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Originally Posted By: tsuwm
I don't have a problem with it either, I was just wondering about the origin (he said for the third time).

As for the origin, I think we need the help of a native speaker. What I have provided is the best I can do.

Last edited by Lionel Koh; 11/18/13 08:26 AM.
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origin

It is from the English verb snatch and the noun thief: it is a compound word meaning a thief who snatches (something) from another.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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we know.. we know! but from where did it originate?! (he asked for the fourth time.)

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Originally Posted By: tsuwm
we know.. we know! but from where did it originate?! (he asked for the fourth time.)


Say tsuwm; bank robber, kid napper, house burglar, and purse snatcher are noun phrases that particularize the crime with the perpetrator. Just add "snatch thief" to your worthless word list and ascribe the first American usage to:

LIONEL KOH
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11-15-13


It is a good word. smile



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nice parallels there, jj..

a bank robber robs a bank
a kid napper naps a kid
a house burglar burgles a house
a purse snatcher snatches a purse
:: a snatch thief thieves a _____??

crazy

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we know.. we know! but from where did it originate?! (he asked for the fourth time.)

From some English speakers somewhere. Snatch thief is more like cutpurse or pickpocket than purse snatcher. Compounds are very tricky and can be studied endlessly for fun. I know: you'll be asking a fifth time, so I'll go take a look at the same references who have access to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snatch_theft

Actually, the two examples I gave are really not parallel either. May snatch theif is a back formation of snatch theft.

Actually, it's more like sneak thief.

Searching Google Books I found its use in 1914 in a book about Pittsburgh, PA: link). Also, 1869 in Scientific American (link). Snatch cly 'a thief who snatches women's pockets' is in Grosse's Lexicon Balatronicum 1811 edition ([url=Lexicon Balatronicum]link[/url]).

Got up and left the computer and headed upstairs to my library to look at the B&M OED1. Under snatch: Shakespeare used snatcher as a synonym for thief; an 17th centuryEnglish-French dictionary had snatch pastry as a thief of pastries. Looked at Greens slang dictionary but nothing new there. Later, I'll take a look at snatch (v.) in the Middle English online dictionary. I assume it was used even then for steeling.


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Originally Posted By: tsuwm
nice parallels there, jj..

a bank robber robs a bank
a kid napper naps a kid
a house burglar burgles a house
a purse snatcher snatches a purse
:: a snatch thief thieves a _____??

crazy

A snatch thief snatches something from his/her victim.

Last edited by Lionel Koh; 11/19/13 06:40 AM.
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Imagined parallelism between apparently similarly formed noun phrases is nonsense.

You meet in a meeting house but you don't have a fire in a fire house.
A house burglar burgles a house but a cat burglar does not burgle a cat.

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Lionel,
The boys me thinks were just being boys when tsuwm offered his Socratic riff. The punch line is that "snatch" is an American slang word for "vagina". American men don't age gracefully. They remain teenagers until they die. The only reason they stop stealing hubcaps is that it is hard to run with four hubcaps and a cane. -jj smile

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thanks jj. I guess you're really just one of the guys. laugh

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