scroot

[Jonathan Lighter]

An interesting synonym and vanishingly rare.  I have never come across it
independently.  Neither did Berrey & Van den Bark, who seem to have rejected
nothing.

JL




On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 11:20 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: scroot
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Michael Sheehan wrote:
> > .... Can someone direct me to the origin of scroot, meaning a mutt?
> > Citations:
> >
> > o     1907 October, Josephine Tozier, A Spring Fortnight in France, Dodd,
> > page 183,
> >            "...I would be willing to ride in any kind of a car. I would
> > even go in a scroot, if
> >            necessary."
> >            "What in the world is a scroot, Margot?"
> >            "It is only my name for one of those nasty little, smelly,
> > noisy, ancient automobiles
> >            that go shaking past our country place at home. I stole the
> word
> > from papa. It is
> >            what he calls a ragged little cur, just plain dog. My scroot
> is
> > just plain ragged
> >            motor, without fancy trimmings."
> > o     1920, Herschel S. Hall, Steel Preferred, E.P. Dutton, page 34,
> >            "The young whelp!" he roared to Nicker. "The yellow scroot!
> Why,
> > the bloody
> >            little boozer!"
> > o     2005, Edgar Martin, Boots and the Mystery of the Unlucky Vase,
> > Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 1417986026, chapter 4,
> >        page 73,
> >            The blamed hound, the mangy scroot!
> --
>
> I think the usual proposed derivation would be from "croot" =
> "runt"/"dwarf"/"sickly child" (in the Scots National Dictionary on-line,
> presumably from English "croot" [OED "obsolete rare"]).
>
> This is speculatively from Welsh "crwt" = "boy" but I suppose maybe one
> could alternatively speculate "croot" < "crooked".
>
> The "s-" is apparently a frequent dialectal augmentation: Joseph Wright
> gives many examples of this including Northampton "scroot" vs. "croot":
>
> http://tinyurl.com/lxqtqg
>
> (p.242)
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
>
> **
>
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