{"id":1097,"date":"2013-01-19T11:32:55","date_gmt":"2013-01-19T11:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=1097"},"modified":"2013-12-25T10:38:06","modified_gmt":"2013-12-25T10:38:06","slug":"snow-in-bristol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=1097","title":{"rendered":"Snow in Bristol"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A snowflake under the microscope. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>It snowed in Bristol yesterday, as it did over a large part of the UK. No more than 2-3 inches of the frozen white stuff caused complete chaos with bus services withdrawn, schools closed and similar over-reactions. A friend called me yesterday afternoon: he works in Geneva and told me that several times that amount – nearly 2 feet in fact – fell there on Tuesday afternoon and life continued as normal.<\/p>\n

When snow settles in the Bristol area, it does something unique that’s not repeated elsewhere in the country or in the English-speaking world (to the best of my knowledge. Ed.<\/em>): it pitches<\/em>. When it’s snowing, Bristolians have been known to confuse people from elsewhere simply by asking, “Is it pitching?”<\/p>\n

Chambers 21st Century Dictionary defines the verb to pitch<\/em><\/a> as follows:<\/p>\n

pitch<\/strong> verb (pitches, pitched, pitching) 1<\/strong> to set up (a tent or camp). 2<\/strong> to throw or fling. 3 tr & intr<\/strong> to fall or make someone or something fall heavily forward. 4 intrans<\/strong> said of a ship: to plunge and lift alternately at bow and stern. 5 tr & intr<\/strong> said of a roof: to slope \u2022 is pitched at a steep angle. 6<\/strong> to give a particular musical pitch to (one’s voice or a note) in singing or playing, or to set (a song, etc.) at a higher or lower level within a possible range \u2022 The tune is pitched too high for me. 7<\/strong> to choose a level, e.g. of difficulty, sophistication, etc. at which to present (a talk, etc.) \u2022 was pitched too low for this audience. 8 a<\/strong> cricket to bowl (the ball) so that it lands where the batsman can hit it; b<\/strong> golf to hit (the ball) high and gently, so that it stays where it is on landing; c tr & intr<\/strong>, baseball said of the pitcher (sense 1): to throw the ball overarm or underarm to the person batting. 9<\/strong> to pave (a road) with stones set on end or on edge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Out of these possible definitions, from whence could this bit of Bristolian dialect come? Sense 9 above, i.e. paving in the sense of covering something over, seems a strong possibility.<\/p>\n

In addition, users of the WordReference Forum have also discussed what snow does when it settles<\/a>, including pitching in Bristol. In this thread, one user, Loob, suggests that Bristol’s pitching could have originated from Somerset since Somerset dialect for to lie<\/em> is to pitch<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Pitch itself comes from the 13th century Middle English verb picchen<\/em>, meaning to throw or put up.<\/p>\n

One final point: whatever snow does where you are – pitch, settle,lie or anything else – don’t forget to let your inner child enjoy it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It snowed in Bristol yesterday, as it did over a large part of the UK. No more than 2-3 inches of the frozen white stuff caused complete chaos with bus services withdrawn, schools closed and similar over-reactions. A friend called me yesterday afternoon: he works in Geneva and told me that several times that amount […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[40,14,16,22],"class_list":["post-1097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bristol","category-translation-and-language-related-matters","tag-bristol","tag-dialect","tag-english-usage","tag-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1097"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3322,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097\/revisions\/3322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}