The Not So Abominable Snowman

Stories of a strange wild guy can be found in distant regions all over the world. North America features Bigfoot, which rose to renown in the 1950s and is based on over 1,000-year-old Native American beliefs. In Asia, there is the Yeti, which was anglicized as the Abominable Snowman by journalist Henry Newman in 1921.

Newman was interviewing British explorers who had just returned from Mt. Everest, where they had discovered enormous footprints. The footprints were made by something called "metoh-kangmi," or the "man-bear snow-man," according to the local guides. So, essentially, the Yeti. Newman kept the snowman part of the name but spelled "metoh" incorrectly. His first attempt yielded the word "filthy," but the Filthy Snowman didn't have the right ring to it, so he substituted Abominable. The name stuck because it was the first real contact most of the Western world had with the story, and it has remained ever since.