Lexicon -- Snowblower vs. Snowthrower

[WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 13, 2019: I had a really nice opening photograph of a snowthrower in action right here, but I decided to take it down. The image as it appeared on Google Search was captioned, "Images may be subject to copyright." Hmmm. I've read anecdotal horror stories of individuals being dunned for royalties because of inadvertent copyright infringement, and I didn't want to become another anecdote of that sort. So, here's a lame photo that I own of a snowthrower that I own that's not in action.]

[Then I wrote the following back on the 10th of this month.]

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One sees the terms 'snowblower' and 'snowthrower' used interchangeably. But 'blowing' and 'throwing' are two different things. So which should it be? -- 'snowblower' or 'snowthrower'?

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I've thought long and hard about this, and I've decided that it has to be 'snowthrower', not 'snowblower' -- all one word; no space between 'snow' and 'thrower'.

Consider; what would a snowblower be? It would be a machine that creates a wind that blows snow off your driveway. The machines we have do no such thing. They pick up the snow with a rotating auger, and they forcefully hurl it out of a chute -- they 'throw' it.

So there we are; an end to the snowblower/snowthrower quandary. It's 'snowthrower'.

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Then I chanced upon some internet items that just happened to touch on the subject, "Snowblower vs. Snowthrower", and I got a bit of an education. In a nutshell, a 'snow thrower' is a single-stage machine with only an auger that picks up and 'throws' the snow. A 'snowblower' is a two-stage machine with both an auger to pick up the snow, and an impeller to 'blow' the snow out the discharge chute. An outfit known as Jacks Buying Guides has a good, brief article on the subject.

I'm still inclined to maintain that what all the machines do is they 'throw' snow; they don't blow it. That said, at least now I know what the generally accepted difference is between a 'snowblower' and a 'snowthrower'. And I still think that 'snowthrower' ought to be all one word, just as 'snowblower' is all one word.

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Update -- TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2019

And with all that said, I have to concede that 'snowblower' rolls off the tongue more easily than 'snowthrower'.

I've changed my mind. I'll go with 'snowblower' for the two-stage machines; 'snow thrower' for the single-stage types. Sometimes, one may as well just go with the flow.

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