“The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.”

—  Margaret Atwood , book Surfacing

Surfacing (1972) p. 107
The premise for this quote is now known to be a linguistic myth stemming from the early 20th century work of Franz Boas. This quote by Atwood has been cited as an example of the perpetuation of this myth https://books.google.ca/books/about/White_Lies_about_the_Inuit.html?id=i-osjdNH3g8C.
Variant: The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for love.

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Margaret Atwood 348
Canadian writer 1939

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