I think the term "non-numeric" probably refers to another popular language of the era from which SNOBOL comes called FORTRAN. The purpose of fizzbuzz as I understand it is to test a person's aptitude for programming, but not necessarily a person's ability to select the "right" programming language.

If the purpose of fizbuzz is to test for programming language selection, and fizzbuzz is a "purely numeric problem", then should the proper choice be FORTRAN.