BS: What's an American snark?

Subject: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 05:01 PM

I was reading the Kumbaya thread, and an American politician was accused of snarkiness?

In England, a Snark is a well loved electronic guitar tuner (I've got two!)

What would you have to do to be considered a bit of snark in America?

There is a famous nonsense poem, called hunting the snark. Which I think may be about finding the G spot.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 05:07 PM

Sarcasm

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 05:50 PM

Wikipedia: The Northrop SM-62 Snark was a specialized intercontinental cruise missile with a W39 nuclear warhead operated by the U.S. Strategic Air Command from 1958 until 1961. It takes its name from Lewis Carroll's snark.

picture

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 05:53 PM

so someone who does snarkiness is not a snark.....?

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 05:59 PM

Well, usually they're elected and their ethics softly and silently vanish away, if they had any to start with.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 06:10 PM

In American Dialect, snark is defined as "to annoy, perhaps alteration of nark to irritate. [1906]; snarky; crotchety, snappish."
Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition.

Nark- Two meanings, both English in origin:
nark, Brit., to irritate, to annoy (c. 1888), origin unknown.
nark, perhaps from Romany nak, nose. 1860 British - stool pigeon.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 07:14 PM

Snarky remarks are those also described as needling, with a connotation of underhanded vitiation.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: kendall
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 07:54 PM

Vitiation, there's a word you don't see every day.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: kendall
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 07:56 PM

Hey, Amos, it's only 6 months til Old Songs.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 07:58 PM

Hey, it ain't snarks that we hunt... It's snipes... Got it??? It's snipes...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 08:21 PM

snipe- "any of various usu. slender-billed birds of the same family as the sandpipers.....genus Gallinago."
Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

And I thought they were protected.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 08:25 PM

The sumabcihes outtta be protected, Q, 'cause millions of kids have hunted them and no one has ever so much as seen one??? I mean, that is rare, Q...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: gnu
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 08:33 PM

Now, let's not get snarky about sniping eh?

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 09:20 PM

Sneering about snarky sniping is gnot gnice, gnu!

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: gnu
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 09:23 PM

Snorry.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 09:38 PM

Snot snerious.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 09:41 PM

Is-not...

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 09:45 PM

Exsnactly!

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 10:21 PM

US useter holler down the speaking tubes to the snipes on throttle watch to keep them from falling asleep on duty. Routine part of bridge watch, keeping the snipes awake.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 10:23 PM

I'm not much worried by snarky people. It's the boojumish ones I can't stand.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: GUEST,Mark-s(on the road)
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 10:42 PM

Snark was (still is?) a manufacturer of pleasure boats, located in, I think, New Jersey.
Said to be highly regarded, but I would not know!!

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 11:42 PM

"Snark" is also the name of a widely advertised portable vacuum cleaner - hand held in use and with a battery charger built into the wall hanger, and about as useful as tits on a snake.

John

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: DMcG
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 05:08 AM

There is a famous nonsense poem, called hunting the snark.

I don't have the books to hand, by Lewis Carroll wrote something along the lines of:

I was out for a walk and suddenly the line 'For the Snark was a Boojum you see'. I knew not what it meant then, and I know not was it means now, but [then goes on to describe writing the poem]

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: DMcG
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 05:09 AM

... you see' occurred to me. ...

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 07:32 AM

Here you are, DMcG:


http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13/13-h/13-h.htm

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: DMcG
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 07:46 AM

Thanks, bb. I think I must have about four copies of this at home in various guises (as a poem, in collected works etc), and have a particular soft spot for the one who was famed for the number of things he forgot when he entered the ship. Been there, done that!

What I can't remember is the essay in which LC describes how he came to write the poem, but for this thread the main point is clear: He didn't know what a snark was either!

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 09:11 AM

A fictional animal created by Lewis Carroll. A fellow traveler accused our guide of sending us on a snark hunt when we went looking for lyre birds in Australia and were told that every sound - baby crying to chain saws - was probably a lyre bird, a mimic.
We did not see one.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Will Fly
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 10:51 AM

That guide was obviously a dirty rotten lyre.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 12:00 PM

'For the Snark was a Boojum you see'.

I haven't smoked anything that good since 1968.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 02:16 PM

The metallic one would be a copper snark, given to grassing on his fellow crooks.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: open mike
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 02:19 PM

nark is derived from the word narcotic

snarks reminded me of snipes, too.

as rare as a striped ape...
and as fast as one too?

have you ever seen a striped ape?
see, I told you so!

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: gnu
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 03:07 PM

I imagine a snark, by definition.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 03:15 PM

Speaking of snipes, I've never understood why the snipe was chosen as a mythical bird for the infamous hunt.

The snipe most definitely is a real bird- odd-looking with its short, stubby tail and its long, long slender bill but it is real.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Skivee
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 05:29 PM

Bee-dubya-ell, when the The Northrop SM-62 Snark cruise missile was being developed, they were flown off launchers at Cape Canaveral, cruised around the Atlantic Missile Test Range off Florida, then landed on a runway back at the cape.
There were many crashes from problems with control and reliability. One news report wryly noted the "snark infested water off the launch site.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 05:59 PM

The snipe was chosen for the hunt because it is almost impossible to run down on marshy ground. It has been avered that the first snipe hunt ended when one of the hunters mired down in marshy quicksand and was lost.

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 06:03 PM

As previously posted, "Nark" is not derived from narcotic, but from Romany nak or nose.
OED

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: GUEST,Ebor_Fiddler
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 06:44 PM

And then there's Snark Rapper, a shot hit dance side in the UK .... .. ..

Subject: RE: BS: What's an American snark?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Jan 12 - 11:25 AM

I am, therefore I snark.