"Snowmageddon": one of 2010's top words

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"Snowmageddon", the word used to describe the historic snowstorm that crippled the mid-Atlantic last February 4-6 has been named one of the Global Language Monitor's (GLM) "top words of 2010".

The first use of the term in the context of last February's storm can be traced to the Capital Weather Gang, as Andrew Freedman wrote last year:

As far as we can tell, the name was coined on this blog on Feb. 3 when we solicited contributions for a creative storm name. The original suggestion appears to have come from a reader who comments under the alias of "300_sq_ft." Many other readers suggested it too, and it won the clear majority of votes in a poll we held on Feb. 4. The name spread widely from there via the pages of this newspaper and social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, until it eventually wound up in remarks by President Obama to the Democratic National Committee on Feb. 6.

Snowmageddon shares the #7 spot on the GLM's top 10 list with "Snowpocalypse", most often associated with the record-setting snow of December 17-19, 2009. It's not clear where the name "Snowpocalypse" originated.

According to its website, the GLM "documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language the world over, with a particular emphasis upon Global English."

The GLM describes Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse as "Portmanteau [or joining of] words linking 'snow' with 'apocalypse' and 'armageddon', used to describe the record snowfalls in the US East Coast and Northern Europe last winter."

The other words in GLM's top 10 list are:

Spillcam (1)
Vuvuzela (2)
The Narrative (3)
Refudiate (4)
Guido and Guidette (5)
Deficit (6)
3-D (8)
Shellacking (9)
Simplexity (10)