Rat-tail(ed) broom

[Wilson Gray]

This is probably more a DARE thing than an HDAS type of thing.

There are only three hits that Google considers to be relevant.

IAC, in Saint Louis, _rat-tailed broom_, like "whisk broom," is the
only name used for this handy object. Unfortunately, it's not likely
to come up as the subject of a random conversation. So, I have no idea
whether this handy form of broom is known / used elsewhere, perhaps
under a different name.

Because it comes in so handy (we have cats), I *keeps* me a rat-tailed
broom. I've asked my wife about her familiarity with this tool and she
*thinks* that it *may* be called a "dust broom" in in NE PA.

IAC, it looks roughly like an "ignorant stick" / "ignorance stick" -
pushbroom - with the handle removed and a third or so of the bristles
removed from the head, with the empty space carved, so to speak, into
a handle.

BTW, I once read somewhere - Mario Pei, yet again? - that "ignorant
stick" originally referred to the spade as a tool of ditch-diggers.
But, IME, it was:

"... pushing the ignorant stick ..."

"What's that?"

"Doing porter-work."

-Wilson



-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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