made the world look peaceful and beautiful for a while. It was wet snow and not much of a chore to clear, especially when the rain later that day pretty much took care of it. We did, however, bring out the shovels and our little snowblower (which doesn’t do a great job, honestly) in hopes of a real winter storm. Eh. Maybe next time!

I love snow, though the snows of Maryland, where I’ve lived for decades, are so-so compared to the deep, lasting snowfalls of my childhood in the northern neck of Upstate New York. Plows and shovels got some heavy use there. I remember walking to school along neatly shoveled sidewalks that cut between high, gleaming white cliffs of snow soaring to either side.

As kids, we had endless fun in the snow, lobbing snowballs, building igloos and forts, sledding down hills, and helping our parents shovel. For the adults, clearing that much snow was a lot of work. My dad, an engineer who owned a road construction company, would attach plows to his trucks in the winter and go out to help clear the streets. He probably called his trucks the red one, the yellow one, and so on. Business-like, and on with the work.

But in the UK and Scotland these days, they're having fun with their snowplows, holding contests to name them, generating clever, very fitting names that would make any snowplow proud.

Scottish snowplows (called gritters), are salting, clearing, spreading sand and grit on Scottish roads, and sporting names like Sir Salter Scott, For Your Ice Only, Spready Mercury ... there are British plows called Gritsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Anti-Slip Machiney or Gritty McGritface, and so on. Read more here and here too. 

Naming machines and boats began a few years ago when a UK research ship was christened Boaty McBoatface by popular demand—and the trend spread from the UK to Scotland and Sweden (Trainy McTrainface) and beyond. We can only hope it reaches the USA—considering what sort of year 2020 has been, we Americans need a Planey McPlaneface of our very own!  

What would you name your shovel or your snowblower? Your car, your boat, or even your vacuum cleaner? 

Mary Jo says she could call her shovel Buffalo Girl, in honor of her childhood, also in snowy Upstate NY.

As for our so-so snowblower, I think we should call it Spitty Spitty Bang Bang. Trust me, it suits. 

Comments

[Sue McCormick]

Names like you mention are certainly fun, but I can never come up with fitting ones. With ONE exception: in the 1950s we bought an automobile which may or may not have been a good bargain. It would run perfectly, then "one-horse shay" on us — just stop completely. On the highway, on major roads, and so on. When we moved to the NYC area in 1982, we sold it to my son for $1. He had just put it to its' final rest when we return in the spring of 1989. So the "Yellow Peril" had a road life of around 15 years, and was a sudden failure during all those years and both sets of drivers.

i didn't cause the original failures, but I wonder if I didn't make it worse with that name.

[Susan King]

Yellow Peril! That's hilarious, Sue. I love it. Though you've got a point, maybe your car felt it should live up to its name! lol

[Kathryn Kremer]

I'm not much for naming machines. I have enough trouble with naming pets. (grin) In North Texas where I live we don't have snow plows or really much of anything related to snow. About the best we can do is the sand trucks when we have an ice storm. But driving on the ice is an adventure I don't care for at all. Since I have retired now I don't have to figure out how to get to work on the icy roads. I am thankful.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Susan, I miss the huge snowfalls of my childhood, when snow was play and fun and maybe snow days, and I never had to drive in it. *G

[Teresa Broderick]

Oh this was a fun read! I love the names. We name everything in our house but of course I can't come up with anything when put on the spot!!!!

[theo]

We still will get good snowfalls here in Michigan and now that we've moved to mid state, they're even better because we get the north end of the Ohio snow as well as the lake effect snow from the west. Hubs sees no sense in naming inanimate objects and simply calls our 'plow' the quad since that's what it is. Me? I'd call it Little Red the Snowfall Sled, but he just thinks I'm weird. He also has little imagination...

[Rosemary]

What is this thing you call "snow"? We don't have any around here on the Texas coast, where I have lived the past twenty-nine years. Or at least, not often enough to require snow removal equipment. Heck, they close schools on the threat of snow.

I do name my cars, though. Currently, I have an '02 Lincoln Towncar named Thing. Previous cars included a '91 Towncar named Beast, an '82 Plymouth Reliant station wagon named Varmint, an '86 Reliant sedan named Critter, and the car that started it all was a '75 Plymouth Valiant named Monster.

[Kareni]

What a fun post, Sussn! We have many a winter without any snow so have only infrequent need for a shovel. So, no named snow tools here. My husband is part Hawaiian; he has named computers Kahuna and Pele.

[Pamela DG]

It wasn't long after I bought my 2005 Saturn Ion, that I started calling her "Bluebell". She succeeds my 1999 Ford Aspire "Pinkie" and my 1995 Ford Festiva "Feisty. "Bluebell" is my first new car and is still with me near 200,000 miles later.

[Denise]

We had 40” of snow the week before Christmas, took my husband two days to dig us out. You DON’T want to know what the bucket loader tractor and the side-by-side with plow were called when they were both mired gunwale deep in the snow. Fortunately our neighbor and his pick-up pulled them both free and hubby enjoyed helping to clear several neighbor’s driveways. It is not unusual to get a light snow into April here (north central PA) as a consequence I never put away my snow shovel, just seems like tempting fate. I think I will name her Constance.

[Susan King]

Theo, that's a great name! LOL

[Susan King]

Love those names, Rosemary! They evoke some very interesting vehicles - you must have had some great adventures driving those cars around!

[Susan King]

Forty inches of snow?! Wow. That calls for some serious plowing and shoveling. I can just imagine what you were calling everything after a while . . . and Constance is a most excellent name for a shovel so constantly in use!

[Mary M.]

I remember snow like that in the UP of Michigan, where I spent some winters growing up. (My mother called it God's country and said God was welcome to keep it.) They kept the streets remarkably clear, but the snow in the park by my grandparents' house was over my head by Christmas. I remember tunneling through it and being lucky to come up for air at a couple of points. These days I live in the desert and my motto is, "I never shoveled any sunshine yet!"

As for cars, I always name them. My current one is Papa Blue Sharkey (long story). I thank PB every time I return home safely, and even a few times otherwise (dead batteries in Arizona being the equivalent of stacked snow elsewhere, just something to be dealt with).

[Annette N]

I am in Austin TX. We have ice storms every now and then, but that requires time. Equipment is not able to get the ice off our hills. Snow is quite an event here.

I have a car - 20 years old - and beautiful. so, I would name her My Very Good Old and Beautiful Girl. I do speak to her about how much I appreciate her. The radio is not working, my glove box is tied shut with a zip tie, but I am her greatest fan.

In a far and distant past, I lived at the tip of Lake Michigan. As a kid, having lake effect snow was a huge gift from the weather Gods. But, looking back, it must have been terrible for adults. Too Bad, So Sad!

We had snow forts, snow men, hills to sled down, and generally it was wonderful. I love the smell of wet wool in the morning.

Isn't it funny how as a child - everything can become a fun and games event?

Of course when my children were small and we lived in Ohio and Missouri, and it would snow and we would have drying things all over the house, it was not such a cute thing. And wet wool is not something which would make a good perfume.

Y'all - please have a wonderful 2021...I am pretty sure it will be a step up from 2020.

I hope everyone is taking care - staying well and feeling loved.

[Susan King]

Thanks, Annette, that's lovely, and I agree that we should all stay well and feel loved now and in 2021, which no matter what, has to be a step up! Love your car's name, what a good old girl she must be. And your memories of Michigan sound like mine in way Upstate NY - fabulous fun for kids, not so great for adults. As you say, Too Bad, So Sad! lol!

[Susan King]

Hi Mary, true, God can keep some of that - but kids do have tons of fun with great winter weather! I'm glad Papa Blue is keeping you safe. Sunshine is great, though I'm just a cold-weather girl, wouldn't thrive in desert or warm climates, I think. Hot Maryland summers do me in and I start longing for winter and the north again...