The wrong type of snow

British Rail's Director of Operations, Terry Worrall, was asked to comment on the adverse effects of the unusually heavy 1991 snowfall on railway services that winter.

[5] During the December 2009 European snowfall, several Eurostar trains broke down in the Channel Tunnel, trapping 2,000 passengers in darkness; newspapers reported "wrong type of fluffy snow".

[6] Following the destruction of the coastal railway line at Dawlish, Devon during severe weather in 2014, the Daily Telegraph carried a cartoon by Matt with a notice reading "Trains cancelled – Wrong sort of seaweed".

Stock phrases involving "leaves on the line" and snow were used in headlines to ridicule seasonal disruption, to such an extent that they are now said to have passed into Britain's folklore[9][10] and are considered to be established in the "collective British consciousness".

Its longevity and persistence in the public consciousness has been attributed to a highly effective but poorly chosen analogy that has "stuck" with its audience and is subject to interpretation in other contexts; what originated as a simplified explanation of a technical problem has become a popular code for a lame excuse.

[15] The "wrong kind of/type of" part of the phrase has itself been shown to exemplify semantic change, having undergone a process of grammaticalization to move from an impartial description of weather conditions to become a politically loaded signifier of failure.