SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Rats are always fleeing something, whether a ship, a burning house or impending catastrophe.

Yes, I'm three days late this week. 

When the rats mutiny, it's time for Cappy Deaf Dick to go down with his ship -- isn't it?

'Like Rats Fleeing a Sinking Ship': A History (Merriam-Webster)

An idiom that goes back centuries

The idiom like rats fleeing a sinking ship, used in reference to people abandoning an enterprise once it seems likely to fail, has shown great linguistic tenacity, having been in regular use for over four hundred years. However, the wording and form of this standby has changed quite a bit over the centuries.

Almost all the early uses of the 'sinking ship' analogy were in reference to political scandals.

The original setting for the fleeing rats was a decrepit house, one that was on the verge of falling down. Both rats and mice, in the 16th century, were said to have the ability to know when a structure was on the verge of collapse, and would accordingly decamp some time before this happened. By the early 17th century the behavior of the rats begins to see use as a simile.

Don't suffer your Selves to be buffetted from Post to Pillar, by Pinning your Faith upon such that propose no more than to find a way out for themselves, like Rats that quit the House before it falls.
— Anon., A Dialogue Between Two Members of the New and Old East-India Companies, 1600

As a guy who enjoys an honest tipple, this stands out.

Yea, if but sicknesse come, these carnall delights will runne from you, affrighted like Rats from a house on fire.
— Richard Younge, The Drunkard’s Character, 1638

Then, to paraphrase Pete Townshend, the rats started going mobile.

It is not until the latter portion of the 17th century that the rats decide they’ve had enough of running from collapsing and burning houses, and the expression took on a new mode of egress: decamping from a foundering ship ...

Decamping from a foundering ship that's ANCHORED into place? Not yet. Maybe it's because some of them would have trouble finding another boat quite as ... er, bountiful.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Can a dog's idiom mean two entirely different things?

Someone asked me about our cat Hugo's passing, and without thinking, I tossed back a bon mot:

"That feline led a dog's life."

First things first: maybe it's best for me to avoid humor when I'm jet-lagged ... and what the hell is a bon mot?

bon mot

bän ˈmō

noun: bon mot; plural noun: bon mots; plural noun: bons mots

a witty remark.

synonyms: witticism, quip, pun, pleasantry, jest, joke

origin: mid 18th century: French, literally ‘good word.’

I had no sooner uttered the words "a dog's life" than the raging doubts started. When we speak about a dog's life in this sense, do we mean it was a good existence (my intended connotation) or a bad one?

Actually, it can mean both such lives -- perhaps depending on when the speaker was born.

Noun: dog's life (plural dogs' lives)

(idiomatic) A miserable, wretched existence.

(idiomatic) A life of indolence where the individual may do as he or she pleases, just like a pampered dog.

Usage notes

Originally the term referred to the hard life of the working dog: sleeping in a damp barn, chasing rats and other intruders, living on scraps, etc. Today, however, it has in some circles acquired the completely opposite connotation indicated in sense 2.

I looked at a few other explanations off-line, and it seems that in the late 1990s, the view remained intact that "a dog's life" implies a short and unhappy one. Since then, the "pampered" definition seems to have gained ascendance.

We miss Hugo a lot, and maybe the truth of the matter is that he was a perfect exemplar of a "(house) cat's life," with the dogs having nothing whatever to do with it, whether indoors or outside.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Shats, frog stranglers and bat hides.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why all these newfangled words?

Why not the old, familiar, comforting words, like the ones you're sure to hear when asking the city's corporate attorney why the answers to my FOIA/public records request for Bicentennial commission finances, due to be handed over on July 8, still haven't arrived on September 28?

Bicentennial commission financial trail? What's two (yawn) weeks (shrug) after 463 days?

September 28 update: Make that 12 weeks since the FOIA record request's due date and  532 days since I asked Bob Caesar to tell us how many books were left unsold, and how much the city's 200-year "summer of love" fest cost.

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about intimidation through erudition. Rather, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even these very same iniquitous, paving-bond-slush-engorged municipal corporate attorneys who customarily are handsomely remunerated to suppress information can benefit from this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, as we contemplate what they knew and when they knew it, all we have left is plenty of time -- and the opportunity to learn something, if we're so inclined.

Today, a fun link provided by the inimitable Scott Wise of Scotty's Brewhouse fame.

30 words and phrases that will soon disappear from American English, by Thu-Huong Ha (Quartz)

American English is rich with idiom and slang. But as new words enter the lexicon, many old expressions fall into disuse.

Earlier this month the Dictionary of American Regional English, a project to capture the ebb and flow of the country’s regional vocabulary, released a list of 50 “endangered” words and phrases to try and keep them in use.