1876: “Snass” in the classical Chinook
Kind of unusual to see “cole snass” ‘snow’ abbreviated to “snass” (‘rain’)!
But as usual for the frontier era, no actual English translation was needed for this Puget Sound newspapers’s Chinuk Wawa.
“SNASS.” — This expressive if not poetical word, derived from the classical Chinook, supersedes the term “Beautiful Snow,” in this latitude. Snass fell to the depth of three inches Tuesday night, and as usual melted during the succeeding day, and produced a compound of mud and water, quite appropriately denominated “slush.” Let us hope that it constituted a part of the “odds and ends” which close our winters, and is the harbinger of an early spring.
— from the Olympia (WA) Washington Standard of January 22, 1876, page 2, column 4
