Faster than Snyder's hound

Posted by ESC February 19, 2006In reply to Faster than Snyder's hound posted by Steve Bowling on February 18, 2006

there is an old phrase, common in SW Virginia, that something is "faster than Snyder's hound." Does anyone know the origin of that phrase, or who was Snyder, etc. Thanks.

I found the phrase in a regional English dictionary. But it doesn't tell who Snyder was.

Snyder's hound/house cat/pup -- as fast/peart/quick/smart as. The earliest citation is: 1937 Hall Coll. Emerts Cove TN: That plane went over here fast as Snyder's pup.

From "Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English" by Michael B. Montgomery and Joseph S. Hall (University of Tennessee Press, 2004).