Canadian Expressions & Proverbs about Snow 1. The old woman is sure plucking her geese today. This is a translation from Ukrainian, heard in Manitoba. Compare a delightful children’s book possibly based on this Ukrainian folk tale. Said of a fluffy snowfall. My correspondent R.M. Lawson was told this one by a great-grandmother who owned a general store in Burford, Ontario. She had heard it first in 1889. But, interestingly, this is a direct translation of a Ukrainian folk saying that also shows up in Manitoba earlier in the 19th century.
Grandmother Winter by Phyllis Root, illustrated by Beth Krommes Grandmother Winter tends her geese, gathers their feathers to stuff into her quilt, then shakes the quilt over the countryside. The snowflakes fall. What do the animals and people do? A lovely, simple tale announcing the arrival of winter. Grades K-3.
Metaphorical Sayings Using the Word Snow
2. His eyes look like two piss-holes in a snowbank. Said of someone sleep-deprived or hung-over.
3. Go find some snert! In southern Saskatchewan, pesky children are sent on a snert-hunt by adults. The child is not told immediately what snert is. Snert = snow + dirt.
4. It’s snowing down south. Said when a lady’s slip is showing.
5. He’s got his snowsuit on and he’s heading north. From northern Manitoba. Translation: He’s very drunk.
6. Easy as driving a herd of bees through a snowstorm with a cow switch.
7. There may be snow on the roof, but there is still fire in the furnace. Donald Fletcher, Nepean, Ontario The joys of Viagra seem predicted in this old saying.
8. She was pure as the snow, but she drifted. A damsel's lily-white virtue is rudely impugned in this saying.
9. You can’t make cheesecake from snow. Work with what you have.
10. To do a real piss-cutter of a job That is, to do a very good job. But whence cometh the urinary metaphor? From pissing in the snow? Irene Doyle, New Brunswick
11. Albino grass. Snow lying on a Vancouver lawn is a rare sight. Some Vancouverites, in a joking reference, call such snow “albino grass.”
12. Manitoba has two seasons: Black Flies and Snow Flies. Grace Watson, Calgary, Alberta
13. Looks like we’ll be eating snowballs and rabbit tracks this winter. • Faye Embree-White of Inverary Ontario emails: “This was a saying of my Mom, Kathleen Embree of North Battleford, Saskatchewan. Things were pretty bad at times on the prairies. Victor Embree, my dad, was a farmer in northern Saskatchewan and my little brother, Barrie Embree, would ask after we spent days helping clear fields: ‘Can’t we go where the rocks don’t grow?” Dad had a Canadian way of telling you that he loved you. Staunch people just didn’t verbally show affection, even though he felt it. The best that he could do was to say ‘47 was a very good year.’ Tha’ts the year I was born and for Saskatchewan farmers, well, they looked at life that way in terms of how good the crop was. To him, I was a good crop year. But I knew what he meant.”
Winnipeg Snow 14. Winterpeg, Manisnowba is sometimes playfully substituted for Winnipeg, Manitoba
15. It’s snowing in Winnipeg. A Canadian rock musician and member of a band that formed at Queens University called The Arrogant Worms spent some time in Australia. There he was surprised to hear this expression frequently. Aussies toss it into their conversations to indicate how commonplace a previous utterance was. For example, a guy says, “I got a bad sunburn at the beach today, mate.” His friend replies, “Right, mate. And it’s snowing in Winnipeg .” So it is the equivalent of “Tell me something I don’t know.”
16. He’d dig postholes in a snowbank. He’s stupid.
17. Useless as a feather duster in a snowstorm.
18. Useless as handlebars on a snow shovel. Jane A. Corbett, Ottawa
19. You can’t trust him any farther than you can see up a moose’s asshole in a snowstorm.
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MORE WEATHER SAYINGS REFERRING DIRECTLY TO SNOW:
1. Of a blizzard in southern Alberta: It’s a real snit storm. The tempest in question is comprised of half snow and half shit.
2. She’s driftin’ down like dinner plates. This describes a fluffy snowfall with large snow flakes. D.W. Bone, Wartime, Saskatchewan
3. The devil’s wife is fluffing her pillows. This is said when it snows while the sun is shining: From White Head, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia.
4. It’s like sticking your head in a flour sack to get away from a tornado. Said in Newfoundland of a heavy snowstorm with high winds. Bert Spencer, Bowmanville , Ontario
5. That wind is blowing off snow. • In other words, it’s a cold breeze in late fall, and meaning that a first snowfall is immanent. Steve McCabe, Oakville , Ontario
6. It’s snowing all right, asshole deep to a lodgepole pine.
7. A Canadian Weather Rhyme: A first snow on unfrozen ground Means winter will not stick around.
8. Ain’t but a skiff of snow to dust a gopher’s arsehole. • A skiff of snow in Manitoba and the Canadian West is a light snowfall, a gentle powdery dusting of snow. Skiff may be a British dialect variant of shift. The Oxford Canadian Dictionary suggests its etymology as “possibly from Old Norse skipta, = Old English sciftan shift (verb).”
Time to snow shoo now. Snow more space!
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© 2012 William Gordon Casselman
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