Editing Rat (section)

====Terminology====
Rats are frequently blamed for damaging food supplies and other goods, or spreading disease. Their reputation has carried into common parlance: in the [[English language]], "rat" is often an insult or is generally used to signify an unscrupulous character; it is also used, as a synonym for the term ''[[wikt:nark|nark]]'', to mean an individual who works as a police [[informant]] or who has turned [[state's evidence]]. Writer/director [[Preston Sturges]] created the humorous alias "Ratskywatsky" for a soldier who seduced, impregnated, and abandoned the heroine of his 1944 film, ''[[The Miracle of Morgan's Creek]]''. It is a term ([[noun]] and [[verb]]) in criminal slang for an [[informant]] – "to rat on someone" is to betray them by informing the authorities of a [[crime]] or misdeed they committed. Describing a person as "rat-like" usually implies he or she is unattractive and suspicious.

Among [[trade union]]s, the word "rat" is also a term for nonunion employers or breakers of union contracts, and this is why unions use [[inflatable rat]]s.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nj.npri.org/nj98/07/power&privilege.htm |title=Nevada Journal: Louts and the Rat World |publisher=Nj.npri.org |access-date=2012-09-24 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520200437/http://nj.npri.org/nj98/07/power%26privilege.htm |archive-date=2013-05-20 }}</ref>