Cat Got Your Tongue?

Welcome to Expressions That Deserve More Thought

 "Cat got your tongue?"

As a life-long cat-lover (you may recall last week’s “more than one way to skin a cat” entry), I would now like to comment on another feline-inspired saying: “cat got your tongue.” My first thought was this had something to do with the creepy superstition that cats smother babies and steal their breath. Thus these poor, cat-blanketed, now lifeless infants would be silent, the cat having gotten their tongue. But wait! Cats love babies. Babies love cats. Case closed.

Here is an equally creepy origin story: In ancient Egypt liars’ tongues were supposedly cut out and fed to cats. Given the “eye for an eye” system of punishment, the tongue removal may have been a thing. But everything we know about cats (well, everything I have gleaned from a quick internet search and an interesting conversation with my good friend Chatgpt) is that cats, while carnivores, do not like human “meat” and would never eat it unless starving or under severe stress. Also, would Egyptians--who worshipped cats, who associated cats with certain deities and goddesses, who cherished cats as symbols of fertility and divine grace, who so loved their cats that they mummified them and buried them with their owners—would these same folks feed lairs’ tongues to these revered felines? I think not.

 Here is yet another origin story you will not want to know, which traces the phrase back to the English navy during the 18th century. It is said that the cat-o'-nine-tails, a type of whip used for punishment, was so injurious that sailors would be rendered speechless after being whipped by it. Ouch. I’d rather be smothered by a cat.

 “Go with the flow”

 Yes, this can mean take a deep breath and enjoy the now. But it also means to adapt to the current situation, to accept things as they are, to not resist the status quo. This is not how social change happens, is it?

 Let’s substitute, “Go with the ebb," as in swim against the tide, as in challenge the status quo--particularly in situations where there's a need for change or transformation. “Go with the ebb” is about harnessing the energy of decline or downturn as an opportunity for renewal, innovation, and growth.

 So, how about it? Cat got your tongue?