Gramer Girl here, I'm Minion Fogarty.

This week we're going to debunk the myth that Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow.

And then I have a book excerpt from Jack Gantos that will make you want to write a novel,

especially if you're a kid.

Let's get started.

Since we're heading into the snowy part of the year, at least in North America, it seems

like a good time to address a long-standing language myth.

But Eskimos have vast numbers of words for snow.

The idea was popularized by the now well-known amateur linguist Benjamin Lee Warff in the

1940s, and especially after it made its way into popular anthropology textbooks in the 1960s

in the 1970s.

Warff himself wasn't terribly specific.

His number was approximately five Eskimo words for snow.

But somehow the story was so compelling and romantic that it got out of control and

grew bigger and bigger like the fish that got away, with writers claiming 50, 100, and

even 400 Eskimo words for snow.

This idea has been debunked multiple times by modern linguists, first by Laura Martin

at Cleveland State University, and then by others.

But it shows up again and again in the popular press and online.

Every day people tweet about Eskimos having 50, 100 and more words for snow, because whether

it's true or not, it seems to be a useful cliche to emphasize that something is important

to a group of people.

...