Where did the phrase "scat old cat" come from? [duplicate]
Solution 1:
The only close match to this rather elaborate saying that a Google Books search turns up is from Lois Timmins, Understanding Through Communication: Structured Experiments in Self-Exploration (1972) [combined snippets], which mentions the expression only in passing:
I am different from all others in my exact degree of knowledge. I am trying to raise Appaloosa horses. I can speak Chinese. I am not like anyone in this room because when someone sneezes I say the old saying, "Scat, kitty cat, your tail is in the gravy." No one else has the exact tastes I have in houses, dogs, food, clothes, music or make-up. I am different from all others in the rate of time and the efficiency with which I accomplish certain tasks. No one else has the same family I have.
A posting from Tipper, titled "Appalachia Through My Eyes - Scatting Sneezes" on Blind Pig & the Acorn, however, includes this comment:
When I was in elementary school and someone sneezed we would say Gesundheit. Using a word like that made us feel so grown up. These days I most often hear God Bless You or Bless You said to a person who has just sneezed. Unless Miss Cindy is around. Miss Cindy answers with 'scat there Tom your tails in the gravy' or a shortened 'scat there' when someone sounds off a sneeze.
I tried to find the origin of the 'scat' saying for sneezes but came up with nothing. The Frank C. Brown's collection of folklore had 18 different references to sneezing-all of which resulted in death. If they were all true there'd be no one left alive in Cherokee County in another week or two.
Ever heard someone say 'scat there Tom your tails in the gravy' or a variation of the phrase when someone sneezes?
The posting yielded dozens of responses from readers who identified such variants as these:
Scat, muskrat, your tail's on fire.
Scat there yeller, your tail's in the gravy.
Scat there, Tom. Tails in the butter!
Scat there.
Scat there Tom!
Scat, Tom—your tail's on fire.
Scat, cat, your tail's on fire—gonna burn the house down!
Scat you tabbity rascal!
Scat ya old heifer, your tail's on fire.
Scat, Tom, your tail's in the gravy.
Skit scat, kitty cat.
Scat you rat.
Scat ol' cat ol' rat.
Scat you old witch, your tail's on fire.
Scat to the barn.
Ak-achoo, gesundheit, scat-cat, and all them thangs.
The commenters noting these variants identified themselves (or the person who used the expression) as being from a range of places: Louisville, Kentucky; Booneville, Kentucky; Appallachia; southern Missouri; Ohio; Hiwassee, North Carolina; first-generation Irish-American; Sevier County, Tennessee; west-central Alabama; Ages, Kentucky; Morgantown, West Virginia; Hazard, Kentucky; Oklahoma; Cumberland County, Kentucky; Hazard County, Kentucky; and Arkansas.
Of particular interest may be this comment from a commenter named Penny:
I found this googling:
And what about scat!? Although this word is facing fierce competition from the German Gesundheit, DARE reports from its many interviews that scat's meaning of "begone" is frequently used in the South from Florida to Texas (heaviest in Kentucky) as "reference to the belief that the devil enters the body when a person sneezes." This is probably the source of Scat as one of the many names for Satan. However, DARE notes that "numerous phrasal references to cats suggest another source."
In Kentucky and Tennessee, the full expression said to a sneezer is "Scat, Tom -- your tail's on fire," which refers to a tomcat in a distressing circumstance. The O.E.D., just guessing, suggests that the word's origin is a hissing sound -- sss, followed by the word cat, "used in driving away cats." If you associate cats with the devil (which, I hasten to say, legions of cat lovers do not), the leap from driving away a cat to driving the devil from possession of the sneezer is natural.
Robert Hendrickson, The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms (2000), meanwhile, has only a brief entry for scat:
scat Gesundheit! or God bless you! after someone sneezes; scat is common throughout the South and is especially much preferred in Arkansas over the other terms.
I grew up in Corpus Christi and Houston, Texas, and never heard anyone say "Scat!" after someone sneezed, so the reach of the expression may be somewhat less extensive and pervasive than the standard reference works suggest.