What soes "snopes" mean?

[kaylasdad99]

I know that it’s the address for the Urban Legends Reference pages, but, where did they get that word?

And why is their main clearinghouse section called “Tales of the Wooden Spoon”?

Is there any explanation for this posted anywhere?

Is there even an Urban Legend that addresses it?

[Scruloose]

From the Snopes FAQ:

Q: What are ‘snopes’?

A: Snopes is the name of a family of characters who appear throughout the works of American writer William Faulkner. See the Faulkner on the Web glossary entry for Snopes for more information.

Don’t know about the rest.

[Scruloose]

I forgot to add… from the Snopes glossary:

Snopes

The Snopes were a family of characters weaved throughout the works of Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer William Faulkner. When David Mikkelson, creator of snopes.com, first came onto the Internet in the late 1980s, he worried even back in those relatively uncrowded days that no one would remember yet another David. He was thus inspired to adopt a nom-de-Net, selecting one that honored those fictional Faulknerian characters, and began signing his newsgroups posts as “snopes.”

Over the years snopes established quite a fearsome online reputation for his ability to thoroughly research and debunk false claims. When it came time to name our domain, www.snopes.com seemed the obvious choice.

[kaylasdad99]

Thankee.

Now, on to the Wooden Spoon.

[Skywatcher]

@kaylasdad99

Now, on to the Wooden Spoon.

IIRC, it’s from a time when storytelling was done around the kitchen table while mom or grandma was cooking, typically stirring the pot with a wooden spoon.

[Tapioca_Dextrin]

My favourite section is the Treasury Of Lost Legends. I’m sure there’s a good reason for that name. :dubious:

[Larry_Mudd]

Uh, that’s The Repository Of Lost Legends.

[chukhung]

@Lute Skywatcher

IIRC, it’s from a time when storytelling was done around the kitchen table while mom or grandma was cooking, typically stirring the pot with a wooden spoon.

Ummm, no. The name arose because Barbara Hamel (later Mikkelson) was famous for threatening to paddle miscreants on the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban with a wooden spoon for their misbehavior.

Please see this thread where Barbara Mikkelson herself is quoted as saying

chukhung has it.

When snopes first talked me into putting some of my writings on the
site, I had this hodge-podge of articles to work with that were about
everything and anything. We decided that at least at the beginning
we’d set up a special grab-bag category, with an eye towards moving
the stories from there to proper categories once we had them set up.

The question of what to call this new section then arose. After a
short yet memorable career of threatening to use virtual wooden spoons
on various deserving backsides in AFU, my name became firmly associated
with the implements. Since there was no good name for this new
category anyway, we figured this would do.

[postcards]

"The Snopes were a family of characters weaved throughout the works of Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer William Faulkner. When David Mikkelson, creator of snopes.com, first came onto the Internet in the late 1980s, he worried even back in those relatively uncrowded days that no one would remember yet another David. He was thus inspired to adopt a nom-de-Net, selecting one that honored those fictional Faulknerian characters, and began signing his newsgroups posts as “snopes.”

Over the years snopes established quite a fearsome online reputation for his ability to thoroughly research and debunk false claims. When it came time to name our domain, www.snopes.com seemed the obvious choice."

–From the FAQ’s