Transcript of “”Snooksy” and Other Cutey-Pie Names”
Hi, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Star Scherzer. I’m calling from Santa Claus, Indiana.
Oh, Santa Claus, Indiana, right there in southern, southwestern Indiana, right?
Yes. Yeah. What’s on your mind? As a youth, my grandfather always called me Snooksy. And my dad picked that up. And so one day I asked my dad, I said, what does that mean? Why do you call me Snooksy? And he said, well, it’s a name that your grandpa gave you when you were little. And he said, I don’t know what it means. He said the only thing he could reference it to is that there used to be a cartoon, and the girl in the cartoon was named Snooky. Snooksy. Snooksy.
So do you go buy it now? Do people call you that now, Star?
My dad does, yes. And he also calls my daughter that once in a while. But that’s what my grandfather always called me.
Oh, sounds pretty affectionate.
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s a nice. What did you call him back?
Grandpa.
Just Grandpa? Nothing like Papa or anything like that?
No, no. It was always Grandpa.
Yeah, Snooksy. S-N-O-O-K-S-Y. Snooksy, something like that. I would say. I don’t know. I never even knew how to spell it. It was just, you know, one day it was just like, why do you call me that? What does that mean? We often have those questions occur to us much later about something we’ve used all along.
I have a different theory. I don’t know anything about the comic. You said it was a cartoon, like an animated cartoon?
Like a, well, a comic strip.
Comic strip.
Yeah.
Yeah. I don’t know anything about that, a young woman named Snooki in a comic strip. I think there’s a better source for this, something far more common. And I think some of our listeners probably know where I’m going with this. There was a famous character, famous, famous character named Baby Snooks portrayed by Fanny Bryce on the radio starting in 1936. Fanny played a devilish little girl, always up to trouble. She was a huge brat. And I’m not saying this about you, Star.
Well, they used to tell me I was that little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead. So when you were good, you were very, very good. And then what happened? And when you were bad, you were very bad. You were boring. This show was hugely popular on the radio, and it ran until Fanny Bryce died in 1951. It ran basically until like a week before her death. It was loosely based on a comic strip that had a baby named Baby Snookums, but that comic strip was never very popular. Snooks is short for Snookums, which is a pet name. And even now people may call people Snookums, but it’s part of a sweet name, a hyperchoristic, an affectionate name, sometimes reduplicated as Snooksy Wooksy.
Okay.
Yeah, so that’s what it is. It’s part of a super sweet name. And we have many sweet names like that, like Lamsy Whamsy and Hunpun and Ism Wism.
Yeah. I have heard Snookums before, you know, and I don’t ever remember it being referenced, you know, as to me. But I do remember hearing people call them Snookums or, you know.
Well, that is so neat. Thank you.
Yeah, sure. So that goes back at least to the 1930s in some form or other.
Well, answer to question for me.
We try, Star, we try. Thank you for calling.
Bye-bye.
All righty.
Bye-bye.
All righty.
