# 'Pound sand in a rat hole' -- derivation **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 30, 2002, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941 "2002-03-30T17:38:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941/1 "2002-03-30T17:38:32Z")
Yet another OP-less thread. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941/2 "2002-03-30T18:22:40Z")
I believe it is derived from the practice of pounding sand into a rat hole, but I could be mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941/3 "2002-03-30T19:15:35Z")
I believe it means to do something futile, such as peeing in the ocean. However, I knew a guy when I was 12 who masturbated by screwing a hole in the ground. If you’ve ever laid down a brick-and-sand walkway, then you can say, “been there, done that” when somebody tells you to go pound sand. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941/4 "2002-03-30T19:38:41Z")
We had a thread about pounding miscellaneous crystaline solids a while back: [Pound sand, dopers](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32584) Nothing there about rat holes, though. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941/5 "2002-03-31T00:09:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ringo \* > \*\*Yet another OP-less thread. \*\* Sorry about that. An OP was written. It’s out there in cyber-space… What it said was: According to Bill Safire’s “On Words” column in tomorrow’s NY Times Magazine, there’s a bit of scatological humor behind the phrase, “He’s too dumb to pound sand in a rat hole.” Safire was too delicate to quote the actual joke, although he knew what it was. He compared it with “Your turn barrel,” which is based on a coarse and not-funny joke, which I’m too delicate to repeat in this post. So, the question is, What’s the scatological humor behind the derivation of HTDTPSIARH? Thanks for your help. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941/6 "2002-03-31T01:28:53Z")
From [Word Origins](http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorp.htm): > [@](#): > > David McCullough’s _Truman_ reports that on 12 October 1948 Truman commented to advisor Clark Clifford regarding a Newsweek poll of fifty reporters that gave Truman no chance to win the election: “I know every one of these fifty fellows. There isn’t one of them has enough sense to pound sand in a rat hole.” This certainly is a possible origin. While it is unlikely that Truman coined the phrase himself, it seems likely that it is an aphorism that he knew and used. Filling rat holes with sand is menial work, and telling someone to _pound sand_ down a hole would be like telling them to _go fly a kite_. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941/7 "2002-03-31T02:51:54Z")
Ever since I read _Truman_ , I thought “pound sand down a rathole” was too close to “pound salt up your asshole” to be taken literally. Joe Klein, then of _Newsweek_ , did anyway, of course. “pound salt,” as noted in the earlier thread, is the shorter, more mixed-company-friendly version of that exression. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941/8 "2002-03-31T03:44:27Z")
OK. I give up. I have read this thread, I have read the previous thread offered by **bib** and I have read Safire’s column in tomorrow’s NYTimes Mag. Safire and others have indicated that the phrase originate from the scatalogical usage of _pound salt/sand_ … **up your ass**. Would someone please tell me where it is cited that **up your ass** was connected with the original use of the phrase? I mean, give me a cite. If I missed a link, sorry. And Safire seemingly is compounding this. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941/9 "2002-03-31T05:28:02Z")
Like samclem, I have my doubts that there are any hidden meanings here. If a rat has gnawed a hole that leads into your household, you can’t just cover it up with boards or anything else that the rat will simply gnaw through. You could use steel wool, if you have some on hand, but sand is cheaper. You have to pound it into the hole, though, you want it packed tight enough to discourage the rat. Pounding sand into the rathole is therefore perhaps a necessary chore, but it’s the kind of task you could delegate to your stupid cousin Elmer, because how much intelligence does it take to sit there and pound sand into a rathole? ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pound-sand-in-a-rat-hole-derivation/100941/10 "2002-03-31T07:37:19Z")
Pounding sand into a rat hole is a reference to doing something futile and useless, and usually spending a fair amount of energy doing it. I learned about the expression just a while ago myself, and found out that I had some personal experience in that exact area. At a fish hatchery I worked at on the BC coast, we had a greenhouse type building set on top of the ground(which happened to be sand), and the rats would dig their way under the edge to get in and eat the fish pellets. Every morning we’d come in and find maybe half a dozen spots where the rats had dug under the edge of the building to get in that night, and part of our chores were to go along and kick sand back into the holes and fill them back up to keep the rats out (pounding sand into ratholes). This was ABSOLUTELY useless, as every morning there would be either new holes, or they’d have just reburrowed through the old ones again, but of course we’d go along the wall and pound more sand in like idiots… :rolleyes: Not much short of cement or sheet metal could stop a rat from burrowing or chewing their way through to get someplace they really wanted. So I think that someone “too dumb to pound sand into ratholes” would be a person too dumb to do even do a moron-level job… - too dumb to be dumb in essence - not having enough intellegence to even be able to figure out how to do something that regular people have already evolved beyond.