[Ads-l] snatch 'female pudenda'

[Jonathan Lighter]

I can't vouch for the specific quote, but the time-frame is not
unbelievable.

"Snatch" is listed in Farmer & Henley (1890-96) as "American."

JL

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      snatch 'female pudenda'
>
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>
> =0A=
> An article in the recent (Dec. 2014) _Smithsonian_ magazine, vol. 45, no.
> 8=
> , pp. 50-57, "Massacre at Sand Creek," by Tony Horwitz, quotes a dispatch
> w=
> ritten by Capt. Silas Soule, regarding the 1864 massacre of a thousand
> Chey=
> ennes and Arapahos (men, women, and children) by the U.S. army near Sand
> Cr=
> eek, Colorado:=0A=
> =0A=
> "Squaws [sic] snatches were cut out for trophies" (p. 54).=0A=
> =0A=
> The OED's earliest citation for that sense of the word (snatch n.14) is
> fro=
> m 1904, in the _English Dialect Dictionary_.=0A=
> =0A=
> I wonder if the American instance from 1864 or 1865, as given in the
> quotat=
> ion, is credible.=0A=
> =0A=
> --Charlie=
>
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