Even in the United States, where people from all corners of the continent largely enjoy a single sprawling shared culture, we have our differences. People from different areas of the country have different political opinions, morals, and — as a recent episode of Love is Blind is exposing — even language.
We speak a myriad of languages in the U.S., of course, but it’s the stray English colloquialisms that often trip people up. Northerners lean on entirely different turns of phrase than their southern neighbors, here in the states, and sometimes even Americans get lost when speaking to someone from just a few states over.
That appears to be the primary culprit behind confusion prompted by a simple Love is Blind phrase. Mid-way through the show’s sixth season, the participants finally got the chance to meet up with their families. As the spiraling Jimmy and Chelsea sat down with the former’s parents, one of them uttered a phrase that it seems many viewers have never come across before. Just what was Jimmy’s dad referencing when he called his wife a “pack rat?”
What is a pack rat?
There’s nothing more daunting, for an American northerner than striking up a conversation with a well-versed southerner. The turns of phrase that litter the American South are unmatched anywhere else in the states, as they lean on lengthy maxims like “colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra” to describe the temperature outside.
Aside from the many different interpretations of phrases like “bless your heart,” there’s a litany of south-specific terms that even people one state over are unfamiliar with. It turns out that “pack rat” is among these terms if the bafflement spurred by this heavily southern phrase is any indication.
A pack rat, in the truest sense of the term, is a real rodent. They go by a few different names, including wood rat and trade rat, and are largely found in the western U.S. and northern Mexico. They have the general appearance of rats, but they tend to build nests and collect items that earned them their primary name.
That’s also what links them to people like Jimmy’s mom. Colloquially, “pack rat” refers to someone who tends to collect unnecessary items. Also called hoarders — though that phrase can indicate a much bigger issue — pack rats are people who overstuff their homes with an excess of paraphernalia. They are extremely common in this day and age, but it seems the phrase itself is not. Next time you’re chatting up a Southerner and hear the phrase crop up, however, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge of just what the heck they’re talking about.
What is a packrat? The ‘Love is Bind’ phrase, explained
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