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ImageSMART TALK

by Dr. Winton "Windy" Prolix



SNOW SHOWER: KBUL, The Voice of Bedspring Tech, consistently commits the usage error. But this news outlet, down the road in Los Libidos, Texas, has an excuse: The staff changes almost every semester. Students doing the weather just don't get around to reading the notice we send every year from the Center for English as a First Language.

A shower is, by default, liquid. When you take a shower, you expect water, not snow, to come out of the showerhead. Therefore, rain shower is redundant. Sure, we can have meteor showers, but the word shower makes us think of water falling from either the plumbing or the clouds.

Snow shower is nothing but verbiage invented by weather forecasters trying to sound more important, like an official officiously saying high rate of speed instead of fast.

Snow shower has actually caused climate change, not meteorologically but verbally. Remember flurries? We seldom have flurries any more. This spares us from hearing about snow flurries, but the redundancy makes more sense than the oxymoronic snow showers.

Imagine how clear and elegant weather reports and forecasts would look and sound with showers and flurries. Seasoned professionals have no excuse for saying rain showers, especially in summer, or snow showers instead of flurries.

One more thought: What comes down when we have a so-called rain shower? And when we have a snow shower? And what falls during a meteor shower? So what falls during a baby shower?

Just asking.

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