drop a dime on and rat out

[Laurence Horn]

If I'm not mistaken, we had a flurry of postings, possibly including
putative first cites, on 'drop a dime on' not that long ago.  (= months,
rather than years ago.)  Not on 'rat out', though.

larry

At 1:24 AM -0500 3/6/00, Bruce Dykes wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jesse T Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Date: Sunday, March 05, 2000 8:31 PM
>Subject: Re: drop a dime on and rat out
>
>
>>> In a case I've been working on the writer of a threat message uses the
>>> expressions, "I don't want to drop a dime on him" and "I don't want to
>rat
>>> him out," both of which mean that the writer doesn't want to expose or
>>
>>But both expressions I think are reasonably well known outside
>>the criminal world, or at least well enough known that their
>>use by a mainstream writer shouldn't occasion too much surprise.
>
>
>Hardly. We used it in my high school in the 80's, and it was hardly a hotbed
>of criminal activity. I heard this phrase just last night on an SF program
>called Total Recall 2070, and I was wondering how likely it was that that
>phrase would last another 70 years. I'd give it pretty good odds, especially
>in the law breaking/enforcement community.
>
>Presumably 'dropping a dime' derives from the once traditional cost of a
>call from a US pay phone. I'd be really surprised if it didn't. Does it
>occur outside the US?
>
>bkd