Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

The dictionaries I've checked don't seem to offer very satisfactory definitions for stool pigeon.  I've seen stool pigeon in print many times, all with the sense of one who obtains secrets and divulges them to someone whose interests are adverse to the person who owned the secret.

The dictionaries favor the definition of "decoy" with the ordinary definition only mentioned as an afterthought, and even then described as a "police informant".  The normal semantics suggest that the stoolie is not a member of the police at all, but is instead, an informant to the police, who may be motivated by a cash reward, by a desire to harm the one whose secrets are being compromised, or an attempt to avoid culpability for a misdeed.

The word origins are traced to a dead pigeon mounted on a stump (apparently a foot stool comes from a stump."  One alternate origin says that a pickpocket would employ a "stall pigeon" to create a diversion in the stalls of the marketplace.  Nothing about "you dirty rat" who betrayed an associate to law enforcement.

And it came from thje dutch in 1530s, with plenty of UK cites, but is an Americanism, circa 1820-1830.

The essence of "stool pigeon" is being a "tattle tail".  Is it tattle tale instead of tattle tail?  Dictionaries should answer that question at "tattle".  Here again, M-W's definition seems to have tattle be chatter or gossip, with no sense of betrayal involved.  Random-House does indicate that secrets are being divulged, but there's no malice suggested.  Seems to me, I've never heard of someone being called a tattle in a loving manner. 

It'd sure be nice to have an explanation for how stool pigeon came to mean a traitor.  A site for ESl says it's tattle tale, not tattle tail.

I think reference works ought to be authoritative.  It's a character flaw of mine.  I also get my burr up about other things I was taught in school, such a America is a place where one can grow up to be anything he wants, but the greatest athlete of the 20h century was a mediocre baseball player, and Refrigerator Perry couldn't have been a jockey.  On the other hand, it appears that our next POTUS will be elected from a field of candidates, none of which would be capable of running a greasy spoon profitably.