about snow

[howsmyenglish]

I did warn you that I'd write about English a lot, right?
So... after a short conversation with corvidology yesterday I realized that I don't know whether there is any difference between being "snowed up" and "snowed in". There are dictionary entries for both. And while Merriam Webster dictionary says that "snowed up" is British English, Collins dictionary says, "snowed in" can be British or... nothing? (or do they mean American, when they don't mention any variety?)

Anyhow, I'd like to know what you people think. Which one would you use and why?
If you answer, please, tell me which of the Englishes you speak, too. Thanks!

UPD: I mean it as in "not being able to leave a place because of snow".

You see, being snowed in or up is one of my favorite fantasies. One of my favorite settings for books or films (by the way, would you say "film" in American English or only "movie"?) is a place, where random people get stuck together for some time and have to deal. It doesn't have to be snow, but snow is one of the nicer reasons I know. I have a number of favorite books and films that are combined under this umbrella: there are "And then there were none", "Three blind mice" and "Sittaford mystery" by Agatha Christie, "The Winners" by Julio Cortazar, "8 women" is the only film that comes to mind at the moment... there are quite some more. Somehow I don't seem to remember their names right now, but the point is that in quite a number of them people are snowed in or up. Aaaand... they will be snowed up or in in the book that I am going to write. Because, you have to write about something that you like, right? And if you write about it, you really should know how to call it correctly. So answers will be highly appreciated!

Also, if you have titles to add: books, films, plays - you'd make me very happy. They absolutely do not have to be detective stories! (but they often are)

Collins added "Weekend for Murder" by Babson, Marian - I'm grateful! Hope, this will turn out to be nice!


UPD 2: I couldn't help feeling bad for "snowed up", which no one seems to like, so I googled it once again and found that there is a book called Snowed Up by Rosalie K. Fry! It's a children survival book set in Wales and I am going to buy it! Yay.

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

I would use Snowed Up for the village I grew up in, but Snowed In for when the house/street was inaccessible - I don't know how much this distinction applies for other people

[howsmyenglish]

Oh. I didn't even think of other usages. I only thought about "not being able to leave the house":

They were snowed up for a week.

or

We may all be snowed in here together for days - weeks, even.
Babson, Marian WEEKEND FOR MURDER

[smallhobbit]

I think I'd always say 'snowed in'.

[howsmyenglish]

Thank you!

[cittasette]

I'd use "snowed in" (American English), especially with regards to being stuck in a house. I've never heard of "snowed up".

Re: "nothing", I think that just means "it is a general English term" and isn't tied to any specific dialect.

Re: film vs movie, I believe in American English, "movie" is the more colloquial term, while "film" is used more in a professional context; this interesting link says they're pretty much interchangeable in British English, though.

I can't say any titles come to mind, but I might add the ones you mentioned to my very long to-read list :P

[howsmyenglish]

I do like exhaustive answers! Thank you! :)

[yarrowkat]

i concur with cittasette - I would use "snowed in" for any instance where snow was preventing access to or departure from a house, town, or place of business. i speak American English (southwestern regional dialect mixed with "liberal arts college" and my mother's midwesternisms), and I had never heard the usage "snowed up."

personally, i say "film" if i mean to ascribe artistic properties to it; "movie" if i do not think it has artistic merit. functionally, they are synonyms, though. i'm just a snob. ;)

[howsmyenglish]

Thank you! I had no idea about this difference between film and movie, but it sounds logical :)

[quantumcupcakes]

I speak British English and I've never heard of 'snowed up' as a term, I've always used snowed in. (and I tend to use film or movie fairly interchangeably)

[howsmyenglish]

Well, "snowed up" seems to be not only British, but outdated as well, then...

[corvidology]

I'm English but I've lived in the US midwest and the US South. In all three cases we say "snowed in" not "snowed up" because we're talking about our inability to get out of the house.

Also, we'd say film in the UK and movie in the US but movie has slipped into use in the UK and sometimes people say film in the US when they're trying to sound a bit more upmarket. :D

[howsmyenglish]

Thank you!

[divinemusings]

I use American English, and "Snowed In" is what we use. For the definition attached to it, it makes more sense to me than "snowed up" but you can use the one your prefer most. :) Do you want to learn more British style or American style English?

[howsmyenglish]

I want to know them all! :D I would like to be aware of the differences - not only between American and British English, but also Australian and... I don'r know about many more except for Indian English (not many people know about it's existence;) and, well, the international one, the one that is used between people with different mother tongues, but that one has no rules at all... still, I'm sure there are peculiarities to South African English as well and... I can't think of any others, but I'm sure they exist.

[divinemusings]

Ah okay. :) Yeah there are a lot of different versions out there depending on where someone lives. It gets adapted and morphed to fit the setting.

[spindle_ella]

UK English, and I'd use 'snowed in'. Never heard 'snowed up' before.

[howsmyenglish]

Fascinating! It's almost as if I'd made it up! I'm only glad the Merriam Webster Dictionary and Google back me up... :D

[thewayne]

We live literally on the top of a mountain at 9,000', our back door leads straight in to and down a national forest. Right after Christmas we had a blizzard drop 3' of snow in less than 18 hours: there are three roads up here and at least the main road was closed for the day, I suspect the second most common road was closed as it would be very treacherous with that amount of snow as it hugs a canyon wall along a 4500' elevation change in 12 miles, the other road might have remained open if they'd been able to get snow plows - but if they were unable to plow the main road, they probably weren't able to plow the third road.

We would definitely use 'in'.

My wife would always heckle me because I'm from the desert of Phoenix, Arizona and my first instinct sometimes when it snows is to want to go down the mountain where it's warmer. I've gotten stuck in the snow a number of times, but not recently.

[howsmyenglish]

The place you live in sounds fantastic! I love mountains, forests and snow.
And deserts, but that's another story;)

[thewayne]

It can be quite pretty, but there are certainly downsides, like after a dry winter and spring when the summer is so bad that we're under a 5 minute evacuation alert in case a forest fire sweeps through. At my wife's observatory, almost every year the site manager has special water sprinklers set up around the important buildings in case fire approaches - if the telescopes were to be damaged, specifically if the primary mirrors were to break, it could be the death of the observatory as it could take a decade to get them remade and they couldn't hold on to the scientists for that long!

We live next to White Sands, which is the world's largest gypsum desert. Very pretty place. My wife likes to take the dogs down there for a run with the bike. And we do sometimes get some fantastic sunsets.

If you take a look at my photo gallery, I have lots of photos of Cloudcroft, the observatory, and an entire gallery devoted to White Sands.

[howsmyenglish]

wow. we live next to the forest, too, but we didn't have that many fires yet. once, though, we, too, were close to being evaluated. This is scary.

the pictures are lovely!

[thewayne]

Thank you!  And I think you mean evacuated? ;-)  I will humorously assume the C is next to the L on your keyboard and your finger slipped. I got some fairly nice landscapes, we had a snow storm sneak in and I was out and about today, but my camera was acting weird - I don't know if the focus is acting up or if maybe the clouds/lighting conditions was confusing it, I'll have to see about doing some tests with it.  That's one problem with having had cataract surgery: it's made me more dependent on auto-focus.

I hope to post them soon.  I've also done some work on my eclipse photos and need to get those up!  I don't know if those will be going on my web site, they might just go here.

[howsmyenglish]

that's my phone))) it writes what it wants (the word "writes" really wanted to be "wires", for instance) and I sometimes forget to read what it wrote :D

I'd love to see the pictures!

[thewayne]

A lot of us call it 'autoincorrect', but I definitely know what you mean. :-)