Telling Tales Out of School

Posted by ESC on May 07, 2001

In Reply to: Telling Tales Out of School posted by KBurgard on May 07, 2001

: I find a listing for this but no origin or meaning. Can anyone help? Just curious, thanks.

TELL TALES OUT OF SCHOOL -- "Betray confidences. It was originally said only of children, apparently children who let drop at home things they heard from schoolmates in the nature of gossip or happenings within a family. Now it applies to anyone who reveals confidences (usually not very weighty) he has received. The saying is old enough to have been picked up by William Tyndale in 'The Practyse of Prelates' : 'So that what cometh once in may never out, for fear of telling tales out of school." From The Dictionary of Cliches by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985).