chew the fat
chew the rag

"What the hell am I doing chewing the fat with you?"

"You and he never passed the time of day, chewed the fat, anything like that."

Just watch how we flush him out, and then we'll chew the fat later.

I know you didn't call me just to chew the fat.

We'll just sit here, chewing the fat, until the rescue team comes.

You all come back into the library for coffee after you've had a chance to chew the fat in private.

"Maybe you and me can chew the fat on some more collected occasion."

Men my own age, retired, sitting around, chewing the fat, trying to keep up their golf game.

We can chew the fat for half an hour, then make another round."

"Management's door has always been open for us to sit down and chew the fat, which makes everyone more willing to compromise."

The next night, I'll chew the fat with you.

I need someone with whom I can chew the fat over old times.

They'd probably have coffee, chew the fat a little and then hit the sack, for they were a tired lot.

"Chewed the fat with him a couple of times around Christmas, right here at this bar.

Huddled with one of his buddies, chewing the fat over a beer.

Besides, I can't hang around here chewing the fat with these guys all day long.

Randall stayed around chewing the fat for a while.

"That's why we're just three pals chewing the fat," I said.

It was essentially our communal living room, the place where we could all hang out together and chew the fat in person.

Nowadays he liked nothing better than drinking rather too much with journalists, and chewing the fat.

You didn't come here to chew the fat off the bones of old war stories."

But we chewed the fat for a while.

Couldn't I just want to chew the fat with an old buddy?"

"Well," said Brown, "there's no use chewing the fat any more about that.

Thirty feet down the alley Tony is chewing the fat with another cop.

There's no time to chew the rag here at headquarters.

Come on - before he comes around to chew the rag."

"Sam was chewing the rag with him, too, before he hit out," some one said.

So they put the battered man in the lock-up and stood outside chewing the rag."

We chewed the rag for a while.

I didn't have anything special to do, so I went down to the can and chewed the rag with him while he was shaving.

You'll set around chewing the rag and looking wise till it's too late to do anything but holler your heads off."

Chew the rag in your watch below."

That night we chewed the rag.

"The headman witch doctor hankers to chew the rag with the rest of the sky pilots."

Even Pherl chewed the ragged end of his mustache and nodded curtly.

It has been speculated that the phrase "chew the rag", is related to gossiping while working in a sewing circle.

What yuh standing there chewing the rag for?"

Fancy me not seeing that, and we had that paper in the pantry last Friday and chewed the rag over it for hours!

"Besides," said Tasbrough, "this chewing the rag is all nonsense, anyway.

I can do something to wake these hicks up, where gas-bags like Frank or Carp would just chew the rag.

"You mean go on chewing the rag about all these mighty topics without OR-gan-iz-ing?"

Patterson also uses "chew the rag" in the same sentence he used "chew the fat", but it is not the oldest occurrence.

"Chew the fat" or "chew the rag" are English expressions for gossiping or making friendly small talk.

Don't just chew the rag and 'sympathize'!

Namely, what Loy and Punchy King were chewing the rag over, after the concert.'

"You fellows can stand around and chew the rag, if you want to," he said caustically, "and wait for Weary to make a war-talk.

But tomorrow or the next day, while you're standing around down at your supermarket chewing the rag with the checkers . . . you'll run out of conversation and you'll hit on me.

Amateurs use the slang expression ragchew or ragchewing to refer to an extended, informal conversation, a variation of the common idioms "chewing the fat" and "chewing the rag".

Beside him Applehead fidgeted and grumbled and called Luck names for being so dang slow, and wondered if those two out there meant to sit and chew the rag all day.