>Tom Christoffel writes:
>> I believe the "Fast Company" Consultant Debunking Unit has already dealt
>> with the idea that eskimos have 24 words for snow (not found to be true).
>
>I've heard this before, and it puzzles me. There are certainly different
>kinds of snow, and it would seem odd if Eskimos don't have names for them.
>Skiers, for instance, do have names for the different kinds of snow that
>they encounter. As another example closer to home, how many words for
>"horse" are there in English?
The notion that Eskimos have 24 words for snow is a true one and the
Americans have even more words for nails (brads, tacks, etc.), all of
which are described in the American Linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf's book
"Cultural Relativity", now out of print. This is a staple of Linguistics
101 and the result of the field work of linguists and cultural
anthropologists, academicians all, not e-journalists. There is research
and there is re-search.
John Zavacki
--"John Zavacki" <jzavacki@greenapple.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>