snook, brouching, scraling

Filed under: New-to-me Words
4 Comments

I usually post words here after I find out what they mean, but I just encountered three words that I can't find relevant definitions for, so I'm gonna post 'em here and see if any of y'all know what they mean.

First, "snook." A snook is a kind of fish, and there are various places named "Snook," and to snook is to make a particular gesture of contempt, or to show contempt for something. But in the Johnny Cash song "Straight A's in Love," the line "I began to be a snook at books" doesn't seem to fit any of those meanings. It's possible it's a typo or a Mondegreen, but all the sites I can find that have lyrics for that song include that line.

The other two are even more mysterious: on a page about Star Trek: Phase II at Memory Alpha, an episode summary mentions the crew "brouching and scraling at each other." Brouching? Scraling? The terms don't seem to appear anywhere else on the web, or in any dictionaries I have access to, including slang dictionaries. Typos? Made-up terms from the episode being described? I have no idea.

Any thoughts?

4 Responses to “snook, brouching, scraling”

  1. Nao

    I haven’t heard the song in question, but the phrase I’m used to is to “cock a snook” at something. So perhaps it’s “I began to cock a snook at books”?

    I might suggest asking over at language hat, which is frequented by people interested in the oddities of language.

  2. jere7my tho?rpe

    Could be “schnook” misspelled, as in “I began to be stupid about books, but I got straight A’s in love.”

  3. Jed

    It’s been years since I’ve heard the song, and I don’t have an LP player handy so I can’t go listen to it again, but I don’t think the word “cock” is in there. Then again, not knowing what some of the lyrics were is why I went and looked it up online in the first place, so anything’s possible.

    Still, although both your ideas sound plausible in the abstract, I’m dubious about the likelihood of Johnny Cash using either the phrase “cock a snook” or the word “schnook.” They just don’t sound to me like his style, somehow.

  4. Gwenda

    I always thought of snook as more being derisive or making a gesture of derision… so the second meaning works for me in that context. The song’s narrator learned his ABCs, but once he got older he had contempt for book-learning and excelled in love? That’s how I always interpreted that line.

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