Snoot (pronounced snoot)
(1) In slang, the nose (of humans, animals, geological formations,
distant galaxies and anything else with a feature even vaguely “nose-like”).
(2) In slang, an alcoholic drink.
(3) In slang, a police officer (especially a
plain-clothed detective, the use explained by the notion of police “sticking their
noses into” things).
(4) In clothing, the peak of a cap.
(5) In photography and film production, a cylindrical or conical
e-shaped fitment on a studio light to control the scene area illuminated by
restricting spill light.
(6) In informal use, a snob; an elitist individual; one
who looks down upon those “not of the better classes”.
(7) In linguistics, a language pedant or snob; one who
practices linguistic elitism (and distinct from a “grammar Nazi”).
(8) In engineering, as “droop snoot”, a design in which
the nose of a machine is lowered (temporarily or permanently) for reasons of
visibility or to optimize aerodynamics.
(9) To behave disdainfully toward; to condescend to
(usually as “snooty”).
(10) To apply a snoot attachment to a light.
1861: From the Scots snoot
(a variation of snout (nose or projecting feature of an animal), from the Middle
English snowte, from the Middle Dutch
snute, ultimately from the Proto-West
Germanic snūt, from the Proto-Germanic
snūtaz, source also of the German Schnauze (the basis of schnauzer, a name
for a type of dog) and it’s presumed the slang schnoz (a nose, especially if large) is probably related. Snoot is a noun & verb, snootiness,
snooter & snootful are nouns, snooting & snooted are verbs, snooty, snootier
& snootiest are adjectives and snootily is an adverb; the noun plural is
snoots.
The noun snootful dates from 1885 and was a synonym of
skinful (to have imbibed as much liquor as one could manage). It was based on the use of snout to mean “an an
alcoholic drink” whereas skinful was an allusion to the time when wine was
transported in containers made from animal skin (ie in original use skinful meant
“the container is full”). The adjective snooty
(proud, arrogant) was first noted as university student slang in 1918 and presumably
was in some way related to the earlier snouty (insolent, overbearing) which was
in use by at least 1857, doubtlessly on the basis of “looking down one's nose
at someone or something”. In dialectal
or slang use a snout (in the sense of “nose” is not of necessity derogatory and
in fields like engineering, cosmology, geography, geology, cosmology or
zoology, it is merely descriptive. However,
when used as a slang term for a snob (a snooty person), the sense is almost
always negative although there are some elitists who are proud of their
snootiness. Those who don’t approve of
barbarisms such as country & western music sometimes make sure their
snootiness is obvious but as a general principle it’s usually better just to
ignore such things. The adjective snooty
is in much more common use than the noun snoot and it appears often with a
modifier such as “a bit snooty”. That
may seem strange because one is either snooty about someone or something or one
isn’t but there are degrees of severity with which one can allow ones snootiness
to manifest (the comparative “snootier”, the superlative “snootiest”.
In engineering, “droop snout” is used to describe a
design in which the nose of a machine is lowered (temporarily or permanently) for
reasons of visibility or to optimize aerodynamics. The term was apparently first used between engineers
in the late 1950s while working on the first conceptual plans for the
Anglo-French supersonic airliner which became the Concorde although the first
known use in print dates from 1963 (“droop nose” appearing in the same era). The idea wasn’t developed for use on the
Concorde. An experimental British
supersonic test-bed with a droop-nose had flown as early 1954 and proved the
utility of the concept by being the first jet aircraft to exceed 1000 mph (1600
km/h) in level flight, later raising the world speed record of to 1132 mph (1822
km/h), exceeding the previous mark by an impressive 310 mph (500 km/h). In aviation, the basic idea of a sloping nose
had been around for decades and one of the reasons some World War II
(1939-1945) Allied fighter pilots found targeting easier in the Hawker Hurricane
than the Supermarine Spitfire was the nose of the former noticeably tapered
towards the front, greatly enhancing forward visibility.
How the Concorde's droop snoot was used.
On the Concorde, the droop snoot wasn’t a mere
convenience. The combination of the
engineers slide-rules and wind tunnel testing had proved what the shape had to
be to achieve the combination of speed and fuel economy (the latter an
under-estimated aspect of the development process) but that shape also meant
the pilots’ view was so obstructed during take-offs, landings and taxiing that
safety was compromised. The solution was
the “droop nose” mechanism which included a moving transparent visor which
retracted into the nose prior to being lowered. At supersonic speeds, the temperatures are
high and so are the stresses so much attention was devoted to “fail-safe”
systems including the droop snoot because a structural failure at Mach 2 would potentially
be catastrophic for the entire airframe (and obviously every soul on board). Thus, the hydraulic systems controling the droop
snoot’s movement was duplicated and, as a last resort, the pilots had access to
a simple mechanical lever which would disengage the pins holding the structure
in place, the apparatus afterwards gracefully (hopefully) descending into its
lowered position by the simple operation of gravity. Droop snoots appeared also on Soviet
supersonic aircraft including the short-lived Tupolev Tu-144 (visually close to
a Concorde clone) and the Sukhoi T-4 strategic bomber which never entered
production. Interestingly, the USAF’s
(US Air Force) North American XB-70 Valkyrie (a Mach 3 experimental bomber)
didn’t use a droop snoot because it was developed exclusively for high-altitude,
high-speed strategic bombing missions and, being a military airplane, would
only ever operate from large, controlled airbases where additional ground
support systems (monitoring and guidance) negated the need for the mechanism.
1955 Ford Customline (left) and the 1967 “droop snoot” “Custaxie” (right), the construct being Cust(omline) + (Gal)axie, the unusual hybrid created by merging (some of) a 1955 Customline with a 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Ford Galaxie V8. The bizarre machine won the 1967 New Zealand Allcomers (a wonderful concept) saloon car championship, the modifications to the nose reckoned to be the equivalent of an additional 40-50 horsepower.
At sub-supersonic speeds, throughout the 1960s race-cars
proved the virtue of the droop snoot (though a fixed rather than a moveable structure. While sometimes weight-reduction was also
attained, overwhelmingly the advantage was in aerodynamics and the idea began
to spread to road cars although it would be decades before the concept would no
longer be visually too radical for general market acceptance.
1972 Vauxhall Firenza coupé promotional material for the Canadian launch, a market in which the car was a disaster (left) and 1975 High Performance (HP) Firenza "dropsnoot". GM in South Africa actually made a good car out of the Firenza coupé, building 100 (for homologation purposes) with the 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) V8 used in the original Z/28 Chevrolet Camaro. In South Africa, they were sold as the "Chevrolet Firenza".
In 1973, officially, Vauxhall called their new version of
the Firenza coupé the “High Performance (HP) Firenza” but quickly the press,
noting the Concorde (then still three years from entering commercial service),
dubbed it the “droopsnoot”, the reference obviously to the distinctive nosecone
designed for aerodynamic advantage. The
advantages were real in terms of performance and fuel consumption but Vauxhall
had the misfortune to introduce the model just as the first oil crisis began
which stunted demand for high-performance cars (BMW’s 2002 Turbo another
victim) and triggered a sharp recession which was a prelude to that decade’s
stagflation. Vauxhall had planned a
build of some 10,000 a year but in the difficult environment, a paltry 204 were
built.
A Ford Escort Mark 2 in the 1977 Rally of Finland (left) and a 1976 Escort RS2000 with the droop snoot (right).
In 1976, Ford launched their own take on the droop snoot, the Mark 2 Escort RS2000 featuring a similar mechanical specification to that of the Mark 1 but with a distinctive nosecone. Ford claimed there was an aerodynamic benefit in the new nose but it was really a styling exercise designed to stimulate interest because the Escort was the corporation’s platform for rallying rather than something used on high-speed circuits and it certainly achieved the desired results, the model proving popular. Ford Australia even offered it with four doors as well as two although emission regulations meant the additional horsepower on offer in Europe was denied to those down under. Interestingly, although the range’s high-performance flagship, the factory rally team didn’t use the droop snoot version, those in competition using the standard, square-fronted body.
Godox Pro Snoot S-Type Mount SN-05
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