Tail Over the Dashboard

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Kathleen Elberson, and I’m calling from Grayson County College in Sherman, Texas.

Well, hello, Kathleen. Welcome to the program.

Hi, thank you.

My question was concerning a phrase that one of my coworkers used a couple of weeks ago.

I was coming back from class, and one of my students had gotten upset about something, I don’t remember what.

And I was saying, oh, my gosh, you know, he was so upset.

And my coworker said, oh, did he have his tail over the dashboard?

And, of course, I said, what?

Because that’s a very strange phrase.

And she said, oh, that must be, she’s from Oklahoma.

And she said that everybody there would say that if they meant that someone was upset.

Oh, interesting.

Oklahoma then.

Yes.

Yeah, it’s a weird phrase, isn’t it?

I mean, when you think of somebody with their tail over the dashboard, I think of somebody.

Yeah.

You know, you’re in the driver’s seat and your passenger is mooning everybody.

Yeah, exactly.

I didn’t think of that.

You naughty.

All right.

Kathleen and I thought of that, right?

Yes.

Or did you?

Yeah.

Actually, I thought of a dog, like a little golden retriever with his tail wagging.

Oh, okay.

And his head out the window, of course, with his tail hanging out.

So tail over the dashboard meant that he had his dander up or something like that?

Yeah, upset.

He was upset.

Oh, that’s interesting because usually I’ve heard this phrase used to mean somebody who’s perky and kind of high-spirited.

So I could see where it might have morphed into being upset.

But the original sense of this is being perky.

And the key here, Kathleen, is that a dashboard hasn’t always been a dashboard in the way we think of it.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, this word goes all the way back to the mid-19th century.

And in the mid-19th century, this is the horse and buggy days, right?

And the dashboard was the thing up in the front where the driver put his feet.

And it prevented dirt and mud from coming up and splashing.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

So Dash had a different sense back then.

So when we’re talking about tails over dashboards, we’re talking about horse butts.

Oh, my gosh.

How about them apples?

Oh, that is awesome.

Yeah.

So if a horse has her tail up over the dashboard, she’s perky perky.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, so her spirits are up in general.

You’ll find that tail over the dashboard has been used in a variety of ways.

But usually it indicates an excess of some kind of emotion.

Oh, wow.

There’s a quote from 1880 that I really love.

It says, it’s also safe to prognosticate that for the next few weeks,

Crime will not have its tail over the dashboard so extensively as heretofore,

Meaning that crime will be accelerated or there will be a lot of it.

Oh, my gosh. I would never have thought.

Kathleen, you kind of sound like your tail is up over the dashboard.

Yeah, it sort of is. I’m thinking this is pretty cool. I never, ever would have guessed that that’s where that was coming from.

How about that? Take that back to Oklahoma and school her a little bit, will you?

I will. I will.

Well, thanks for calling, Kathleen.

Oh, thank you very much.

Okay, cheers to you.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

I’ve also seen it as keep your head high and your tail over the dashboard.

Or as Casey Kasem used to say, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the scars, or whatever it was he said.

Well, I love those phrases where the old sense is completely invisible to us.

Mm—

It happens more often than you’d like to think, right?

Yeah, yeah.

It’s always a great surprise.

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