You Snollygoster You!
I enjoy words quite a bit, often more than I should, sometimes to distraction. Years ago I wrote a short essay about my then-fondness for the word "madcap", which I'm still fond of even if it's not at the top of my list of favorites.
Yesterday I was reading and something reminded me that I've been enjoying the imported word "snarky" (apparently British English, but is there something Australian or New Zealandish about it?), and I've adopted it for now as a personal adjective — "curmudgeon" is just too nineties for my taste these days. (I've also adopted a latin epigraph, thanks to St. Ambrose, since something in Latin seemed a bit snarky, and since Google already likes me for this one: search for "ambrose nullus pudor" here or there.)
Anyway, as I was getting some background on "snarky" (there's a lot more ground to cover still) I came across this enlightening bit in Snollygosters at war: A new mot juste for snipers and snarlers (The Guardian [UK], 11 November 2000).
[The author began by quoting Al Gore saying "You don't need to get snippy about it" to George W. Bush.]
A word which, like this one ["snippy"], not only conveys its own meaning but hints at other related ones, is doubly blessed. And few groups of words are as useful for verbal snipers, those who sneer, snap and snarl, who resort to the snide, sniffy, snarky, snooty and snotty, as those which begin with an s and an n. That is not to say that all belong exclusively to the world of vituperation. Snug and snuggle are cosy agreeable concepts. So is snow, except when it's clogging the roads and blocking the railways. (So even is sny, rarely employed nowadays, which means taking an upward curve.) But it must be some sign that words beginning s-n mean trouble that the novelist William Faulkner awarded a horrid family which haunts his pages the surname of Snopes.
Oh, and to explain the title of this entry, the author of that piece ended with this (still speaking of Democrats and Republicans speaking to each other):
By Thursday one or other may be invoking the snallygaster, a mythical monster supposedly found in Maryland (though perhaps now in Florida too). At which those so assailed may denounce their detractors as snollygosters (US: a shrewd unprincipled person, especially a politician of this class.)
For what it's worth: I've lived in Maryland now for 20 years, and I've never seen a mythical snallygaster, at least I don't think so.