snipe hunts

[Paul]

  Well, that's interesting, officer and or enlisted?  Never heard it
during Korea on CA124. But I was a lofty fire control tech.

On 9/21/2010 8:02 AM, Bill Palmer wrote:
> 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
>>
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