snipe hunts

[Barbara Need]

I knew about snipe hunts before I knew about snipe--and actually
thought that snipe were mythical beasts! I was quite surprised to find
otherwise.

Barbara

Barbara Need
Ithaca

On 20 Sep 2010, at 11:49 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> At 9/20/2010 11:05 AM, David A. Daniel wrote:
>> In Straw Dogs (1971) the bad guys take Dustin Hoffman on a snipe
>> hunt. Story
>> takes place in England and Hoffman's character, being American, has
>> never
>> heard of a snipe hunt and doesn't know it is a setup. The bad guys
>> want to
>> get him out of the house so they can rape his wife. I frankly don't
>> remember
>> if I knew what a snipe hunt was before seeing the movie in 1971 or
>> not, but
>> the point is the writer and/or director (Sam Peckinpah) figured it
>> was a
>> term Americans would not know.
>
> But I knew about snipe hunts in my youth, circa 1948-1950.  My
> recollection is that one was proposed by the older male (summer)
> campers for the younger.  It was clear what a snipe hunt involved --
> going out with flashlights late at night (after the counselors had
> done their bed check, which of course was part of the allure), to
> find the elusive snipe.  Flashlights not to be turned on until the
> snipe had been located.  I don't remember what was supposed to be so
> interesting about them.  Perhaps that universal appeal to pubescent
> males: to surprise someone in the act of copulation.  Nor do I
> remember if the hunt actually took place and any of the gullible
> went, but in any case I didn't.  (In those days I was very skeptical
> of almost any proposal I heard.)
>
> Joel

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