“Scat Cat!” Sneeze Response

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Dexter Strong calling from Huntsville, Alabama.

Hi, Dexter. Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

What would you like to talk with us about?

So we got married. I got married about a year and a half ago. And my wife is from the Midwest. She’s from Minnesota. And she calls our conversations a rhetorical adventure because they are littered with Southern idioms and phrases that she just never heard. And I sprinkle in Southern vernacular and black vernacular into all our conversations, like indiscriminately. She just has never heard many of the phrases that I use.

And once, this was early when we were dating, she sneezed. And instinctively, I said, scat cat. And she looked at me with this puzzled face. She said, what did you just say to me? I said, well, scat cat. And it’s a phrase that I’d always grown up with. My mom, ever since I was young, each time I sneezed, she said scat cat more frequently than she said bless you. And I’m wondering where that phrase comes from.

Huh.

And did you both grow up in Alabama then?

My mom grew up in Shelbyville, Tennessee, which is about 70 to 80 miles northeast of Huntsville, which is kind of like the Tennessee Valley right on the border. Outside of my mom, I have never heard anybody else say that. My dad didn’t say it growing up. But my mom always said that. I’m wondering where that phrase comes from.

Well, Dexter, this makes a lot of sense to us because it’s pretty much across the southern United States. And there are lots of different versions of it. And you just say scat cat, right?

Yep, scat cat.

Yep.

But there are lots and lots of different versions of this. There’s scat cat, your tail’s on fire. Scat there, your son bit your tail off. Scat tom, your tail is on fire. Scat cat, get your tail out of the gravy. And scat cat, get your tail out of the butter. There are a whole lot of variations of this, different elaborations of this expression. We’re not really sure where it comes from, although it might have to do with that old superstition that a sneeze is some kind of evil spirit leaving your body, you know? And you just want that thing to get out of there.

Wow.

Are all of those phrases different responses to sneezes that you just enumerated, all of those?

Yeah.

That is interesting. I always assumed that it had something to do with cats being, I don’t know, something that people were allergic to.

Well, that’s another possibility for sure. I never thought that my mom was kind of symbolically warding off an evil spirit every time I sneezed.

No.

But no, I’m thankful for it.

Yeah, maybe not, but the expressions lasted so long that whatever it was in the beginning, it may not be that thing now. So she might have just learned it without any kind of…

Oh, no, my mom’s super superstitious.

Oh, is she?

If it’s linked to some type of cat superstition, I’m almost positive she means it almost. Maybe not literally, but playing her card is nice.

Yeah, so it goes back to at least the late 1800s, although surely it’s older than that. So she’s part of more than a hundred plus year tradition of this particular bit of idiom.

So Dexter, what does your wife say when somebody sneezes?

Bless you. If she doesn’t say ill, now that we’re in the age of COVID.

And why did we say bless you when people sneeze? It’s a similar reason, right? Because that association with there’s something unnatural happening in the body. And that you need blessing in order to make sure that nothing bad happens.

Yeah, same idea with the German word gesundheit, which just means health. You know, in Spanish, salud. You know, you’re wishing somebody well. But I’m just loving the idea of your rhetorical adventures. You’ll have to let us know.

Oh, yeah. Keep us up to date on those.

Dexter, thanks for calling. We really appreciate it.

Thank you for explaining this. I can’t wait to tell my wife that I’m not as weird as she thinks I am.

Oh, absolutely not. Well, you might be, but not for this.

All righty. Take care.

We’d love to hear about your rhetorical adventures with a partner or friend or co-workers. Give us a call, 877-929-9673.