Everybody hates snirt. And if you don't know what that is, read on

We've entered the season of snirt.

You probably know snirt even if you don't know the word, which, according to my random interrogations, 99.9% of people don't. I didn't know it either until it was introduced to me a few years ago by a snirt obsessive who occasionally sends photos of his snirt sightings and has repeatedly urged me to write about this phenomenon. Today I'm obliging that wish as a distraction from the rest of what plagues us.

So what is snirt? Here are some of the guesses I received when I asked around:

Someone from a Dr. Seuss book

A sneeze with a snort

Laughing with a snort

Something between a smirk and a sneer

A little snack

Snot on your shirt

A relative of the weasel

The accidental accumulation of crumbs and whatnot that are found inside your bra at the end of the day

All of the above are wrong.

OK, Merriam-Webster defines "snirt" as a Scottish word that means "an unsuccessfully suppressed snort of laughter," so a couple of the above are technically close to right. But that's not the snirt we're talking about. We're also not talking about the Dutch pea soup called "snert."

If you live in or near Chicago, go look out your window. Those brown-flecked piles along the curbs, climbing tree trunks, suffocating your car? Those icy, cruddy heaps that grow higher each time the snowplow spits past?

That's snirt. Snow + dirt.

Snirt is everything fresh snow is not. Fresh snow is beautiful. Snirt looks like the devil's soul. Fresh snow is fleeting. Snirt lasts forever, or at least it seems that way. Unlike fresh snow, snirt is widely despised, except in a town in upstate New York that hosts its annual Snirt Run, in which thousands of ATV enthusiasts gather for what one media account called "a day of snow, dirt, fun."

Fun is not a word normally associated with snirt.

And yet snirt is a great word. Until I learned it, I didn't know how much I needed it. As the saying goes: If you name it, you tame it. Naming those dirty, depressing snow mounds has made them more tolerable.

And because words help us control our thoughts, I've invented a few more hybrid words to help us get through our current arctic blast.

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snype: snow + hype

Snype is a common feature of winter weather reports, the ones that turn every snowfall into an arctic blast and every winter into the end of the world.

snirker: snow + shirker

The snirker is the neighbor who, though physically fit, never shovels. And then pulls his car into the spot you cleared.

snerk: snow + jerk

The snerk, unlike the snirker, does shovel. He shovels all his snow onto your driveway, gangway or lawn so that you're the one stuck with the snirt.

snaggart: snow + braggart

The snaggart constantly brags to friends in warm places that no one is as tough as people who spend winter with snow and snirt. "Snaggart" is widely considered a synonym for "Chicagoan."

snad (definition 1): snow + mad

The outrage you feel when the elation of a fresh snow wears off and you realize you're in for weeks of snirt.

snad (definition 2) snow + sad

The despair you feel when your outrage over snirt is exhausted and you realize wearily that the snirt will never, ever go away.

snovid: snow + COVID

Snovid, as in "snovid days," entered the language in the winter of 2021 to describe days when snow and the pandemic combined to keep people trapped at home. Snovid days make people very, very snad.

snungry: snow + hungry

When you're snungry, you're so sick of snovid days that you'll eat anything in your cupboards or fridge, the less nutritious and more caloric the better.

snorkout: snow + workout

This is an upbeat synonym for "show shoveling." Use of the word, as in "I had a great snorkout," helps you to focus on the fact that you burned calories and built muscle while shoveling snow into snirt.

snaint: snow + saint

The neighbor who shovels your walk or pushes your car out of the snirt.

snoplainer: snow + complain

The snoplainer is the person who constantly complains about snow, ice, cold and snirt. Also a synonym for "Chicagoan."

snappy: snow + happy

That feeling you get when you realize that after all those snad, snungry, snoplaining days of winter, the snirt will melt one day. By May.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 02/03/21: Trying to get a COVID vaccine is like playing roulette
• 12/30/20: The year of the virus, the year of the mask. Be gone, 2020, that's all that we ask
• 12/28/20: As the light returns, it's time to make a list of what we've missed, and appreciated, in this dark year
• 11/23/20: How to enjoy Thanksgiving alone. How to help someone who's alone enjoy it
• 10/23/20: Voting in Kamala's shoes --- the power of a candidate's sneakers
• 09/30/20: Tis the (election) season. Don't despair, take deep breaths --- and did I mention don't despair?
• 09/15/20: Winter's coming. The secret doctors won't tell you about surviving it in a pandemic
• 09/04/20: It's September. Already. Again. This year many wish we could skip ahead as an election and cabin fever loom
• 08/19/20: Is 2020 the worst year ever?
• 08/14/20: Mailmen brave the storm, and not just the political one
• 05/05/20: Coronachondria, coronacravings and pandemania: A few words to describe our strange new times
• 04/14/20: If you get the coronavirus, would you, should you, make it public?
• 04/02/20: The pandemic, a professor and a duck named Honey: A story of life in a time of death
• 03/23/20: It's OK not to feel OK right now. But here's how to feel better
• 03/20/20: Befuddled and grieving: As nursing homes restrict visitors in the COVID-19 crisis, one woman fears she'll never see her mother again
• 02/04/20: Where do we find relief in a relentlessly jangling world?
• 12/13/19: Reject the comparisons. Embrace the complication. Be the brightness you want to see. Tips for happier holidays
• 01/21/19: Farewell, Mary Oliver, a poet whose name you may not know, but whose words you most certainly do
• 09/06/18: A breeze of hope blows in the Windy City
• 08/29/18: Another summer. Again, a gift
• 08/17/18: In search of family in a small-town graveyard
• 08/09/18: Courage, kindness two years after 12-year-old blackboy was shot in Chicago
• 07/26/18: An everyday encounter made brighter by a good question: 'Do you have a story for me?'
• 06/19/18: A Big Sister's Guide to Life: Don't chase men and other practical advice
• 06/12/18: For 13 years, 2 friends wrote letters daily. It was a love affair of poetry, separated only by death.
• 06/01/18: What would we do without our brothers?
• 05/17/18: Forget a fiddler. City woman awakens to find a goose on her roof --- and laws about removing it and her eggs
• 05/10/18: A high school senior with college dreams was paralyzed by gunfire. Two years later, he's still pushing forward
• 04/05/18: Remembering the youngest history makers
• 04/03/18: The Parable of the (Expletive Deleted) Comfort Dog
• 02/15/18: Fees, fines, loans, scams: How the poor get poorer
• 02/01/18: When Paul Simon, Daniel Day-Lewis and Elton John say 'farewell' to work they love, should we too?
• 01/25/18: At Oscars time, let's snub the snubbing
• 12/28/17: The real 2017 word of the year
• 12/20/17: The laundry-folding robots are coming
• 12/13/17: How not to waste the last days of 2017