An Alabama woman says her Minnesota-born husband has never heard an expression she’s used all her life. The phrase is “smell the patching,” as in “If he’s not careful, he’s going to smell the patching.” The idea is that if you do something bad, it will catch up with you. In the early 19th century, patching was the piece of cloth used to tamp down gunpowder in firearms. If you’re close enough to a battle to smell the patching, you’re pretty darn close. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Smell the Patching”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is Margaret Petriez. I’m calling from Greendale, Wisconsin.
Hey, Margaret. I’m originally from Alabama. My husband’s from Minnesota, and he swears I keep coming up with new phrases that he’s never heard after 26 years.
So the latest one, and I tried to look it up and couldn’t find anything, was called, was smell the patching. To me, it means when somebody is going to think they’re going to come home. You know, like if you’ve done something bad, it’s going to catch up with you. But I couldn’t find anything online about that. Smell the patching, and it means that you’ve done something wrong and it will catch up with you.
I mean, are you a Civil War buff or a reenactor, or do you watch the military movies or documentaries or anything like that?
I do not so much, but if you grow up in Alabama, you hear a lot about the Civil War.
Yeah, where in Alabama?
Yeah, where?
Gaston, Alabama.
Gaston, all right. The reason I ask is it doesn’t particularly date to the Civil War, but it certainly shows up in a lot of Civil War writing. I have uses of it dating back to one of Davy Crockett’s books from 1835, and it’s probably older than that.
And the patching apparently was the cloth that you would use when you loaded up certain kinds of weapons with gunpowder. It’s literally the cloth that you might also use for patching clothing, and you shove it in there with the ball and the powder and stuff. And so if you are close enough to smell the patching, you are near the fight. You are near where the aggression is taking place, where the explosions are going on and people are getting hurt.
And so it has generalized over the years to move away from meaning, you know, he could smell the patching. I mean, he was right there on the scene of the battle to meaning he could smell the patching, which he was right there in a place of big risk, a place where trouble could happen. And so I’m pretty sure that’s the same smell of the patching that you have.
I would be pretty sure it would be just because of the Civil War connection, because when you grow up in Alabama, like I said, you hear a lot about the Civil War. It sounds like it just happened, you know, two weeks ago or something sometimes.
Right. That’s very interesting.
Yeah, that’s the thing about the Civil War. Its history is close enough to us that we can talk about family that were in it. We can talk about places that are still there. We can talk. It’s like it’s not like the Revolutionary War where it’s far more distant and you’re and people don’t even look like you or maybe not even carry your own name.
And Margaret, how did you use it with your husband?
You know, I was trying to remember it came up that maybe with something to do with the politics of today. And, you know, someone had done something. I said, if he’s not careful, he’s going to smell the patching, meaning these things are going to catch up with him. You can just go so far. So I think it was in that context.
But it’s really funny because he swears that even after all these years, I still come up with something new all the time.
That’s great. It keeps your marriage interesting, right?
It really does. It does. And he comes up with things, too, since he’s from Minnesota. That’s a whole different language.
Yeah, a whole different country, right?
Yes. Thank you very much for your call, Margaret.
Thank you so much. Take care now.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
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