Tend Your Own Rat-Killing

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Harold Miller calling from Chicago.

Hello, Harold.

Hi, Harold.

How are things in Chicago?

Are you in O’Hare?

You sound like you have some folks behind you there.

No, no, you caught me. I’m outside, actually, but I’ve got a little quiet corner, hopefully.

Oh, okay, great. Well, what’s up?

Well, my mom had a lot of interesting phrases when we were kids, and I’ve got three sisters, and we all grew up in a military family. And my mom and dad are from the same part of the state of Arkansas, which is sort of southwest around Nashville, Arkansas.

My mom had all these sort of funny phrases that she would say when we were kids, and we didn’t think anything about it at the time. But when we all got older and we took these phrases out into our, you know, adult lives, people were sort of looking at us and going, what was that again? And we realized, you know, at that point that we actually were saying things that people had not heard before, and it wasn’t common in everybody’s family.

So among the several things my mom said that we thought were odd in retrospect, one of the most funny was that she had this expression that she would say, you tend to your own rat killing, which she would say if we were asking questions that she didn’t want to answer or if we were bothering somebody or whatever it might be. It would just sort of catch-all phrase for mind your own business or behave or whatever.

But later on, we said, how in the world did that get put together like that? What does that mean exactly? Tend to your own rat killing. Tend to your own rat killing. You tend to your own rat killing.

How would she say that? Is this something she yells?

Yeah, it would totally be something she’d yell. It would be like if you were in another room, if she was in another room and she heard me, you know, bothering my sisters when they were playing, she might yell out, hey, you tend to your own rat killing in there. Or if, you know, we wanted to know something she didn’t want to tell us and we badgered her enough, she’d go, you just tend to your own rat killing.

Oh my gosh. You never talked about that expression with her then?

When we were kids it was so common we never even thought about it. In fact, I mean to tell you the truth, now we use it, I use it, and all my sisters use it in our families, and my kids use it now. Because once I realized how novel it was and it was funny, then it was sort of like a mockery thing. But now to be honest with you, we just use it, and sometimes we slip up and say it around other people, and we still get that, what was that again now? You tend to your own rat killing. I love it.

And you know what? You’re part of a larger body of people who’ve used that phrase at least since 1878.

78? I thought maybe it went back to the plague or something, but I’m all ears.

Well, it could be, but in the forms that I’ve been able to find it, the most common form is to go on with your rat killing. And I find it in Harper’s Magazine from the 1870s, and it’s used almost the same way, but it’s more about we’re talking, I say something, you say something, and then I say, well, go on with your rat killing, which means you finish what you’re saying.

Oh, really?

Yeah. So it’s more about go about your own business. So it’s kind of related to the way your mother used it, I think.

Oh, yeah, exactly. I could totally say that would get, that would transmute into something a little bit more critical.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s incredibly evocative, isn’t it?

Oh, yeah. But who are these people that are killing the rats?

Yeah, well, that’s what we want. It’s like, how did this expression get started? See, I have a theory about it. If you care to hear it, I’ll show you what I’m doing.

Let’s have it.

Yeah, let’s have it.

Okay. After I thought about it, I thought, you know, there must have been a time when one person would complain to their neighbor about their rat problem, perhaps. Or maybe it was a common rat problem. And if you didn’t keep up with your rat problem, it affected your neighbors, like cockroaches in an apartment building.

Yeah, or moles. I thought maybe, you know, if one person would complain to another person about their rat, and this was common enough that it became common to reply, you tend to your own rat kill, and I’ll tend to mine. That’s my theory about it.

I like that. It’s possible. I don’t find any evidence for that in the historical record, but I should say that most of the uses of this expression are all used in almost exactly the same way with very little context. It’s clear from the fiction and the nonfiction that I find that it’s a thing to say, that they’re quite aware that what is coming out of their mouth is a bit funny or a bit ironic, that people almost always use it in a knowing way.

Oh, yeah. It’s so delightful to hear it come from your family as something that you used in the house and from somebody who clearly meant it. She wanted you to, I mean, she didn’t want you to actually kill rats. She wanted you to stop bothering your sisters.

Hey, thanks, Harold. Harold, thanks for calling today.

Thanks much. Enjoyed it. Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

All right. Well, what were the weird expressions you heard growing up? Call us 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.