schnazzy (1937)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

>From the excellent new sports blog "Deadspin"...

-----
http://www.deadspin.com/sports/blogdome/blogdoms-best-seattle-mariners-125795.php
Most people don't remember this, but it wasn't too long ago that the
Seattle Mariners were one of the biggest failures in sports. ... Now they
have a schnazzy new stadium, video game owners, one of the best blog
networks around and a sprightly Japanese fellow with an exclamation point
at the end of his name. It almost makes up for the fact that they stink
again.
-----

I don't see anything in the major dictionaries for "schnazzy" as a
(jocular? intensive? quasi-Yiddish?) spelling variant of "snazzy", though
Google and Yahoo each yield more than 10,000 hits. And it's not new...

-----
1937 _Charleroi (Pa.) Mail_ 30 Apr. 1/1 Outside border rim of the bowl
painted with bands of black, blue and white (your choice) with schnazzy
designs of roosters, vegetables and sailboats in colors.
-----
1938 _Los Angeles Times_ 12 Aug. II18/1 Everybody from Baby Snooks to
Grandpa Schnazzy has put on a red and green serape and a sombrero and gone
Spanish for la fiesta.
-----
1944 _Lancaster (Ohio) Eagle Gazette_ 10 [comic strip, "Dixie Dugan"] I
wantcha t'come out an' see th' schnazzy-lookin' showcase I built.
-----

Since the cites go back to the '30s, I suspect some influence from Jimmy
Durante, who popularized "schnozz"/"schnozzle"/"schnozzola".


--Ben Zimmer