Eskimo words for snow & cyclists' death cookies

[alp1950]

Yesterday morning with mist around, the road had an unpleasant wet and oily sheen, resulting in a nervous & rather hesitant commute. The surface looked treacherous & for some reason more worrying than when there is heavy rain.

Just as Eskimos are often said to have numerous words to describe different snow conditions, do cyclists recognise and name different road surface conditions? Obvious examples include black ice, frost & surface water of varying amounts. What about roads which are breaking up at the sides, heavily pot holed, or spread with debris such as stones or mud? Or the otherwise smooth piece of road which has been patched with coarse stoney tarmac that may well be breaking up already scattering stones of various sizes in the vicinity. Borrowing from skiing vocabulary: crud with death cookies?

There must be other examples: any suggestions?


ps Eskimos probably don't have lots of words for snow. But why spoil a good story?

 

[JohnHenry]

ps Eskimos probably don't have lots of words for snow. But why spoil a good story?

I think they have fifteen words for snow in Inuit and we have twenty-two in English according to one source on the Interweb. http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/research/eskimo.html

But then we brits are always talking about the weather, apparently.

 

[Fiona N]

I think they have fifteen words for snow in Inuit and we have twenty-two in English according to one source on the Interweb. http://www.putlearni...rch/eskimo.html

But then we brits are always talking about the weather, apparently.

But some of those English snow lexemes are a bit dodgy - i.e. in their relationship to snow. Snowball and igloo, for example, are objects manufactured out of snow rather than being descriptors of snow itself.


I'd agree with the weather words in English though - add in Scots and there must be dozens of words for precipitation

On the OP, I'm not sure cyclists are that imaginative. But "crud with death cookies" - I like it it could almost apply to potholed country lanes with cow pats on the corners.

I can see this is going to further distract me from real work

 

[dawesome]

Frothy conker paste.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Frothy conker paste.

You've been doing the conker mash, haven't you?

 

[dawesome]

I ride a fast downhill under a sweet chestnut tree, the green cases litter the entire lane. Horse chestnut trees and their silent, eloquent branches, which in our case we have not got, drop the conkers prodigiously, car wheels crush them, then it rains. Frothy conker paste.

 

[Jonathing]

If the Inuit have a dozen ways to describe snow then the English must have two dozen way to talk about rain.

 

[Bicycle]

Not a road surface, but something of significance to cyclists:

In Albania, on those sunny days which are nonetheless bitterly cold the weather is referred to colloquially as having "dielli me dhembet".

That translates as something like "The sun, with teeth". It is about the best description I've heard of those bright mornings when before the air has been warmed you are squinting into the sun whilst risking losing ears, nose and fingers to frostbite.