The expression snowball’s chance in Hell means you have no reasonable hope whatsoever of achieving something you are hoping to achieve. The concept, of course, is that no matter how cold snow is, even when compacted into a snowball, the chances it will still be snow — or water — once it’s introduced to Hell are nil.
Now there are those who will ask, “But why would anyone want to toss a snowball into Hell? Everyone knows about the fires of Hell, right?” Well, Hell isn’t always perceived by all people as being one huge pit of never-ending fire.
Zamhareer is one Hell pit in Islamic tradition that is characterized by extreme blizzards, ice and snow that no living being can bear. But then there are other pits of Hell that are definitely identified as the extreme opposite of Zamhareer.
In Dante’s Divine Comedy the final ring of Hell at the centre of the world is a frozen lake called Cocytus. But overall, Hell‘s a pretty hot place.
In Canada, on September 11, 1980, in the Ottawa Citizen then-Quebec Premier René Lévesque was quoted as saying the following after a day-long debate on the proposed Charter of Rights that would nullify parts of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language:
Trudeau is asking for something that is not practical, something unrealistic. He wanted to divide and conquer while giving an appearance of generosity. But a lot of people saw him coming; I don’t think he has a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting his charter in.
In the end the score was Snowball 1, Quebec 0. And that wasn’t the first time snowballs and Hell had been mentioned or implied as part of politics in North America.
Back on August 20, 1956, the Victoria Advocate of Victoria (TX) ran a story on page 4 of that day’s newspaper in the “Matter of Fact” column by Joseph and Stewart Alsop. It discussed the impression left at the Democratic convention.
As for the outcome, well, they really did not think Stevenson had a snowball’s chance in Hell of carrying their particular states if Eisenhower’s health held up. Of course, you had to remember the big Democratic gains in 1954. But if you were really honest about it, the President’s health was the one real factor to watch.
The St. Petersburg (FL) Evening Independent News of September 2, 1938 reported the inside story of the Pope-Clark primary in Idaho and President Roosevelt’s reluctance to back defeated Senator Pope as an independent candidate.
Jim Farley was given a fill in on the intrigue when he passed through the state (of Idaho) on his return trip from Alaska. It convinced him that Mr. Pope, running as an independent, wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance to beat the machine. So he phoned Hyde Park by long distance, begging F.D.R. to make no commitments until he had learned the facts.
While the expression has been used in many situations, it seems that it’s a favourite when speaking of extreme situations in politics.
An etymology dictionary Idiomation consulted claimed that the expression dates back to 1931 but did not provide a source to support that claim.
The earliest publication of the expression Idiomation was able to find goes back to 1938 and is used with such familiarity as to imply it was a well used expression by that time.
Historically Speaking 