Southern Scat Cat

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is William, calling from Atlanta, Georgia.

Hi, William. How are you doing?

Hey, William. How are you doing today?

All right. Sounds like you’re doing well. What’s going on?

Oh, I am. Good. Not much. Not much.

I’m actually calling on a saying my great-grandmother used to tell us all the time. Instead of, bless you, when we sneeze, she’d always say, scat, cat, your tail’s in the fire. It’s probably the only thing that she ever said we never could make any sense of.

So you would go, achoo, and she’d say, scat cat, your tail’s in the fire?

Yes, sir. That’s exactly it.

And, William, where did your grandmother grow up?

To the best of my knowledge, she grew up right where I did, which would be Atlanta, Georgia.

Oh, Atlanta, Georgia. Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it, Grant?

Yeah, it’s so thoroughly a southern expression.

Yeah, yeah, and there are lots of variations about this, and you’re exactly right. People use it when they sneeze, when somebody else sneezes, right? And your version was scat cat, your tail’s in the fire?

Yes.

-huh. That’s so interesting because other versions go like scat cat, get your tail out of the gravy, which I like a lot. So your family is definitely not the only one who uses it, and it’s very widespread.

And there are a couple of theories about the origin of that. One may be that the old belief that when you sneeze, like an evil spirit comes out of your body. And maybe, especially in the South, you know, rather than referring to the devil, you might refer to a cat or something. But maybe the other idea is just, you know, blame the sneeze on a cat.

Oh, because you might have allergies or something.

Yeah, yeah, not like blaming a dog for a smell or anything. I mean, the dog eats the homework. You’ve got to blame the cat.

You’re exactly right, William. Yeah, the dog eats the homework and other things. But yeah, scat, cat, get your tail out of the butter. There’s something about that cat being there when it shouldn’t be there. Sort of like a sneeze shouldn’t be there.

So sometimes it’s just plain old scat, right?

Oh, yeah, scat.

Yeah, not the full expression. You might say scat, old yeller, which is not a cat at all.

That’s actually your hound, right?

Unless it’s a yeller cat. Scat, your old witch. There’s a lot of other things to say. Wide varieties, but scat’s in there somewhere.

Yeah. But it’s in American South. It’s like it almost, if you look at the map in the Dictionary of American Regional English, William, it almost like literally stops where the American South stops. It’s just like beyond that, people just don’t say it.

That is hilarious. It’s pretty much below the Mason-Dixon line is the only place it’s at. It’s speckled here and there in parts of Texas, which don’t consider themselves Southern at all. But other than that, yeah, mostly American South.

William, what do you use?

Yeah, what do you use?

Just because I don’t get strange looks for it is just typical. Bless you.

Okay.

Okay. You’ve tried out the cat phrase and it just didn’t work? People gave you strange looks?

Yeah. That’s why they’re giving you strange looks, huh?

Well, I mean, there could be any number of reasons.

Well, William, thank you so much for calling. It’s good to talk with you. It beats Gesundheit, doesn’t it?

Yeah.

Yes. I definitely agree there. Take care now.

All righty. Thank you so much, William.

All right. Thank you. You all have a nice day.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Thanks. Bye-bye.

Bye.

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