Post date: Jan 25, 2010 8:39:15 PM
This is not going to be about the fact that some languages have 27 different words for snow, or whatever. That's a discussion for another time.
For me, the relationship between snow and words was largely a metaphorical (or perhaps that should be inversely proportional) one: as the snow piled up, my ability to pile up words of translation declined. Not because I was incapacitated, or stuck in my car, or on a Eurostar train; I was called upon to manage children with unexpected time on their hands due to school closures. Other children needed lifts home in the snow, and still other children needed to be collected from the bus stop...oh, the joys of working largely from home. (I have only two children, but sometimes other people's children needed rescuing).
So as the snowflakes piled up, my theoretical page remained blank. As white as snow, in fact. There's your metaphor right there.
As I speak, the snow has melted, and work is piling up like, erm... perhaps I should look to French for inspiration in a bid to avoid another snow-related image. French has the word "débordé", and as I look in Collins Robert I see that they translate it as... "snowed under". Oh dear. I can't escape the white stuff. I need to dig myself out of this one. And that's snow joke...
Perhaps normal service will resume in the springtime. One can only hope so.