I am on a quest
to find the origin of the phrase, "ratted out." Why? Because of my obsession with reading and my disgust with people who deface public property (library books) with corrections and other self-righteous commentary thus totally pulling me out of the story when I would otherwise have noted the error and moved on with the story.

In this case, I am reading a crime story placed in the nineteen-thirties in which a character has 'ratted out' one of their own gangland mobsters. A reader has penned in a comment that the phrase "ratted out" was not created at the time the story is set.

Literary anachrochronism might be noteworthy in great works by Shakespeare and those of his ilk, but I do not enjoy being ripped out of a story by such trivial nit-picking. But now that I have, I want to know just when the phrase, "ratted out" came in to usage. And yes, I would really like to vindicate the author, not the self-appointed critic because I read to escape from my type A personality, not to feed it's obsessions.

Fortunately its cold enough in here to force me to return to the sofa, the blanket and the relative warmth of the summer of 1932 and the days of mobsters, Prohibition and the Untouchables. . . .but if anyone stumbles upon the answer, the portion of my brain still ruminating on the phrase, "ratted out" thanks you in advance for sharing it with me.