Run the Traps

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Dennis and I’m calling from Tropical Ratcliffe, Kentucky.

You’re near Fort Knox. You can’t fool me.

Correct.

What’s on your mind today?

The one thing that I would like to talk about is the expression running the traps.

How do you use run the traps?

I’m assuming you’re talking about a figurative use and not the literal one or maybe both.

I guess the best way that I can explain it is to tell the story, what made me think about it, was I’m a soldier in the military. I’m a non-commissioned officer.

And I was in a room with two officers, and we were discussing something like a tasking that the higher-ranking officer, the colonel, was talking to a major and myself.

And the colonel asked the major, did everything go well on this trip, blah, blah, blah.

The major said with air quotes, yes, sir, we ran the traps, whatever that means.

The colonel responded with, I don’t know if anybody knows what that means.

And they both kind of laughed.

And I’m like, I actually do think I know what that means.

And for me, I think it means running a trap line that somebody has put out normally in the wintertime, which it’s my understanding the expression means to do your due diligence.

And that comes from running the trap line physically is kind of a difficult thing to do because it takes about a month of Sundays because it normally covers about two and a half to three miles of area.

That’s normally done in a cold environment.

And it’s like the prudent thing to do is to run all the traps on the trap line

To make sure you’ve got nothing in there and there’s no struggling animals and whatnot.

But that got me thinking because I’m like, this is my understanding of the expression.

Maybe these people can figure it out, you know?

Yeah, that’s all clicking. That’s exactly right.

I had an entry for this in my 2006 book,

And many of the uses that I came up with were from government and politics, where the definition you give is exactly right.

Doing due diligence.

But it could also be checking with everybody who might have an opinion.

It might also be about sounding out possible public support or opposition or just investigating every possible angle.

But, yeah, it comes from hunting and fishing.

With fishing, you run the traps.

You check all your traps and you rebate them if you need to or repair them or replace them if you need to.

I did it as a kid for like my uncle and grandpa.

And it was always a pretty, you know, tall order for a, you know, nine to 10 year old.

Yeah, that’s why you’re remembering that it was very difficult in the cold winter, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that’s exactly what it is.

And I’m not surprised to hear that it’s used in the military.

But I am surprised that your senior officers didn’t know it because it’s been going for a good 50 years in government and presumably the military as a bit of jargon.

Well, the military goes like it’s got trending language that it uses.

It tries to model itself off, you know, like business speak for the most part.

So I can see how it gets introduced and taken away.

Yeah. And business folks like to adopt military terms as well, right?

Like Blockbuster and things like that.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Well, that’s it, Dennis.

Thank you so much for sharing.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, appreciate it.

You guys take it easy.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Stay cool.

We have a lot of listeners out there in the military who run into interesting language

Every day, and we would love to hear about that.

877-929-9673 or send it to us in email, words@waywordradio.org.