AEE 2632: Don’t Be a Rat! Expressions for Betraying Someone’s Trust

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2632. Don't be a rat. Expressions for betraying someone's trust. Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times.

Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection. with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.

What can you say when someone tells on you in English? There are phrases that adults and professionals use and ones that kids use, but many of them revolve around a small animal. Find out more today.

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Take the quiz now for free at allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Hey there, Michelle. How are you today?

I'm good, Lindsay. How are you? Good. Michelle, are you good at keeping secrets? Are you a good secret keeper? I think so. I definitely, I mean, I try my best, right?

I think for the most part, I'm fine. But what about you? Yeah. I mean, I think unless it's something that I really, you know, feel like if I don't share, it's going to be dangerous for the person that shared with me.

Right. If it's just something that is fine to keep a secret, I'm probably pretty good at it, I think. But here's the question. Yeah. Does your spouse get to hear the secret?

When you tell someone a secret, do you just assume that they're going to tell their spouse? See, this is a really good, I've actually had this conversation with my spouse and some friends and this is a hot topic.

So I kind of think that in our little conversation, the consensus was it's okay to tell your spouse, unless it's something like really personal and really private that, you know, would mortify them.

Like these, yeah, there is a bit of a... Sexual details about that person's relationship. Right, right, right. Exactly. Something like that, I think, would be very inappropriate.

Especially if it's a mutual friend or whatever. Something... Yeah, exactly. It really depends on the level. But I do think that when I tell someone something, I'm pretty much assuming their spouse will know too.

And I'm okay with that. And if I weren't, I would say something beforehand. Don't even tell Larry. Yeah. And that's a really good question. It's a fun twist on this episode today and this topic.

It's true. There's an exemption there. Where when you tell like your best friend something, you understand they're probably going to tell their spouse. Really fascinating.

Yeah. So yeah, definitely tell them if you really don't want their spouse knowing. So anyway, but that could be another episode for another day. So...

But yeah, keeping secrets is part of building connections. It's all about building and maintaining someone's trust. So when you share someone's secrets or something that could get them in trouble, you know, you betray their trust and you break that connection. So, you know, today we're going to share some common expressions to talk about betraying trust.

And all of these phrases have something in common. Lindsay, what is it? The word is rat. Rat. Rat. The word that they have in common is rat. Yes, yes.

Okay, interesting. Yeah, this is gonna be this is gonna be an interesting one. So Lindsay, guys, we want to remind you to hit the follow button wherever you're listening to the All Ears English podcast so you never miss any episodes. Yeah, good.

So when we call someone a rat in English, what does it mean, Michelle? What does it mean? Yeah, well, a rat is someone who betrays our trust by telling on us.

So they usually share something that can get us in trouble or make us look bad. And they might share that information with an authority figure. Yep. And yeah, I can imagine what words we're going to teach today, right?

And a lot of them are derived from this rat, the word rat. And it's not always necessarily a secret that was told to them. It's usually something they just observed. So it's a little bit different than the secret, telling the secret to the partner, right?

It's like telling on someone. Like remember in school, there were always kids that were tattletales, you know? Yeah, right. You didn't give us homework.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or whatever. And those kids were not fun to be around because they were always tattling. What we would call is a bonus word for today, tattletale.

You're a tattletale. And the verb is to tattle on someone. It's to go and tell the teacher that this kid did this and that kid did that. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, as far as examples go of a rat.

Yeah, that's one of them when a student tells the teacher something. So like if the student observes another kid cheating on a test and they tell the teacher that would be like to like a rat. And there can be adult tattling too, right? Ratting out, tattling.

A co-worker tells the boss you've been leaving early every day, right? That's not great. Or with a sibling. I mean, a sibling tells their parents that you snuck out of the house last night, right?

Okay. Yes. Siblings will do that to each other for sure. Let's talk more about rats. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, we wouldn't just say it randomly. So it needs some context.

So it might sound like this. I heard your brother told on you. Yeah, he's such a rat. Yeah, that's one way to use it. And we'll talk about a few more in just a minute.

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Yeah. So there are a lot more here, Michelle. For example, to rat someone out. That's the first one that came to mind when we were earlier in the episode.

To rat someone out is to tell someone an authority or person in charge of someone else's wrongdoing, right? So if I found out Elsa's boyfriend was cheating, I would definitely rat him out.

So maybe someone's loyal to Elsa, right? Not so much the boyfriend. And so that's an appropriate sort of ratting out. Yeah. Yeah. Or she promised not to say anything, but then ratted me out during the meeting.

Woo. That sounds like, that doesn't sound good. Okay. So this is tricky because we've got, so be careful with the word order here. The first one is to rat someone out.

And this next one, guys, is to rat on someone. Okay. So they're very close, but both work, right? So I wasn't planning to rat on him, but the boss asked me directly.

I had to tell her. Yeah. Or everyone agreed to stay quiet about stealing the candy, but someone ratted on us. The teacher knows. Yeah. Yeah, so it could definitely happen in a classroom.

Yeah, someone takes some candy, something like that. Yeah, for sure. And then I like this expression, we have a rat, right? Or have you ever heard like, I smell a rat?

It's when you think you're suspicious that someone has told on you. Yeah, for sure. For sure. This means, you know, we have a rat or I smell a rat. Someone in the group is sharing information.

They shouldn't, but we don't know who it is. Yeah. So only a few people knew the plan. Now everyone knows we definitely have a rat. Yeah. Someone must be leaking our strategies to our competitors.

I think we have a rat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting, you know, these situations. And yeah, I mean, these are really all very common in these situations.

You're not going to really hear them otherwise. Yeah, it's kind of funny. This is something that we get introduced to in grade school, but then it can go on throughout our whole lives. I mean, you could talk about like double agents or spies and things like that.

Um, you know, so yeah, or, or colleagues just really, sort of telling the boss that you're leaving early. It's a concept that goes throughout our whole lives, right? Yeah, it really does.

So let's do a role play. So here we are colleagues, and we've been taking long lunches when we should be working. Oh, boss recently found out. So did you hear the boss found out about the late lunches?

Seriously? We must have a rat. I know, but who would rat us out? I mean, we're still getting all our work done. My guess is Scott over in accounting. He's always giving us the side eye when we walk in late.

You're so right. He's totally the rat. Ah, but what do we do now? I mean, I won't be taking long lunches anymore. Same. Hopefully we just get a warning.

Okay. My dog's always giving me the side eye. Okay. Oh, yeah. Border Collies will do that to you for sure. Like when? All the time. He's always disappointed in me when he's hungry or anything.

Not quite as dramatic as this scenario, but yeah. All right. Let's see what we've got. So first you started by saying, did you hear the boss found out about the late lunches?

And you said, seriously, we must have a rat. So there is a rat somewhere. Right. Yeah. And you said, I know, but who would rat us out? So it's like, who would tell on us?

And you said you think it's Scott, right? And in accounting. And then I said, you're so right. He's totally the rat. Yeah. Right. So and then I'm picking up on the signs that the verbal nonverbal signs that he has given.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I guess we better stop those lunches. Stop those lunches. Yeah. Yeah. So, guys, if you want to listen to an episode about another animal, check out episode twenty five sixty two.

That was we're watching your English like a hawk. Yeah, there's lots of episodes about animals that we could do. I mean, there's so much. This is a huge language, so much to explore together around the theme of human connection, guys.

So anytime you are hearing the word rat, just, yeah. I mean, in this context around tattling, as we said, the bonuses that we learned were tattle, right? To tattle and to be a tattletale. Yeah.

is another one. But I think those bonuses are more juvenile in sounding. Like, would you say that about this guy, Scott, in accounting to your coworker as a professional? No, right?

No, no, no. I would say it more about like, whenever my daughter hits my son and then he's like... always just like, she hit me, she hit me over and over. And I'm like, yeah, I like, all right.

Like, we'll figure it out a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's like the juvenile version of the use of this word rat in this context here. Okay.

Yeah. All right. Good stuff. All right, Michelle, you have a good rest of your day. I'll talk to you soon. You too, Lindsay. Have a good one. Bye. Bye.

See you next time.