Northeaster; not nor’easter

Next time one of those bitter storms comes barreling in from Newfoundland and Greenland, people are sure to call it a “nor’easter.” Television weatherpersons do it. Radio announcers do it. And even (gasp!) newspaper reporters do it.

Nor’easter is wrong. Nor’west is fine, but not nor’east. Samuel Eliot Morison, the great Harvard historian of Down East lore, said so. Gerald Warner Brace, a Deer Isle rusticator and author, denounced the “nor’east” abomination a half-century ago. They quelled the false usage for a time, but the media have since backslid, and a generation of whippersnappers threatens to “nor’east” us to death.

Enter a new crusader to lead the charge. Tom Halsted, a writer in Gloucester, Mass., has unleashed a stream of articles to WoodenBoat and Natural History magazines and letters to the editor of The Boston Globe, The New York Times and The Gloucester Daily Times.

In an op-ed piece in The New Bedford (Mass.) Standard-Times, he wrote: “That gimcrack word ‘nor-easter’ is a made-up, fake, pseudo-Yankee neologism that came from the same plastic cracker barrel as ‘Ye Olde New England Tea Shoppe.’ It should be shunned as silly and pretentious.”

Stand on a dock or a deck anywhere between Greenwich and Lubec, he wrote, and you will hear working seamen say “nor’west” and “sou’west,” but “northeast” and “southeast.” Never “nor’east” or “sou’east.” They omit the “th” when the wind blows from the west, sound it when it blows from the east.

Halsted explained why: “The distinctive pronunciation arose in the days of sail, when helmsmen need to pass on commands in howling weather and wanted to be sure to be clearly understood. ‘Nor’west’ and ‘nor’east’ might sound the same when shouted along the iced-up deck of a New Bedford scalloper or a Gloucester longliner beating home from Georges against a winter gale with a trip of fish. But ‘nor’west’ and ‘nawtheast’ would sound distinctly different.”

So put on your sou’wester (storm hat) to face the next gale, but please say it right.