A Traverse City, Michigan, man is curious about the phrase his mother-in-law uses: breathing a scab. She uses it to indicate that someone who’s pushing limits or otherwise on thin ice metaphorically. The phrase is far more commonly breeding a scab, and it describes someone whose behavior risks retaliation, such as a punch in the nose, that might actually leave a scab. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Breathe a Scab”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is John Tarenko from Ludington, Michigan.
Hey, John, welcome to the show.
What can we do for you?
Oh, gee, I have a phrase that my mother-in-law uses all the time, and we do not know of its origins.
Oh, boy.
The phrase is, you’re breathing a scab.
Ew.
Yeah, gross.
She uses that all the time?
Breathing like with the lungs and air, breathing a scab?
Yes, correct.
And in what context would she use this? You said she does it all the time?
Well, no, not all the time. Just sort of one of those tongue-in-cheek kind of things like you’re skating on thin ice, that kind of a situation.
Okay, so it’s sort of like a joking warning then?
Oh, yeah. She always says it with a grin.
I see. Okay. Breathing a scab.
Breathing a scab.
All right, so what’s really interesting about this is that is one version of the phrase, but the more common version is breeding a scab, B-R-E-E-D-I-N-G.
And I believe, although I have a footnote and an asterisk here, I believe it has to do with just the idea that you are going to get in so much trouble that someone’s going to knock you on the nose and leave a wound there that will later scab over.
So the idea is you’re breeding it as in I’m raising a scab or, you know, like you breed an animal or something like that.
Right. Well, that’s interesting. We thought maybe that was it, but we weren’t sure.
That sounded a little violent, you know, and it’s always it came from her grandfather. And he was a really humorous guy.
Lots of he’d say a lot of things that were, you know, just tongue in cheek funny that no one had ever heard of.
So we almost thought that he made it up.
No, no.
No, it’s been around.
Yeah, it’s been around.
And my footnote is there is a term used in medicine called to debride, and it’s spelled like it’s debride, D-E-B-R-I-D-E, but it’s pronounced debride.
And it’s removing damaged tissue or trash or foreign objects from a wound or a cut.
And so you debride it. Like, for example, if you get a burn, they will take off the tissue that’s not going to heal. That’s called the debreeding.
And it’s just so interesting to me that it sounds, that breed part sounds so similar to the expression to breed a scab, the idea that you might be picking at a scab and raising trouble.
Right.
Just the idea of picking at a scab means kind of irritating a thing that was on its way to getting better.
Oh, that sheds a whole new light on this.
Yeah, but I’m not 100% sure it’s related because the registers of language are different.
Like the breeding a scab is far more idiomatic and informal and debriding is far more formal and learned.
Yeah, I feel like I’ve heard doctors say debride.
Debride, yeah.
If you look it up, though, it’s debride.
Really?
Yeah.
Right, right.
Well, that’s fantastic.
We had no idea.
She’ll be shocked to know that it’s much more than just what her grandfather made up.
Yeah, cool, right?
Absolutely.
John, thank you so much for calling.
Well, thanks for having me on the show.
Okay, and stay out of trouble.
Oh, I will.
I don’t want to breathe a scab.
Right.
Bye, John.
I’ll just read one.
That’s okay.
Right.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Perfect illustration of what we say all the time.
These kinds of expressions linger in your family.
Older relatives use them.
They get passed on to your parents or grandparents.
You pick them up, and one day they’re in your mouth, and you’re like, why am I about to say this thing?
Why does this expression come naturally to me?
And you call 877-929-9673 or you send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.
And then Martha and I will try to help you with it.
