He that is a BLAB is a scab

Insights

Moral blemish

Indiscretion is figured as a visible sore on character; gossip leaves a mark that others can ‘see,’ lowering esteem and trust.

Social infection

A blab’s words spread like contagion, turning private matters into a community rash; once started, rumors itch and proliferate.

Wound to trust

Breaking confidence tears the social skin; the ‘scab’ hints at clumsy healing after harm—relationships may close over, but not without scar.

Shame as deterrent

By equating gossip with a disfiguring label, the proverb weaponizes social stigma to discipline speech and protect communal bonds.

Semantics of scab

In early modern English, “scab” was a general term of contempt, evoking disease and uncleanness—well before its later industrial sense of ‘strikebreaker’—so the line brands the gossip as morally ‘scurvy’ or base.

Proverbial policing

Short, catchy rhymes like this serve as communal sanctions: they circulate easily and stick to reputations, deterring breach of confidence by attaching ridicule to the offender.

Continuity with tradition

It aligns with older admonitions against the talebearer and with sister sayings about leaks and ‘running mouths,’ showing a durable moral economy where discretion is prized and speech judged as character.

Psychology of stigma

Labeling theory explains the force of ‘scab’: once tagged, a person is seen through the mark; expectations shift, and further disclosure is anticipated, creating a self-fulfilling reputational trap.

Embodied metaphor

By mapping moral failure onto skin, the proverb exploits our visceral aversion to sores; it turns an abstract vice into a tactile image that provokes disgust—and therefore compliance.

Rhetorical Devices

Rhyme

The perfect rhyme “blab/scab” fuses cause and judgment, making the verdict memorable and sharp.

Epigrammatic brevity

A tight, seven-word sentence delivers a complete moral syllogism, easy to recall and repeat.

Metaphor

“Scab” recasts indiscretion as bodily blemish, translating social harm into a vivid, sensory insult.

Alliteration

The initial and terminal b-sounds (“blab … scab”) create a percussive snap that echoes the abruptness of blurting.

Identity assertion

The copula “is” collapses behavior into being, not just saying that a blabber acts badly but that he is, essentially, a ‘scab.’