"You got a mouse (etc.) in your pocket?"

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:32 AM -0400 10/8/09, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Probably of little interest, but the one and only time I heard this
>expression was in 1974 from a fellow graduate student. He was from El
>Dorado, Ark., and had learned the phrase in the '60s - IIRC.
>
>JL

And was it really Mark Twain who came up with the version that
permits kings, editors, and those with tapeworms to use the first
person plural?  Or is that a case of generalized attribution?  (Sorry,
Fred, I don't have a YBOQ handy.)

LH
>
>On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 1:11 AM, Benjamin Zimmer <
>bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>>  Subject:      "You got a mouse (etc.) in your pocket?"
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  I can't find anything about this expression in the usual references.
>>  Here's an example from the article "A Mouse in the Pocket" by Curt
>>  Johnson (1966), _College Composition and Communication_ 17(5):222-224:
>>
>>  ---
>>  Instructor: "Today we will examine Eliot's relation to the
>>  Symbolists." Student: "We? You got a mouse in your pocket?"
>>  ---
>>
>>  Urban Dictionary has "mouse in your pocket":
>>
>>  ---
>>  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mouse%20in%20your%20pocket
>>  Similar to "the royal we" but less condescending. Usually a retort
>>  when someone volunteers you to do something without asking you first.
>>  ---
>>
>>  ...as well as "turd in your pocket":
>>
>>  ---
>>  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=turd%20in%20your%20pocket
>>  When someone tries to include you in a "we" that you don't feel part
>>  of, the traditional response is "We? What do you mean, we? Do you have
>>  a turd in your pocket?" Translates as semi-funny emphatic rejection of
>>  false or forced collectivism. (My "do you have a mouse in your
>>  pocket?" is the cleaned-up version of the old rhetorical rejection of
>>  the false "we.")
>>  ---
>>
>>  Other variants include "rat" and "frog". It's also possible to inquire
>>  about a "mouse in your purse."
>>
>>  Any insight into the age and regional distribution of the expression?
>>  And is "mouse" really a euphemism for "turd", as the Urbandictionary
>>  contributor claims?
>>
>>
>>  --Ben Zimmer
>>
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>>
>
>
>
>--
>"There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
>Platypus"
>
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