Cat Got Your Tongue?

Introduction

The English language is filled with feline phrases. When we reveal a secret, we let the cat out of the bag. When we caution our friends not to be too inquisitive, we remind them that curiosity killed the cat. And when we really like something, we might even say it’s the cat’s pajamas! These proverbs and idioms are so commonplace that sometimes we forget about the absurdity of what is being said. Since when do cats wear pajamas, anyway?

Cats truly have a way of grabbing our attention. After rescuing a little kitten I’d found in a treetop many years ago, my priorities completely shifted . . . and I dedicated my life to saving cats and changing the way we perceive and treat the most vulnerable felines. I’ve come to believe that the way we speak about animals has a large impact on the way we understand who they are and what they need. For this reason, I’ve long been interested in the presence of these magnificent creatures in figurative language—but it wasn’t until I began to work internationally with cats that I gained insight into their ubiquity in expressions around the globe.

As my husband and I traveled to Nepal, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Chile, and dozens of other countries to do research and take photographs for our book Cats of the World, I made it a habit to ask local advocates about cat-related sayings in their native languages. To my delight, I was introduced to an absolute treasure trove of cat-centered proverbs and idioms that ranged from beautifully insightful to downright hilarious! It was fascinating to find that, despite linguistic differences, we share so many common principles, often expressed through a feline frame of reference.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that cats have captured our collective imagination and caught our global tongue. Cats have been integrated into human societies since the dawn of civilization, when Felis catus became a symbiotic partner for early settlers, who valued them for their prowess in protecting crops from rodents. As seafarers and merchants explored the world, cats went along for the ride . . . and began to spread both their populations and their influence across the map. Cats are as much a part of the human story as storytelling itself.

With transcontinental exploration came the dissemination not only of living beings such as cats and humans but also of fables, folklore, and oral traditions. Ancient stories, like Aesop’s Fables, traveled throughout the world, being reinterpreted time and time again to reflect the local cultural customs, social mores, and linguistic styles. Like a game of telephone, many of these stories inspired short phrases that could quickly represent a complex moral teaching or concept . . . and it’s fascinating to realize just how many of these sayings involve cats!

Take, for instance, the medieval fable “Belling the Cat,” in which a group of mice agrees that the best way to ensure their collective safety is to place a bell around the neck of the cat. Their plan sounds perfect, but there is just one problem: Which mouse is brave enough for the task? This fable, told and retold, now takes the form of shortened idioms in many cultures; the Hindi idiom billi ke gale mein ghanti bandhna (bell the cat) represents a group agreeing to perform an impossibly difficult task, while the French attacher le grelot (to attach the bell [to the cat]) is used to describe the act of taking one for the team. That an ancient fable finds its remnants in such diverse languages is a testament to the power of the proverbial, uniting us all through shared wisdom about the human condition that has been passed down through generations and across cultures.

Over and over, cats find their place in our figurative expressions, often as a proxy for the human subject, or sometimes as the subject’s foil. In many proverbs, it’s the cat’s relationship to his or her prey that makes the metaphor work; the temptation of the hunt, and the cat’s cunning prowess or utter failure, serve as suitable stand-ins for our own experiences of desire, success, and defeat. It’s clear that we can see ourselves in the eyes of a cat . . . and sometimes we may even imagine ourselves as the prey.

The representation of cats in the phrases I’ve collected is undeniably variable. In some cases, they embody positive attributes such as agility and independence, while in others they take on unfavorable traits such as corruptibility and deceit. In many ways their character is paradoxical: they are written as clever or foolish, brave or fearful, clean or messy, and of high or low status. And while I personally have only the warmest feelings toward our feline friends, I must admit that it’s the complex nature of cats that makes them so easy to identify with, and to adore!

The old English proverb, A cat may look at a king, serves as a poignant reminder that, regardless of their status in the world, every individual holds fundamental rights and intrinsic value—that even the tiniest cat is inherently worthy. How magical that this centuries-old teaching, first published in The Proverbs of John Heywood (1546), then again in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), now finds a modern home here in my collection of felinefocused phrases from around the world. It is truly a marvel that a creature so small has such great power to not only enrich our lives with comforting purrs and playful antics, but to also sprinkle our languages with such profound, timeless wisdom.