h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Snook? Isn't that a fish? I thank the past was snuck

Snook, snook, what's a snook? I haven't got a clue.

I suppose that it would be spelt snuck, although I think the word came from an association with take/took. The word sneak would have been pronounced snake up to the 19th century. All 'ea' sounds were originally pronounced 'ay'. This practise still survives in some parts of Ireland.

Related to the Snark, perhaps?

No, there is/was a fish called Snoek that I expected Gnomon to know about

Obviously, neither nor the moderators realised I was quoting from a popular song of the 1940's, the Three Little Fishes.

"Oh, no he isn't" at least not the version that I've just wasted three minutes singing to myself. Snoek also dates from the 1940s but I think you're cocking a snook at us aren't you?

My version was sung by the Radio Revellers. I still have the 78 somewhere, although I've no way of playing it. One of the little asides was:

Something, something, penny half chew
Whale steaks, something, salt and pepper too,
Snoek, snoek, what's a snoek? I haven't got a clue!

Sorry if my quotation was overly obscure. My snook is half-cocked.

Another synapse bit the dust. I have absolutely no memory of that aside and I don't think anyone else round here is old enough [~jwf~ where are you?] I suppose you know all the words of "Sparrow in the treetops" as well? (spearwa - AngloSaxon)

On top of old smokey all covered with snow
I lost my true lover for courting too slow..

Huh, say what! You talkin' to me?

I think 'snuck' is the North Am past tense of sneek but in spite of the spelling several regional and inner city dialects would pronounce it snook.

~jwf~

Gnomon,

"The word sneak would have been pronounced snake up to the 19th century. All 'ea' sounds were originally pronounced 'ay'. This practise still survives in some parts of Ireland."

Hence: "We shall now have a Snake Dance - those who snaked in without paying can snake out again."

Alexander Pope, in "The Rape of the Lock", talking of Queen Anne, said:


Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take - and sometimes tea.

(Moderators, this is long out of copyright!)

The rhyme only works here if you pronounce tea as "tay", which was normal then.

Isn't that true of 'quay':

"... From Bantry Bay up to Derry Quay
and from Galway to Dublin Town..."

(I hope you're impressed, Gnomon!)

What grates with me is when some author uses a phrase such as: "The Candle *lighted* the room" Which I always think should be "the candle *lit* the room". It seems so much more elegant to me ...

Why is this?

According to the middle English of Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales', the word 'knight' should be pronounced 'knikt'.

It says something when Monty Python have better pronounciation than the rest of us, you silly English K-nigts you.

I think there's a strong case for reviving the old pronunciations."G-nommy" is much more evocative of its referent than noam, p-newmatik, has much more air in than newmatik,w-hot think ye?

How can you tell how people used to pronounce words long, long ago?

Some of us are even older than we look

Some of it is done by looking at poetry and seeing what rhymed with what. Comparing English with closely related languages such as German gives other clues. Originally English and German were the same language, so that they were pronounced the same. The present differences must have happened fairly gradually, although there was a massive change in the pronunciation of vowels around the time of Shakespeare. Some writers actually wrote down the way things were pronounced.

For example, the word victuals meaning food. According to the dictionary, this is pronounced vittles. Charles Dickens had his well-educated people saying victuals while his ignorant poor people said "vittles", which suggests that the well-educated people pronounced it some other way, probably the way it is spelt.

Also, the changes were regular. Pause here for Grimm's law and the Great Vowel Shift. And, as an American, you may claim that some of your pronunciations are closer to Shakespearian than some of mine. My previous post wasn't entirely facetious - if you live long enough you can hear differences. "Posh" accents are closer to Estuary than they used to be and I have heard "often" go from /orfen/ to /offen/ to /often/ for example['It wasn't the corf that carried her orf, bnut the coffin they carried her off in"