scoff/scarf

[Jonathan Lighter]

A coupla thou undercooked Googlits for "snarf (and/ 'n/ &) barf," not so many for "slurp (and/ 'n /& ) burp."  The former looks to be popular in bulimic contexts.

  Meanwhile, "scoff" essentially means "to eat," regardless of transitivity or voracity level (OED: 1798), though guzzling may certainly be implied.  The secret HDAS files confirm its former popularity among sailors. It is also a noun meaning "food," with a corresponding nominal "scarf" appearing in the 1930s.

  An apparently silent "r" intrudes orthographically so early as 1864 in that year's edition of John C. Hotten's (Anglo English) _Slang Dictionary_, which offers "scorf."

  You could also "scoff" tobacco 160 years ago; cf. later U.S. "eatin' tobacco," i.e., the chewing kind.

  The earliest full-feldged U.S. "scarf," v., I've seen is from _AS_ in 1938, though there's a U.S. "scorf" from a dozen years earlier.

  Cf. the similar "snarf," from the 1950s.  By the early 1970s  it also meant "to sniff."

  JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: scoff/scarf
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At 11:05 AM -0400 8/30/07, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>On 8/30/07, Laurence Urdang wrote:
>>
>> Since the first quote in the OED for scoff is the same year when
>>he was born, it is
>> rather unlikely (but, for some, not impossible) that it was formed
>>on the name of
>> Auguste Escoffier.
>> I first encountered it in the UK, in the 1970s. Later, when I
>>encountered scarf
>> among native speakers in the New York area, it occurred to me that it was a
>> resurrection (hypercorrection, if you prefer) of the r-less form
>>scoff by those speakers
>> who want listeners to know that they are aware there is an "r" in
>>the spelling of a word,
>> which, of course, there wasn't---at least if one compares the
>>history of scoff and scarf
>> in the OED.
>> I wanted to check it in the Century, but I couldn't get it on
>>line and was too lazy to pick
>> up the volume in the next room.
>> Also, the meaning has always seemed to me closer to 'gorge
>>oneself; eat voraciously'
>> than to 'eat heartily.'
>
>I was able to access the Century online without a problem:
>http://www.global-language.com/CENTURY/
>
>Under "scoff, v." one sense is "To eat hastily; devour [Naut. slang]".
>The Supplement also shows a sense of the noun, "Food; 'grub.' [Slang]"
>(quoting Kipling). Nothing relevant for "scarf".
>
>I first encountered the gluttonous sense of "scarf" in my childhood,
>reading a collection of Peanuts comic strips. In one strip, Snoopy
>observes that "one of the great joys in life is scarfing down junk
>food." I can't find a dating for that strip (though the saying turns
>up on Peanuts merchandise now) -- I'd guess it was early to mid-'70s.
>
>--Ben Zimmer
>

I recall once, when I had too much time on my hands and had passed
too many similarly named establishments, coming up with the "Scarf
'N' Barf" as a name for an undistinguished fast food franchise. Just
down the road from the "Slurp 'N' Burp".

LH

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