Why Do So Many “Sn-” Words Like “Sneer” and “Snide” Sound Negative?

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. This is Diane. I’m calling you from Midland, Texas, where football is the state religion.

Welcome, Diane.

Welcome. How are you doing?

Hi, it’s good to talk to you both.

Hey, before I ask you my question, I wanted to say hi to my friend David.

He told me about your show, and he listens to it faithfully, so I know he’ll listen to this.

Hi, David.

Hi, David.

I have actually two questions for you.

It’s about a linguistic phenomenon that I ran across some years ago when I was studying linguistics.

And it’s a fascinating phenomenon, I think.

What it is is words that begin with the letter combination S-N tend to be negative words.

And a list of examples would be snide, snarl, snark, sneer, snot and snake if you don’t like runny noses or reptiles.

And my personal favorite is Snallygaster.

That’s a mythical monster that lives in Maryland, and I’m not making that up either.

And so my two questions for you are, first of all, I know there’s a name for this phenomenon because I knew it once,

And I can’t remember what it is, and so I wanted to know if you know the name for the phenomenon.

And then the second one is kind of an opinion question.

I’d like to know what you think causes that.

Why are S-N words negative?

I have my own theory, but I’d like to know what you think.

Well, what’s your theory?

My theory is that when you say these words, it kind of contorts your face into a sneer.

If you stay like snide and you kind of exaggerate it, it makes your lip curl in kind of a snarky way.

But that theory doesn’t hold true with other words like words that start with GL do the same thing.

They all seem to be about light, green, glisteningly.

And so you can’t blame that on the way your face is shaped.

I’m going to answer that second question first because I don’t know the answer to the first one.

Maybe Martha does.

But the way that it happens, the theory that I have learned is something to do with three words,

Contagion, confluence, and connotation.

And basically that S-N is kind of behaving like a prefix where we have associated it in our mind with a certain meaning.

It has a certain connotation.

And therefore, when we make new words with that S-N, or I say we meaning centuries or even millennia of English speakers doing this,

Then they will tend to also have a negative connotation.

Just like any other part of a word that we form with any kind of affix or any kind of root,

Meanings are held within those particular sets of letters and transferred to the new constructions.

So it’s a fairly ordinary kind of English word formation.

In other words, we’re forming words, new words that begin with S in will be negative

Just because we associate S in with a negative connotation?

Put simply, yes.

Just think, if I take any word and I add an E to the end of it, an E sound to the end of it, then it becomes diminutive.

And we tend to think of that as a nickname or a cutesy name or a pet name for that thing, right?

Are you going to sit there in your little cherry and read your book?

Suddenly, I mean, I know I said that in a baby voice, but are you going to sit in your cherry and read your book?

Cherry suddenly sounds like it has something to do with childhood or infancy or smallness or cuteness.

Diane, I’m wondering if the word that you’re trying to think of is phonesthesia.

Does that sound right?

Yes.

That’s the word.

I think it is.

There you go.

It’s spelled P-H-O-N-E-S-T-H-E-S-I-A.

It’s from Greek words that literally mean feeling and sound or feeling in voice.

Steven Pinker writes some interesting stuff about this in his book called The Stuff of Thought.

I think you would really like looking this up because he talks about how words for the nose itself,

Like snout and words for nose-like instruments, like snorkel,

And then all the words that are associated with the nose, the action of the nose,

Sneeze, sniff, sniffle, snivel, snore, snort, snort, snuff.

All those words are negative, and even words like looking down your nose at somebody,

Being snobby or snooty.

They all have that sort of, you do form your face the way that you’re describing.

But it could be coincidental, right?

Because as you mentioned with the GL words, what is it about GL that makes us think of light?

I can’t think of it.

Yeah, I don’t know unless it’s just the older words that use that.

And maybe they were built on that.

Glade, glimmer, gleam.

Possibly.

But that’s why I was going with the theory that it’s just behaving more like a particle of a word.

The SN is behaving more like a particle that has some semantic content.

And so that when it is used in word formation over the last several thousand years, it has tended to be negative.

Or in the case that you mentioned, tends to be associated with the nose,

Just because there are already words that have that connotation.

Therefore, new words will also have that connotation.

Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say.

Yes.

Right.

What was the book by Pinker?

It’s called The Stuff of Thought.

The Stuff of Thought.

Yeah.

He writes so beautifully about language, all aspects of language,

So I would highly recommend that.

Outstanding.

Okay.

Thank you so much for your call.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Bye-bye.

Howdy, David.

Thanks.

Bye.

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