It'll be a snack.

[tzfujimino]

When I was looking up the word "snack" here, I found 'It'll be a snack' in definition #2. It says "(Australian English, informal)". I think it means the same as 'It'll be a piece of cake'.

Is 'a snack' used in this way in BrE and AmE as well?

Thank you.

 

[Rover_KE]

It's not in BrE. I have heard 'It'll be a snap', but that's not common.

 

[J&K Tutoring]

Not AmE either. I didn't find this usage elsewhere in a quick search. I'd want a strong endorsement from a native Australian before I accepted it or tried to use it.

Idioms can be extremely local, and sometimes people will make a joke out of successfully inserting a false internet reference. You should never trust a single source.

 

[tedmc]

"It's a snap" is an idiom. http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/It's+a+snap

Snack is food

 

[MikeNewYork]

Strange use.

 

[emsr2d2]

I've certainly never heard it in BrE. I have heard "It's a snap" but not frequently.

 

[JMurray]

not a teacher

As well as Piscean's Collins link, "It'll be a snack" is defined in its informal Australian sense here: http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/snack_1
"Snack" is also listed in Partridge's "Slang and Unconventional English" with this meaning, dating from the 1920s. Partridge says that it's related to Australian swindler's slang for a certainty, a dupe or easy mark.
I've lived in Australia on and off for many years, mostly in Melbourne, and never heard this usage, and I've just spoken to a sixty-year-old Australian who says that she's never heard it either.
The "Monckton" quote that Piscean gives us is from a discussion relating to an issue in Western Australia. Perhaps the usage is more common there.

 

[Raymott]

I have never heard this usage, during almost 60 years, mostly in Queensland.

 

[Eckaslike]

I've just checked with a work colleague from Sydney, and they've never heard of it either.

Their exact words were: "Oh, you mean It's a snap!".

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

"It was a snack to quickly dial in a new setting as conditions and lures were changed throughout the day."


Source: A Google result from "the best fishing magazine in Australia."

 

[BobK]

It's not in BrE. I have heard 'It'll be a snap', but that's not common.

Same here. In Br Eng the only use of 'It'll [only] be a snack' I've heard is in invitations for meals - apologizing.

b

PS I've mentioned before how stops at the end of utterances tend to become bilabial (just because the mouth is closing). The sightings reported by TP and others may be 'inversions' of this - people hear a /p/ and assume it started out as a /k/.

 

[Tdol]

PS I've mentioned before how stops at the end of utterances tend to become bilabial (just because the mouth is closing). The sightings reported by TP and others may be 'inversions' of this - people hear a /p/ and assume it started out as a /k/.

There are many cases where things that are misheard become used.

 

[Eckaslike]

Indeed. I know someone who describes modern things as "state of the ark.".

 

[BobK]

:up: And 'off his own back' etc etc - as tdol said, it's common. In the long run, it's one of the ways language changes:

BNC hits for the phrase for aught I know: 2
BNC hits for the phrase for all I know: 54

b

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Mona: If you have a question about grammar, why don't you ask The Parser?

Tony: Are you kidding? If you think that he knows anything about grammar, then you have another think coming."

*****

"It's really hard to pronounce 'think coming' ... with those two hard 'k' sounds back to back, and all but those with precise diction elide 'think' into 'thing.' " [my emphases]

"It's easy .. to see how the phrase would become 'another thing coming,' and it's ... been spelled that way ... for close to a hundred years."

-- Merrill Perlman, Columbia Journalism Review, July/August, 2008.

 

[BobK]

Tony: Are you kidding? If you think that he knows anything about grammar, then you have another think coming."

*****

"It's really hard to pronounce 'think coming' ... with those two hard 'k' sounds back to back, and all but those with precise diction elide 'think' into 'thing.' " [my emphases]/QUOTE]

Just say 'thing coming' and 'think coming' and you'll hear that they sound different even in casual speech. The /k/ of 'think' is not separately released before the /k/ of 'coming, but the nasal cavity is closed off which means that the /ŋ/ sound is more curtailed in 'think' that it is in 'thing'.

I think those words delimited by quotations in the 2nd half of TP's comment come from the dictionary cited. Concerning the rival claims of "think" and "thing" in this context see this post which I wrote at the end of last year.

b