schnazzy (1937)

[Wilson Gray]

I remember Baby Snooks on radio, Dixie Dugan in the funnies, and Jimmy
Durante from  both radio and TV. I don't recall "schnozzle" in
reference to Durante's beak, which means nothing. It's just an
observation. But I do recall the other two terms and his also being
referred to as "The Nose." I was a really big fan of his. But were his
nicknamess really so well-known and so widely used as to affect the
pronunciation of another word beginning with sn-? And why just that
one word?

-Wilson Gray

On 9/16/05, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at rci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
> Subject:      schnazzy (1937)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>


--
-Wilson Gray