A shirttail relative is someone considered a family member, even if they’re not related by blood. The word shirttail can also denote a small amount, as in a shirttail of sugar. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Shirttail Relative”
I was having a conversation with friends the other day and somebody mentioned that she had a shirt tail relative. Do you know this term shirt tail?
Yes, I’ve heard this. It’s just somebody that you’re vaguely related to and you’re not sure how.
Yeah, yeah. Or maybe you’re not even related to them at all.
But apparently the idea goes back to another sense of shirt tail, like not literally the part of your shirt, but the idea of something little. Because you might bring somebody a shirt tail of sugar, you know, if your neighbor asks you for…
Oh, that’s right. You make a little… Like when you collect acorns, you make a little pocket out of the hem of your shirt.
Yeah, a little pouch. So like a shirt tail boy is a very young boy. And a shirt tail can just be, you know, a little shirt tail of a garden. That’s how William Faulkner used it, a little shirt tail of a garden.
So you’re saying shirt tail family can be, well, we’ve had, for example, my grandma’s neighbor’s kids I’m not related to at all.
Yeah.
But they’re a shirt tail family.
Yeah.
Picturesque, right?
Yeah.
