818-1: Feedback, Notes and Comments

Following up my piece on sneap, David Jackson wrote, “I lived in South Derbyshire until 2004, and it was not at all uncommon to hear somebody say that they had been sneaped by some comment or action of somebody else. It’s more alive and kicking than you might think!”

Alan Harrison also knows it: “Sneap remains in use in the Black Country [part of the West Midlands of England, named for the smoke and dust produced by its coal and iron industries in the nineteenth century], at least among older people, such as my mother (born 1924, Walsall). It means to speak sharply to someone, in a tone indicating displeasure.”

Russ Willey concurs: “Not that long ago I met a young woman from Stoke-on-Trent. She liked me but suspected I was a bit of a know-it-all, with a tendency to put people down — and she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any such discourtesy. When I suggested we might date each other, she agreed on one condition: ‘As long as you don’t sneap me’.”

Charles Freeman added: “The quotation from Alison Uttley reminded me that I used to know who she was, but had forgotten. A quick trip to Wikipedia remedied that, which contained the following: ‘She had little time for one of her competitors, Enid Blyton, describing her as a boastful and a “vulgar, curled woman”.’ A sneap if ever there was one.”