Smelling A Rat, A Packrat, A Frog In Your Throat

Smelling A Rat
Just as something being "fishy" describes something suspicious, to "smell a rat" is to suspect trickery or treachery.

Trickery is as in fraud. Treachery is as in betrayal. Also, in criminal culture, "a rat" is a police informant. This term has spread into popular culture; "ratting" or "ratting out" is to inform on someone and betray that person to an authority of some kind, whether lawful (police) or unlawful (organized crime).


Example: "I considered buying that car at nine thousand dollars, but I smelled a rat. The car should have been worth much more. I looked deeper and discovered that the engine will need to be replaced. That'll add thousands of dollars to the price. I want a good car for $9000, but I want one in good condition."

When a dog bred to hunt rats acts like it is suspicious, it probably smells a rat. This is the origin of the expression.


A Packrat
The Packrat - genus Neotoma - is a type of rodent of western North America that is famous for hoarding food and other objects.

Similarly, when a human is referred to as "a packrat," the person is being described as someone who hoards objects, finding ever more creative ways to pack the maximum amount of possessions in the space available.

Example: "Jerry's a total packrat. He never throws his old junk away. His house is so packed full of old things, you can barely walk in it! He needs to throw that junk out!"

Well, as a famous proverb says, one man's trash is another man's treasure. A packrat wants to keep objects around because they could be useful in the future; thus, they are held for their potential value, not their value at the present. To someone else, these objects are junk; to the packrat, they are much more valuable. Only time can tell us if the packrat is correct in his assessments, or is simply overzealous and obsessive beyond the point of reason.


A Frog In Your Throat
If a person really did have a frog in his or her throat, that person would have a very difficult time speaking. As an idiom, to have a frog in your throat means to be speaking with a hoarse voice.

Hoarse means gruff, deep, and harsh. It is usually caused by some kind of illness.

Example: "Mary, are you all right? You sound like you have a frog in your throat." "Ah, I'm fine, it's just a cold, nothing serious." Here, Mary's voice sounds hoarse, but it is not (to anyone's knowledge) caused by a serious illness, but by the common cold.


➤ Read more idioms and phrases, English grammar and vocabulary at Basic English Grammar And Vocabulary .