Dialect Notes 1903: Word-List from East Alabama (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE



> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
Behalf Of
> Baker, John
> Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 9:41 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Dialect Notes 1903: Word-List from East Alabama
>
> -
>
>         "Snipe hunt" does not appear to be in the OED.  Is this not a
> practical joke used in the UK?  I've never come across one in real
life,
> but references to them are common enough that I expect most Americans
> have heard of them.  The earliest I see on Google Books is from 1893
in
> the Pacific Medical Journal, a passing reference to "all the admirable
> and trusting confidence and sang froid as well as that dogmatic
> perseverance that characterizes the bag holder in the midnight snipe
> hunt."  There are some other references to snipe hunts from this
period,
> suggesting that they first became popular in the 1890s.


Once when I was active as boy scout leader, we sent our charges on a
snipe hunt.  They had a blast, running around in the woods at night with
flashlights and sacks, while I and the other scout master kept worrying
if they would get hurt, lost, bit by snake, fall down and bust heads on
rocks, etc.  Now I wonder who pulled the joke on whom.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, (New York, NY) Saturday, April 06,
1867; pg. 45; Issue 601; col B
"The amateur hunter declared that his ambition for a snipe-hunt on the
prarie lands of Missouri is entirely extinguished."

(_American Turf and Sporting Magazine_ has a "snipe hunt" citation in
1835, but it is a legitimate hunt for snipes, not the practical joke)


>
>         World Wide Words, at
> http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-lef1.htm, has a different
> explanation for "left holding the bag":  "It actually dates back to
the
> middle of the eighteenth century in Britain. The original version was
to
> give somebody the bag to hold, meaning to keep somebody occupied or
> distracted while you slipped away. Figuratively, it meant to leave
> somebody in the lurch, to let them stay around to take the blame for
> something that had gone wrong."
>


I always figured "holding the bag" had something to do with con games
like the Pigeon Drop.
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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