Snollygoster & Snurge

Filed Under January 2007, columns 

Dethspicable.

Dear Word Detective: Can you say what “snollygoster” and “snurge” mean? — David.

Sure, no problem. A “snollygoster” is a person, most especially a politician, who is motivated in all things by personal ambition and greed rather than admirable principles of duty and self-sacrifice. Regarding politicians, that description is, of course, largely redundant, but while most politicians may be “snollygosters,” not all “snollygosters” are politicians. Many of them sell things on eBay, for instance.

A “snurge” is a despicable person, especially a sneaky little toady whose greatest joy comes from ratting out other people to the teacher, boss or other authority figure in order to curry favor with those in power. It seems reasonable to assume that (if they survive their childhoods) many “snurges” grow up to be “snollygosters.”

But while defining “snollygoster” and “snurge” is a piece of cake, determining their origins is a bit more difficult. “Snollygoster” is an American invention, first appearing in print, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), in the mid-19th century. The OED pegs the first appearance of “snurge” in print as being in 1933, but such slang terms are frequently commonly used in speech for years or even decades before they turn up in print. “Snurge” appears to be more commonly heard in the UK than in the US.

The most likely origin of “snollygoster” is another, very similar, word — “snallygaster.” From the German “schnelle (quick)” plus “geister (spirits),” a “snallygaster” was a mythical monster (a giant reptilian bird, according to one source) said, among residents of Maryland, to attack and eat livestock as well as the occasional child. Just how Maryland’s version of Rodan came to be associated with avaricious politicians is anyone’s guess, but the resemblance of “snollygoster” to “snallygaster” is too striking to ignore. There is a slight dating problem with this theory, in that “snallygaster” has (according to the OED) first been found in print in 1940 (versus 1846 for its presumptive descendant “snollygoster”), but it’s entirely plausible that the “snallygaster” had been used to cow disobedient children for at least 100 years before the word made it into print.

The origin of “snurge,” unfortunately, is more of a mystery. Perhaps influenced by “sneak,” it may well be onomatopoeic or “echoic,” invented as an unpleasant little word for a unpleasant little person. According to the eminent etymologist Eric Partridge, “snurge” dates to the 1920s and originally was used in England as slang for a workhouse for the poor, eventually becoming students’ and armed services slang for a “twerp.”

 

 

Comments

One Response to “Snollygoster & Snurge”

  1. vagabondblogger on February 13th, 2007 12:49 pm

    While I was trying to get some incentive to write something on my blog, I decided to look up words, thinking that might do the trick and it did. I just happened on your site yesterday and read this question & answer. This AM I picked up an old used book I have Titled _American Talk: The Words and Ways of American Dialects_, by Robert Hendrickson. On page 225, under “More Discombobulating Twists” I found the following:
    “SNOLLYGOSTER
    O very rarely hears this word today, but in the nineteenth century it was a common Western Americanism, meaning a pretentious boaster. The word is probably a fanciful formation coined by some folk poet who liked its appropriate sound; it is first recorded in 1862. One early editor defined a snollygoster as ‘a fellow who wants office regardless of party, platform, or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by sheer force of monumental talknophical assumancy.’ The type is still common, even if the word isn’t.”

    What the hey is talknophical?

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