Do you ever get enough snow in Britain to close the schools and other public buildings? We will usually get several days a year when the schools are closed due to weather, and we call them Snow Days. Today, there is enough snow and enough threat of more that even the public library is closed! Yay! I have a day off work, and I will get "Calamity Pay" since the library is closed. (hehehe)

So - what are such days called elsewhere?

I don't think that we call them anything special - they are probably not frequent enough. I suspect that 'Snow Day' would be generally recognised. Bob posted about a recent such day in the Birmingham area in the Community Forum a few days ago. Here in London I can't ever remember such a day happening. We get a few inches on the occasional day most winters, but not enough to close the schools, and certainly not enough to close public offices.

CW,
The snow caused our work to be canceled also. How much do you have? I just paid some nice kid to shovel my sidewalk and driveway. It's still pouring, but there was at least 6" when he started. If we get what they predict we'll get in sleet this afternoon and more snow on top of that overnight, we may get snow days tomorrow also. I was thankful when I got my call through the phone chain this morning, telling me to stay home, especially when the local news was reporting wreck after wreck after wreck. I'm also thankful the power is still on; this seems a very wet, heavy snow. I think your "Yay!" is a very good snow day euphemism.

True story:

Within a brief walk of our home are both a coffee cafe and the local catholic elementary school. So we're often there for coffee before work, as are parents and teachers from the school.

One snowy morning last winter, as I poured my coffee, the elderly nun-in-mufti who runs the school stood nearby telling a pair of parents about how she handles snow days. "The kids always argue for a day off," she laughed. "If I tell them we'll close if so-many-inches fall, they'll find a report of that much somewhere in the area. So I always tell them it has to be measured by the snow at my house." When the parents grinned, she added, "Of course, if I ever wake up and find 10 inches at my front door, I'm going back to bed for the day!"

It was all I could do to restrain my guffaws. I didn't have the nerve to point out to her her double entendre.

It's very rare for us to get enough snow to close public buildings or even to significantly upset transport. But when we do, to hear the media lambasting the service providers, you'd think that England was the only country in the world where snowfall causes minor upset.

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Originally posted by Richard English:
to hear the media lambasting the service providers, you'd think that England was the only country in the world where snowfall causes minor upset.

I wouldn't think that, but I would think that there was no reason to start closing schools before a single snowflake had fallen (where my brother lives, there was subsequently no snow but the schools were still closed for two and a half days) and I also think that most of the traffic problems I saw on the news on Friday were caused not by the trifling amount of snow that we'd had but by people all deciding that they would use it as an excuse to leave work early.

Certainly around here there was, in my opinion, no need at all to close any schools or colleges and public transport was largely unaffected.

The day off was useful though.

In Michigan we would get tons of snow, but we would only get maybe a couple of snow days a year because they had the equipment to deal with it and the population knows how to drive in it. In North Carolina, my cousins got double-digit snow days because they shut down at merely a forecast of snow. Drivers there sliding all over the road and they don't want the school buses running if there was even a chance of flakes. I always thought that I was getting the worst of both deals on that one--suffering more of the elements and not getting as many fringe bennies.

Well, it does look, Saranita, as if we might all be inside again tomorrow. I can't say I'm sad about that prospect! What bugs me is that I can't shovel and I have to hire someone and NO ONE came by today! Ack! Tomorrow I'll make my strapping (well, kinda) son do it.

We had a horrible blizzard today, too, and it's cold besides. I walked home in 10 inch drifts, at least. The wind was blowing and my face was burning from the snow. I am not sure if our schools were closed, though; I think not.

Fifty degrees Fahrenheit and sunny yesterday in West Sussex. Raining and warmish this morning.

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

---- Dylan Thomas A Child's Christmas in Wales

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I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

How appropriate for today. I absolutely love that one! I'll have to go get it out of the library and read it again--or, probably, it's just out there on the 'net, in the public domain, isn't it?

As the only person who came into my office today, I am feeling Myth's pain! All the public schools are closed, but my college never closes. Staff are expected to show up, or if afraid to travel in the weather, we have to take vacation or personal time to take the time off. What we do have is an "Inclement Weather Day" system, whereby faculty may choose not to show up for class if they can't make it in due to the weather, and commuting students may make up work without penalty, but with 97% of our students living on campus, classes are never officially called off. In fact, the only time I can ever remember the dean canceling classes was after the blizzard of 1996 when Gov. Tom Ridge closed down all Pennsylvania roads to all but emergency vehicles and essential hospital and public safety employees. We had 29 inches of snow that time, though.

Today we have about 6 inches of tiny little ice pellets, somewhat greasy roads and walkways, and really worse to drive through than to walk through. If I believed that Eskimos had 52 different words for "snow," then I would believe this was one of the 52 types.

Wordmatic

Here's a link to Uncle Dylan's masterpiece A Child's Christmas In Wales

..... my pleasure

Diolch yn fawr--
(with my thanks to a nice cheater page on the same 'net!)

Wordmatic

Very nice, Jerry.

We have a foot of snow, and it's going below zero tonight. What a winter!

Yikes! Global warning!

I saw a comedian on TV the other night. He said that, as a Welshman, he was all for global warming. He said he didn't know he could take off his cagoule until he was six!

I don't know if 'cagoule' is used over in America. It's foul-weather gear; a long waterproof coat with a hood, used in wind, snow and rain, particularly by walkers.

No, I've never heard of it, arnie. Is it a brand name, like "wellies" or whatever they're called?

Comedian Drew Carrey also joked similarly about Global Warming - years ago. We still share his lines as an "in joke" in my family. Drew is from Cleveland, OH, near where I grew up. Because of the conditions caused by being on Lake Erie (the most shallow of The Great Lakes), they get lots of snow and cold. Drew said that folks in Cleveland love the idea of Global Warming. They'll go outside with aerosol cans, spraying them into the air saying, "to hell with Global Warming, I'm cold NOW!" But the ultimate consolation for Clevelandites is when it's cold but not snowing. It can be 40 below, and they'll say "Well, at least it's not snowing!"

All jokes, of course.

I like that word "cagoule"... though I've never seen one. It was 61 degrees and sunny here over the weekend.

My brother/sister-in-law are in Oswego, NY... with snow surrounding their home and on the roof... They can see Lake Ontario from their "sun deck"... Ha Ha.... Brrrr-r-r-r

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They'll go outside with aerosol cans, spraying them into the air saying, "to hell with Global Warming, I'm cold NOW!"

That's not going to warm anything up, I'm afraid; it's just going to give you skin cancer.

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Is it a brand name, like "wellies" or whatever they're called?

No, it's not a brand name. Here is what Encarta says.
Here is an example of what they look like.

"Wellies" isn't a brand name, either, just short for "Wellingtons" or "Wellington boots". They are named after the Duke of Wellington, who wore long boots, although his were made of leather, not rubber.

How is cagoule pronounced? Is it "cajool" or "cagool" or something else?

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That's not going to warm anything up, I'm afraid; it's just going to give you skin cancer.

I know - and I don't think anyone actually does it - it's just a joke.

kuh-GOOL

Looks just like what LL Bean calls an anorak

We have a wonderful photo of my husband's great-grandfather, David MacPherson, a dairy farmer in Lancaster, Ontario, standing in a snowy scene, wearing a full-length fur coat that I think my mother-in-law told me was buffalo hide, with the collar turned up well over his ears and what looks like one of those Russian trooper hats in fur well down over his ears. Wonder if he called his coat a cagoule.

Wordmatic

For us an anorak is a different garment, usually thicker and padded. Cagoules are usually made of thinner waterproof material that will pack down small. Anoraks are usually thicker and can't easily be folded or rolled for packing.

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Cagoules are usually made of thinner waterproof material that will pack down small.

I would call that a slicker. I generally call anoraks parkas. I call wellies boots and don't even own a pair. I do have some snow boots which I call . . .umm . .. snow boots.

What's the difference between wellies and snow boots?

What's the difference between wellies and snow boots?

I believe wellingtons are what we in the States call galoshes.

Wellies, I think, are boots that don't have insulation built in, they are just for water protection. Snow boots, however, are those that have insulation built in.

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I believe wellingtons are what we in the States call galoshes.

In the UK galoshes are overshoes; you put them on over your normal footwear. Galoshes are usually short, coming only up to the ankle. Wellingtons are full-height boots and are put on only over the socks.

There is, however, a special form of overboot that used to be commonly used by motorcyclists. It looked rather like a wellington, but fitted over one's normal footwear. I suspect they are not used much these days since they do not offer the crash protection on a proper pair of motorcyclists' boots.

Wellingtons used always to be black in colour, but in the past 30 years or so, wellingtons used by those living in the country tend to be green and are almost a fashion accessory. The typical garb of one of the "country set" would include green wellies and a green Barbour jacket. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Barbour_%26_Sons

I suspect that Barbour clothing is not well-known in the USA, which is rather surprising since it is probably the best and most hard-wearing outdoor clothing it is possible to buy.

Well I guess I would call a cagoule a "windbreaker." Some of the LL Bean Anoraks do roll up pretty small.

Wellies are what James Herriot, the veterinarian-author, would wear when he went into a Yorkshire barn (byre?) to examine a sick cow or horse, and that's where I first heard of them, reading All Creatures Great and Small, etc.


Wordmatic

Wordmatic

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Barbour clothing is not well-known in the USA

Not being a country person, I don't really know what they all wear on the farm, etc. I did go look at the website, though, and have a new question.

What is a wax jacket?

A jacket treated with wax to make it waterproof.

Are they still given that treatment, even in modern times? Would make laundering more complicated I assume.

You don't launder Barbour clothing. If it got really muddy you'd maybe wash its outer surface with water, but that's all.

And trust me, it is the best, warmest and most hard-wearing clothing you can buy.