Ten-year-old Alex, from Oceanside, California, wonders if a cat’s flicking tail inspired the expression telltale sign, meaning “an indicator.” The word is telltale, not its soundalike telltail. About 400 years ago, a telltale was a “tattler.” Today a telltale on a sailboat is “a piece of ribbon or fabric that indicates a change in the wind,” and Australians use the word telltale to denote “the rear indicator light on a motor vehicle.” One memorable use of the term is in the title of Edgar Allan Poe chilling story, “The Tell-Tale Heart.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Is There a Tail in Telltale Sign?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Colin from Oceanside, California.
Hi, Colin. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Grant. I’m so happy to be here.
Well, my 10-year-old son had a question. We were hanging out on the couch a little bit ago, and it has to do with our cat. So I’ll pass the phone off to him. This is Alex, and he’s got the question for you.
Hi, I’m Alex. The question was, so we were watching the cat’s leaky tail, and I thought, hey, it’s a telltale sign. Is that the real version of the word? Of telltale? Of telltale sign?
-huh.
Okay, so you thought your cat was indicating something by moving that tail, right?
Mm—
Well, it’s a great guess, but the tail in telltale sign is actually spelled T-A-L-E, not T-A-I-L. So it doesn’t have anything to do with that appendage on the back of a cat. Telltale means that something is literally telling a tale. It’s telling a story. And it’s a super old word. It goes back more than 400 years. And originally, the term was applied to somebody who was a tattler. You know, if you told a secret about somebody else, you were called a telltale. And not long after that, it was used as an adjective, like a telltale sign, as you said, Alex, or telltale stain, something like that. And so that’s the sense of telltale today. It’s T-E-L-L-T-A-L-E, telltale. So it can be a giveaway or a clue or an indicator of the truth of a situation.
Okay, okay. So a cat’s tail flicking could be a telltale sign, but it’s not the origin. And for a cat, that’s its language, meaning it’s a little irritated and you probably shouldn’t pet it. Wouldn’t you say, Martha, as a cat owner yourself?
Or I would say if my cat’s flicking his tail, he might be interested in something.
Okay. I’m just thinking of my little troublemaker. When she’s flicking her tail quickly back and forth, it means do not pet me. You might get the claws. Alex, both Grant and I are big cat lovers.
Yeah. Sounds like you are too.
Yeah. Thanks, Alex. All right. Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Okay. You’re welcome. Take care. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Grant, probably all the sailors out there want us to be talking about the telltale on a sailboat, which are those narrow ribbons that you sometimes see attached to the boat’s sails or elsewhere on the boat. And you watch how they’re blowing in the wind so you can see how the air flows across the sail. So a telltale there is this little strip of fabric that tells you if your sail is set for peak performance. And if not, you need to adjust.
That’s right. And there are also telltales that are used in machinery showing supply levels or the direction that a particular part is facing. So if you have something that’s hidden from view, a telltale will show you if it’s right or left or up or down. If your supply is high or low or so forth.
Right. And I’ve never been to Australia, but I would love to go just to hear people talking about the rear indicator light on a car. They call those telltales.
Oh, I love that. And by the way, we can’t leave this without a quick quote from the Telltale Heart, that 1843 story by Edgar Allan Poe. I admit the deed. Tear up the planks. Here, here. It is the beating of this hideous heart. I mean, it is like still an astonishing story. After all these years, it still is chilling.
It is. This man who feels this guilt, and he can hear the heart of this person he has put under the planks of his house beating.
Yes. In his ears. Beating its vengeance at him. Talk about telltale.
