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I work at a technology company, and we frequently use the term ‘rathole’ to describe a topic (generally one brought up in a meeting) that’s a tangent. And when I say I we use it frequently, I mean the term came up five times today, including in the verb form: “I don’t mean to rathole here, but [insert marginally germane discussion here]….” So it was a surprise to me that this term is not particularly well-known.
43 Folders has an article on ratholes, including an official Rathole Jingle (MP3), and this snippet from Wikipedia’s entry on Ratholing:
Ratholing is a term used to describe a conversation or process that has deviated from its original productive purpose into a generally unproductive but long and winding detour that eventually comes to a dead end. The original discussion purpose may be to agree on a course of action. However, if one or more people rathole into a specific point of the discussion then the discussion stalls with no actionable outcome. This term is frequently used on the Macbreak Weekly podcast, resulting in the eventual creation of the “Rathole!” jingle[1] and subsequent full-length song.[2]
Terminology note: “RAT” is also the term for the Rock Abrasion Tool on the Mars rovers, which can dig holes in things. Makes for some interesting Google Image searching. See? That was kind of a rathole, just now.
So what about you — do you rathole? Or do you “take it offline?” (Blech.)
Comments (5)
Comment
In oil industry speak, a rathole is a shallow borehole under the derrick where the kelly joint (the part of the drill string that is rotated) is temporarily kept out of the way while new pipe joints are added to the drill string.
posted by Jason! on 5-17-2007 at 11:15 am
People in my office say “take it offline” which grates on my nerves to no end. Seriously. We’re not online… we’re sitting in a room around a giant table talking face to face. You don’t get much more offline than that already. Can’t you just say “I’ll talk to you about it later”? GAH!
posted by kellie on 5-17-2007 at 11:40 am
In the online poker world, ratholing is when a player sits at a table, builds up a big surplus of chips in a few hands, then leaves the table or stands up and sits down quickly with his original buyin.
This keeps the profit off the table and is generally seen as unsportsmanlike; the rat doesn’t give the other players a chance to win their money back.
posted by kate on 5-17-2007 at 1:33 pm
Ha! While it does sound unsportsmanlike, it also sounds like someone smart enough to play to win. Perhaps the venue should disallow re-joins from the same ID/IP within an hour to prevent abuse.
…yet another ratholed discussion in te replies. :) We never say “rathole” around here, but we do say “take it offline” far too much. Bleh.
And believe me, we manage to have widely meandering discussions without having a name for it. ;p
posted by justin on 5-18-2007 at 10:03 am
Sounds like every meeting I’ve been to at this company. The whole thing drives me crazy. We’ve never had a name for it. That would mean that people actually realize what they are doing!
Every Monday we have a team meeting. What should take about 10 minutes usually lasts 30 minutes to an hour. Ick!
posted by Tru on 5-21-2007 at 12:10 pm