[50/365] Spirit of '91 deserves honorable mention

[cosmolinguist]

For some reason, one of the memes lately is the names Scotland is giving its snowplows (or gritters, but the meme makes them snowplows), even though this is something I've been hearing about in Britain, not just Scotland, for years now.

MnDOT, the Minnesota Department of Transportation, wants to get in on the fun with a vote on its snowplow names. I saw this link, started clicking, and realized I'd soon far exceed the eight names I was allowed to vote for. There are so many good ones!

A lot are just puns...there's quite a few Star Wars ones for some reason (C-3PSnow, Darth Blader, etc.) or things that aren't actually funny but will appeal to people like my parents (Live Laugh Plow, Blizzard of Oz).

Then there's two alleged indigenous words, Giiwedin (Ojibwe word for ‘north wind’) and Ičamna (Dakota word for ‘blizzard’).

And then an enormous number of Minnesota-specific references: (Babe the Orange Plow, Cold Enough for Ya?, Dontcha Snow, Duck Duck Orange Truck, F. Salt Fitzgerald, Flake Superior, Goldy Snow-pher, Joe Plow-er, Justin Moresnow, Kent Brr-bek, L'Plow du Nord, Mary Tyler Moore Snow, Minnesota nICE, Ope Just Gonna Plow Right Past Ya [I was in fits of giggles by the time I got to this one, it's my favorite of the Allowed Ones (I'll get to the Disallowed One, my real favorite, in a second)], Plow Bunyan, Plowin' in the Wind, Princess Kay of the Snowy Way, Purple Snow, Raspberry Brrr-et, Road Carew, Tator Tot Hotdish, Spirit of '91 [this one also had me cackling] and The Truck Formerly Known as Plow.

So;me of those I'm not even sure I could explain the appeal of, but I'm happy to try if you're confused and googling doesn't help; I don't think it will for a few of them.

I voted for both indigenous words, the baseball ones (Jow Plow-er, Justin Moresnow and Kent Brr-bek, Road Carew), and my favorite other Minnesota-specific ones Duck Duck Orange Truck and Ope I'm Just Gonna Plow Right Past Ya.

The Disallowed One was one of the most popular suggestions: Abolish ICE. MnDOT are such cowards.

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

That is brilliant

[otter]

Yes, cowards. That is THE BEST NAME.


Flake Superior is fun. I was on the phone with Falcon and had some good laughs reading the list to him. He was clueless about the baseball references tho.

[cosmolinguist]

I am such a massive Twins fan, those are my favorite. :) I had to read "Joe Plow-er" out loud before I got it, though!

[watersword]

The Disallowed One is even better than Boaty McBoatface because it's context-appropriate! COWARDS.

[cosmolinguist]

Exactly! It's good and it's appropriate! I really wish they'd used it. I'm glad it was such a popular choice. Maybe some other state will get to use it.

[taimatsu]

Tell me about Princess Kay of the Snowy Way?

[cosmolinguist]

This is a reference to Princess Kay of the Milky Way, one of those terribly bizarre things that everywhere has but the locals have become proud of how silly it is after a while. I think it used to be a kind of beauty pageant and is now a scholarship program like all these things are. The name is it's run by the Midwest Dairy Association.

But the reason it's famous is that as part of the contest, the girls get their heads sculpted in huge blocks of butter, which are displayed at the Minnesota State Fair every year. You see then when you queue up for the delicious milkshakes and cheese curds they have in the dairy building at the fair. There are pictures at that link and I also had to include a picture of the butter heads when I last went to the fair. It's something my dad always mentions when he lists off the things they're going to see there. It has a lot of cultural resonance.

[haggis]

What's the Spirit of 91?

[cosmolinguist]

There was a huge snow storm on Halloween in 1991 (I just learned in looking this up now that it was a perfect storm!. It was by far the longest power outage I've lived through, something like five days. Schools were closed because they had no electricity either.

My parents have an old wood stove in their basement so the four of us just lived there for most of a week, sleeping on the two elderly sofa beds they had down there. It was still chilly but I remember running upstairs for more clothes or toys or whatever from my bedroom and it was absolutely frigid up there, like 10°C inside the house. My parents kept milk and stuff outside in a cooler so it would stay fresh, and we had a camping stove so we could heat a bit of food. After a few days my grandparents (who lived in a small town, but it was at least a town) had power back so my mom took my brother and I there so we could have baths and she could do laundry. We were seven and nine and thought the whole thing was a great adventure as far as I can remember.

It still gets talked about, I think every Halloween Minnesota Public Radio runs a retrospective about it. Seeing that snowplow name will make everybody my age or older think about their particular version of this story.

[kmusser]

I started going to school in Minnesota in 1991, it was a hell of an introduction.

[cosmolinguist]

Between that and everyone going bonkers over the World Series, just October would've been a lot!

[prettyarbitrary]

Abolish ICE. My god. My god.

[silveradept]

Cowards! (We understand why they don't want to aggravate that particular entity, but they're still cowards.)

Lots of good names on the allowed list, though.

[cosmolinguist]

They said they didn't allow any political names, hmph.

[silveradept]

Perhaps I am unduly cynical, but any time I see an explanation like that, I want to correct it to "political names that don't align with our politics are not allowed," considering how much neutrality rhetoric I have to wade through on a regular basis.

[jesse_the_k]

Outstanding choices, cowardice aside.

F. Salt Fitzgerald caused tea to exit my nose.

Speaking of "Ope Just Gonna Plow Right Past Ya," have you encountered the ridiculous Midwestern humor from Charlie Berens?

Midwestern voice translator

[cosmolinguist]

I saw one of his videos shared on Facebook just the other day, I hadn't heard of him before that.