Snollygoster & Snurge

Filed Under January 2007, columns | 1 Comment

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.”

 

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Chogie

Filed Under January 2007, columns | 4 Comments

Tell them it’s called the Garden State because
so many wiseguys are pushing up daisies there.

Dear Word Detective: Being from New Jersey and growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s, it seems like the only people who have heard the term “cutting a chogie” are also from N.J. I now live in Georgia and am often ridiculed when using the term to mean “moving fast.” Sometimes it is used facetiously to refer to someone with an unusual gait while walking. I have found a few references from the Vietnam war and some go back to the Korean war and both seem to refer to “moving out fast” but I am unsure of the origin. Can you shed any light on this? — Gordon.

Making fun of people from New Jersey, eh? Haven’t those clowns seen The Sopranos? I was born in New Jersey, as it happens, and I have a foolproof non-violent revenge for such disrespect of the Garden State as you describe. I just quietly meditate on the fact that residents of Podunk (or Georgia, whatever) will never, ever, know what real pizza tastes like.

Although I grew up during the same period as you did, my adolescence was spent in Connecticut, and I never, as far as I can recall, encountered “Cutting a chogie.” Of course, even if I had, that wouldn’t guarantee success on the question of its origin. I’ve been searching for the story behind “pediddle” (or “perdiddle” or “padiddle”), slang for a car with only one working headlight, since I was about 15 years old. No one, as yet, has come up with an even vaguely plausible source for that one.

In the case of “chogie,” fortunately, we have a fairly clear source, the Korean War. Apparently the Korean word rendered in English as “chogie” meant a Korean laborer in the service of the US or UN armed forces, either utilized as part of the supply chain (to carry food and ammunition, etc.) or as a personal attendant (”chogie boys”) to US troops. I don’t speak Korean, but apparently the term was drawn from a phrase, something along the lines of “kara chogi,” meaning “go there,” making “chogie” the rough equivalent of the English “gofer” (an assistant who fetches, “goes for,” various things). The wars in Korea and Vietnam were close enough chronologically that some personnel served in both, so “chogie” also turns up in glossaries of Vietnam-era services slang. According to my son, who served with the U.S. Army in Korea in the early 1990s, the term is still used among US troops in that country to mean “over there” when pointing.

With the root meaning “go there,” it was logical that GIs would also use “chogie” to mean “leave” or “move quickly,” which apparently came home, at least to New Jersey, in the form “cut a chogie.”

 

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