[antedating] "snuck" 1881

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Nov 24, 2007, at 9:19 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:

> I was caught yesterday in the middle of one of those tedious
> discussions about whether "snuck" is a "real word."  I affirmed that
> it was, at least in the good ol' U.S. of A.  When
>   that didn't work I tried sarcasm:  "If it isn't a word, what is
> it?"  This was met by knowing nods on the one side and looks of
> disbelief and pity on the other. Clearly _argumentum ad
> authoritatem_ does not work in such cases.

i've been working on a Language Log posting on this "not a word" stuff
for some time now, since Eugene Volokh ranted on his blog about it a
while ago:

   http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_08_19-2007_08_25.shtml#1187738395

i took a bash at the topic a while back --

   AZ, 11/17/04: Not a word!
   http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001652.html

but i think it's time for another.

arnold

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