The word no one had dreamt of before

This unusual word likely traces its origin to the German immigrant community in America

Trust the Americans to come up with a word no one had dreamt of before. Snollygoster (sometimes spelled, less popularly, snallygaster) was originally, in American English, the name of a monster, half-reptile, half-bird, that preyed on both children and chickens – suggesting rural origins. From its usage in 1846 to describe an unprincipled politician, however, it has come to mean “a rotten person who is driven by greed and self-interest”. That is a description, alas, that in both 19th century USA and 21st century India, more often than not applies to politicians. In today’s US, however, it is often applied to an amoral or inconsiderate boss: “That old snollygoster who runs this company won’t even allow us toilet breaks!” The unusual word indicates a likely German origin, from the immigrant community known as the Pennsylvania Dutch (who were actually German, not Dutch, but since they were Deutsch, the Germanword for Germans, they became known as Dutch!). The Pennsylvania Dutch had the words ch nelle gee sc ht er ,“fast spirits or ghosts”, a corruption of the German schnelleGeister with the same meaning, schnell being fast, and Geist meaning spirit or ghost. The word enjoyed its vogue in the mid to late 19th century, when American politics, in the era of “robber barons”, was dominated by snollygosters associated with New York’s Tammany Hall and unscrupulous operators like New York’s Boss Tweed. Those were the days when all politicians were assumed to be on the take and available for sale to the highest bidder: it was said of the Rockefellers, who ran Standard Oil, that they did everything for Pennsylvania legislators but refine them.

It is no longer widely used, which is why I decided to resurrect it in a tweet on July 27, 2017, when a Chief Minister of Bihar, elected alongside Congress and RJD on an anti-BJP platform, suddenly switched sides and joined the BJP. I promptly tweeted: “Word of the day! *snollygoster* Definition: US dialect: a shrewd, unprincipled politician ... First Known Use: 1846 ... Most recent use: 26/7/17”. Of course, I could have resurrected it again when another politician betrayed years of eloquent opposition to the BJP by joining that party – but it hardly seemed worth repeating, so convinced are Indians that shrewdness and lack of principle are indeed the defining characteristics of Indian politicians.

These days it’s hardly employed in the US, where its last recorded use was by the folksy President Truman in 1952. Saying that his grandfather used to tell him that when you heard someone praying loudly in public, “you had better go home and lock your smokehouse,” Truman denounced Republicans with the term “snollygosters” as an alternative to describing them as “bastards” (as he quaintly put it ,” as nolly go ste risa man born out of wed lock ”). Of course he was immediately corrected by the language mavens of the day, who quoted this splendid definition by an unnamed editor in the Columbus Dispatch of Ohio, on October 28, 1895: “a snollygoster is a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monument al talk no phi ca las sum na cy ”.( Don’ t ask me to explain the last word: it doesn’t exist outside this definition.)

Truman continued to use the word: his correspondence with his former Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, reveals Truman lamenting that President Eisenhower had given in to congressional “snollygosters”– unprincipled politicians.

Snollygoster was reputedly popularised “almost singlehandedly” by a Georgia Democrat, H. J. W. Ham, who travel led around the US during the 1890s with a stump speech titled “The Snollygoster in Politics,” defining the word as a “place-hunting demagogue” or a “political hypocrite.” But Ham was a little too precise in his definition. He said: “A snollygoster is one with an unquenchable thirst for office with neither the power to get it nor the ability to fill it.”

I prefer the “shrewd and unprincipled” definition myself, because it is more widely applicable, including to politicians who are indeed able to get the office they cynically aspire to. In our country, alas, where politicians are all too often guided by personal advantage rather than by consistent values, ideological beliefs or moral principles, it is widely believed that to become successful in the world of politics one has to be an accomplished snollygoster.

IN TODAY’S US, THE WORD “SNOLLYGOSTER” IS OFTEN APPLIED TO AN AMORAL OR INCONSIDERATE BOSS