WORD WATCH

“Snarky” -- now there’s a clever adjective.

Look in your desktop dictionary and you might find Lewis Carroll’s mythical snark, an animal noted for “its slowness in taking a jest.” This snark stems from a derisive Dutch snort: snork. If you think jokes are funny, people are being sharp. When the point pokes your ox, they’re snarky.

These days a snark hunt isn’t futile: Major papers used “snark” or “snarky” in 719 pieces in the last year, up from 505 pieces the previous year and 211 pieces five years ago. The New York Times was the snarkiest of all with 47 pieces, including one headlined “Sometimes Snarkiness is Preferable to Sincerity.” No Big Apple stereotypes being fulfilled there, no siree.

Snarkiness

seems to be a bigger problem in Washington (33 pieces in the

Post) than in nearby Baltimore (four pieces in the Sun). Your Times has kept to a relatively cheery 21 snarks.

Who’s the snarkiest comedian of the last five years? Jon Stewart and “snarky” show up together 40 times, which must disappoint David Spade (28), Dennis Miller (18) and Bill Maher (16).

Sensitive literary magazine the Believer has a feature on its website, “Snarkwatch,” where readers decry abusive book reviews. And finding one, as Carroll would write, they “sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed.”

-- Brendan

Buhler