Talk:Snowmageddon

RFV discussion

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Supposedly a proper noun, but defined as a common noun. Exactly one hit yielded by google books:"Snowmageddon". † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 23:32, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I changed it to a proper noun, because most of the sources (recent newspapers) seem to be using it that way. I think they are quoting Barack Obama. Spanning a year per CFI could be tough. But there are many hundreds of matches on Google Groups, which we can use. Equinox ◑ 00:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, and that book on bgc is from 2008. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 00:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

It should really be a common noun, based on it's usage (it's being used to describe blizzards hitting Canada, the UK, and most recently DC, which is why Pres. Obama used the term, prompting the creation of the Wikipedia article and then this entry). Take a look at Wikipedia:Snowmageddon (a page which will likely be moved sometime soon, by the way), for more on the etymology of the word, and similar words which are more recent. I'm not terribly familiar with the content guidelines or deletion guidelines here, but if something changes with this entry I'd appreciate it if someone could follow up by either letting me know on my Wikipedia talk page or changing the interwiki link on the Wikipedia Snowmageddon page yourself. Thanks! Ohms law 00:46, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

PS: Thanks for the Google books ref. I didn't even think to use a Google books search, myself! :) Ohms law 00:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure why this would be a common noun. From what I can gather, it is a proper name that refers to a particularly severe series of winter storms one year. I have searched news reports prior to the recent "Snowmageddon," but I don't find that term being used at all either in reference to other specific storms, or in reference to severe snow storms in general. Similarly, the term "snow-mageddon," except for the few times it is used for the 2010 storm, is exclusively used for a 2008 storm in Canada. In that respect, this is more akin to other names of specific natural disasters, like "Hurricane Ivan" and "Boxing Day Tsunami," which we would tend to leave out of the dictionary as encyclopedic concepts. [1] is the only citation that might be independent of the specific storm, but even that is a single self-published book; not much to go on. Dominic·t 07:51, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

It certainly could be a common noun — see google news archive:"a Snowmageddon" — but proper-noun usage seems to be an order of magnitude more common. —Ruakh_TALK 17:19, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

If the quotation that hyphenates it counts, this just barely passes. — Beobach 19:56, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Added another cite. DAVilla 06:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

RFV passed. I've changed it back to ===Proper noun===, BTW, because all of our cites are using it as one, with the possible exception of the Guardian cite (which is in headlinese, and therefore wouldn't include the indefinite article regardless of the noun's commonness or propriety). —Ruakh_TALK 21:57, 12 January 2011 (UTC)