snipe hunts

[Victor Steinbok]

  True, as far as the most immediate expression is concerned. I did not
specifically try to antedate snipe-hunt and snipe-hunting. But the prank
is exactly the same, irrespectively of which noun is used to describe
it. And it clearly has a lot more in common with fox hunt than with
cattle drive. It's also quite clear that the "snipe" in this case is not
the bird either, although some people tried to connect their snipes.
(Note, for example, one comment about the snipe only having "three bones
in its body".) I have no intention of sniping with Joel over this issue
and don't want to get stuck holding the bag.

     VS-)

On 9/21/2010 8:25 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> At 9/21/2010 05:01 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>> My earlier observations (see the "schneid and snipe oddities"
>> post/thread) place the snipe hunt (or, at the time, "snipe drive")
>> almost entirely in the Midwest about 80 years earlier with the possible
>> origin at 100 years earlier (H. H. Riley).
> But that's the midwestern "snipe drive", as in "cattle drive".  Here
> in the effete east we "hunt".
>
> Joel

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