Of course I ran into the theories of Benjamin Whorf because of my background in linguistics. Although first trained in chemical engineering, in this mid thirties, Whorf went to Yale to study linguistics. During that decade, Benjamin Whorf continued at Yale but as an Anthropology lecturer and never really worked in the field of linguistics. He and fellow academic, Edward Sapir, did have an important contribution in their theory of the
Principle of Linguistic Relativity though.

Basically, this idea stems from Whorf's study of the Hopi language and the realization that one's reality is affected by the language one uses. The idea extends to the notion that an individual's thoughts are shaped by the specifics of their language.
In the 1940's, Whorf referred to Eskimo languages having seven distinct words for snow.
That statement has erroneously become part of an urban legend. Some accounts now hold the total count in the hundreds. Moreover, there's not a single Eskimo-Aleut language. Lastly, as as my ESL students will attest, there are a number of ways to reference snow in the English language. What actually is the different between sleet and hail?
SNOW
By clicking the big word above, you'll go to my 67 Flickr images which currently have that tag.