Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thornton
How about the verb snarf for obtaining a copy without paying?
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As I said before, this is a good suggestion. But a few minutes ago I was trying to remember what you'd suggested, and "snaffle" came to my mind.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/snaffle
–verb (used with object),-fled, -fling. British Informal.
to appropriate for one's own use, esp. by devious means; purloin; filch.
I think that snarf is more American and snaffle more British. And, indeed, the wonderful
Dialecticon supports this idea. Using the past tenses (snarfed, snaffled) to avoid the noun use of snaffle as a horse's bit, we find about equal use of snarfed and snaffled in the US, but a massive 97.5% for snaffled in the UK. (Australia seems to follow the UK, and Canada likes snarfed even more than the US!)
Checking the other forms of the words, it's still the case that UK and Australia prefer snaffle, while US and Canada prefer snarf.
So from now on I'll be snaffling the occasional ebook that's otherwise unobtainable.