Dialect Notes 1903: Word-List from East Alabama

[Baker, John]

        Snipes are generally found only in wetlands in America too, I
believe, but they are not found in all areas and many Americans are
under the impression that there is no such bird as a snipe.  The
practical joke, in which the joke's target is told to hold a bag into
which snipes will be driven, would work only if he were unfamiliar with
snipes and their behavior.


John Baker



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From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Michael Quinion
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 3:02 PM
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Subject: Re: Dialect Notes 1903: Word-List from East Alabama

John Baker wrote:

> "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.

We have snipe in the UK, but the species is of marshland, not woodland,
and so it would be improbable that a snipe hunt would be organised on
foot. Certainly, I've never encountered the term.

When I looked into "left holding the bag", I found this in Albert
Bigelow
Paine's biography of Mark Twain: "In every trade tricks are played on
the
new apprentice, and Sam felt that it was his turn to play them. With
John
Briggs to help him, tortures for Jim Wolfe were invented and applied.
They
taught him to paddle a canoe, and upset him. They took him sniping at
night and left him 'holding the bag' in the old traditional fashion
while
they slipped off home and went to bed".

This, taken together with responses from American readers who explained
that "sniping" meant a practical joke called a snipe hunt, meant that I
have since assumed that the term is American, not British.

"Holding the bag" however, certainly is British in origin.

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org

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