blizzard
A hundred years ago, Reverend Edward Brown ruminated over the origin the word blizzard, meaning the weather-related one, a current topic of discussion in De Smet:

I was amused that the attempted explanation of the origin of the word "blizzard," that it originated in the Sioux Indians pronouncing the word blistered, and on a man's frozen face, "blizzard." I have only to say that the writer is not less than half a century behind the times. Fifty years ago I used to hear the word in southern Ohio, among people of Virginia and Maryland origin, applied to a blustering wind. A braggadocio of a man was also called a blizzard. The memorable storm that rose in Illinois and swept through Indiana, Ohio, and down Lake Erie, rolling up great tidal waves and doing immense damage to the shipping at Buffalo, Nov. 17 and 18, 1842, was called by the people of Indiana, where I then lived, a blizzard. The word is old, and as far as this country is concerned, of southern rather than western origin. We shall doubtless have to go back to Europe for the origin of the word. Probably it came from Ireland.

The word, however old it may have been in the 1880s, had not made it into the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary currently in use at Laura Ingalls Wilder's De Smet schoolhouse, nor was it included in the 1897 edition!

The Dairy Queen Blizzard® debuted in 1985, selling more than 175 million of them that first year. DQ® sold me one tonight.

As I sat there enjoying the tasty treat, I started thinking. Wouldn't it be great if the De Smet Dairy Queen could sell a "Hard Winter Blizzard®" even if only during pageant weekends? Maybe one containing gingerbread bits, with optional chocolate on top. Chocolate, you know, only adds to the goodness. And what about serving it in a souvenir tin cup for an extra fee?

I'm sure things like that have to go through corporate offices and rarely happen, but it's fun to think up marketing schemes that you just know - as a diehard "Little House on the Prairie" fan - would sell like hotcakes. See? There's another one. Why couldn't the Oxbow sell Almanzo's buckwheat pancakes, a hearty-appetite portion served beneath a blanket cake, with country ham on the side? And don't forget the maple syrup...
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:55 PM