Faster than Snyder's hound

Posted by ESC on February 19, 2006

In 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).