Answer: Snugly vs. Snuggly
Tuesday, 5 July 2011 21:38![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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campylobacter has a question about the difference between snugly and snuggly. Let's take a closer look at these close cousins with help from our immortal friends from Good Omens, Aziraphale and Crowley.
Both these words derive from the adjective snug, meaning either warm and cozy or close-fitting:
Even though Aziraphale didn't need to let winter weather inconvenience him, he still found it delightful to be snug indoors by the fire, with a good cup of tea, on a cold and rainy January day.
Crowley wasn't really paying attention. His gaze was on the buxom young woman in the snug black jersey who was crossing the street at that moment.
Snugly is the adverb that comes from this second meaning, close-fitting:
"I say, Crowley," said Aziraphale. "Are those trousers of yours really meant to fit that snugly?"
Snuggly, on the other hand, hasn't yet made it into the most trusted dictionaries, such as Webster's and the Oxford. As one of the contributors to Wiktionary (an online wiki dictionary) commented:
I know the dictionaries don't agree with me, but "snugly" and "snuggly" appear to be different words. "Snugly" looks like the adverbial form of "snug" (the cap fit him snugly), while "snuggly" (or perhaps "snuggley") looks like the adjective form of "snuggle" ...
Snuggle, a verb, means "to settle into a warm, comfortable [in fact, a snug] position" (Oxford Dictionaries). Therefore, snuggly can mean something that's pleasant for snuggling or, alternatively, someone or some creature who snuggles or likes to snuggle:
One of Aziraphale's favorite items of clothing was a snuggly cardigan in soft, white wool.
Crowley watched in smug satisfaction as the trio of elderly ladies stared, horrified, at the snuggly teenaged couple on the park bench.
To a grammar maven, one of the interesting thing about these two is that the "ly" ending, usually the marker of an adverb, seems to have ended up on the end of an adjective in the case of snuggly. Of course, what has actually happened is that a word that ended with the sound of an L was made into an adjective by adding Y, which is very common in English: creepy, happy, bouncy. Similarly, snuggle + y = snuggly ... which looks confusingly like the related adverb snugly.
Try to remember snuggly's connection to its immediate ancestor snuggle. If the situation calls for a word that feels cuddly and "comfy," you probably want snuggly. If, on the other hand, the situation involves something tight-fitting, you want snugly. A shirt that fits too snugly may not make you feel very snuggly at all!
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6/7/11 08:23 (UTC)no subject
17/7/11 04:34 (UTC)Snuggly vampires, bwa ha ha ... fandom is so wonderful!
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6/7/11 17:11 (UTC)Three words which should never, EVER be strung together. In any fandom. ;)
On the other hand, I can think of other things which, fitting snugly, might make one feel very snuggly indeed - before or after the fitting!
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7/7/11 01:06 (UTC)Perkygoths beg to differ! ;)
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7/7/11 02:37 (UTC)Bear in mind here, I am not talking this (http://www.emilystrange.com/) sort of creepy; I am talking Lovecraftian creepy.
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17/7/11 04:38 (UTC)"Perkygoths" ... XD
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17/7/11 04:37 (UTC)Re creepy happy bouncy ... well, these things happen when one is writing under a tight deadline!
As for snugly fitted snuggly things: I did say too snugly. "Snugly" is definitely one of those YMMV terms.