Snipe: n. any of various seabirds (family Scolopacidae) with a long, slender, flexable bill, esp. genus (Gallinago) living chiefly in marshy areas.
Am I the only one whose whole world-view is shattered by this revealation?
When I think of all the times as a kid I stayed home wallowing in my own smug skepticism while all the other kids were having the time of their lives down in the marshes, snipe hunting…sigh.
You have hit upon a little subject which annoyed me as a Scout. The snipe hunt organizers would not explain the point of the hunt. What did we want snipes for? I knew we weren’t about to clean them and cook them ourselves. Nor was our scoutmaster, the only one else along. Why would we want to anyway? We had plenty of food, and it was a lot better than some puny birds.
And nobody would believe me at the end of the hunt, when it was revealed that it was a pointless exercise, that snipes actually did exist. Snipe hunts are like urban legends; they’re only promoted by people too dim to come up with clever things of their own. My pranks were creative, although more brutal.
Phaedrus, of course, was not shocked by the revelation lately. He has spent more time with a dictionary stuffed up his nose than many that I have known. I came across that fact about 5 years ago and yes I was shocked!