snipe hunts

[Bill Palmer]

In the ships of the US Navy, the engineers are called "snipes".

Bill Palmer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barbara Need" <bhneed at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 7:19 AM
Subject: Re: snipe hunts


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Barbara Need <bhneed at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: snipe hunts
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.445 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3149 - Release Date: 09/21/10
06:34:00

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org