Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 March 5

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March 5

Rats as snitch.

In USA we portray rat animals as snitches somehow. Do any non-English cultures use rats as symbolism for snitches too? And are there any culture that use a different animal to portray snitching? 67.175.224.138 (talk) 16:12, 5 March 2020 (UTC).

And to look at it from the other angle, yes, there are cultures that use different animal metaphors for this word. (Not all languages do use an animal metaphor; see, for example, the Spanish word soplón derived from a verb meaning the wind blowing.) For some examples of other animal metaphors, though, look at French mouchard, thought to derive from mouche, a fly, and German Spitzel, derived from Spitz, a kind of dog. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 19:15, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

In Finnish it is vasikka, literally "calf". But in Russian крыса means both "rat" (the animal) and "snitch". This year is the Year of the Rat; the rat in the Chinese zodiac is generally thought to be characterized by positive attributes (adaptable, inventive, industrious, ...).  --Lambiam 21:33, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Note that in the UK, "grass" is much more commonly used as slang for an informant. This may come from snake in the grass, but there are other theories. We have an article Supergrass (informant), which refers to someone who grasses on a grand scale. The use of "rat" in this sense is understood, but not much used except by James Cagney impersonators. Alansplodge (talk) 12:45, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

In Croatian the first compound I can think of about rats is "office rat" (uredski štakor) meaning something like jobsworth, rats also don't have positive connotations here. I don't think we have any snitch words with animals. The most common ones are "tužibaba" ("old woman who sues/tattles") and "cinker/cinkaroš" (no idea where the stem comes from, but my guess is it's a ringing onomatopeia). 93.142.81.174 (talk) 23:23, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

In Polish, a snitch may be called kret ("a mole") or szpicel (from the German word mentioned above). — Kpalion^(talk) 14:53, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Interesting, in Croatian "krtica" (mole) doesn't mean snitch but it does mean secret traitor (like in English). 93.136.6.251 (talk) 03:46, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Now that's interesting, because to me "snitch" and "secret traitor" are pretty much synonymous. What's the difference in your eyes? — Kpalion^(talk) 09:17, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

"Krtica" is a spy or policeman who is a double agent, someone who works for an organization and betrays it continually to another employer. I think that's the same meaning as the English word "mole" (other than the little furry animals tunneling in your garden). I suppose snitches are secret traitors too, yeah. Tho in Croatian traitor ("izdajica") is kind of a harsh word, not something you'd call a snitch in most cases, so I didn't think of it this way.

Does Polish have a different word for double agents? I find it amusing that Polish uses "mole" which is such a harsh word here for all snitches generally. 93.136.81.202 (talk) 05:00, 12 March 2020 (UTC)