Paul in South Bend, Indiana, notes that the French equivalent of the phrase have other fish to fry, meaning to have other things to do, is avoir d’autre chats a fouetter, or literally, to have other cats to whip. In Italian, a similarly creepy phrase that means the same thing is to avere altre gatte da pelare, or to have other cats to skin. To have a frog in one’s throat means to have difficulty speaking; in French, the expression is avoir un chat dans la gorge, or to have a cat in the throat. English also has other expressions reflecting a less-than-humane attitude toward felines, including more than one way to skin a cat, not enough room to swing a cat, or to let the cat out of the bag. Dogs don’t fare much better in some English sayings, such as to stick around until the last dog is hung and more ways of killing a dog than choking him with pudding. All of these expressions reflect a time when people had different attitudes toward the kinds of animals we now regard as pets. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Our Changing Attitudes about the Treatment of Animals Are Embedded in Our Language”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, how are you? This is Paul McDowell from South Bend, Indiana.
Hi, Paul. We’re great. How are you doing?
I’m so excited to be talking to the two of you.
And then when I looked in my thesaurus for a word that was better than excited, everything seemed to have sexual connotations, and that’s not appropriate to the context.
We’ll have to take that conversation offline.
Yeah, we’re excited, too.
We’ll take excited. We’re glad to have you, Paul.
Yeah, you sound like a word nerd yourself.
I am a word nerd myself, yes.
So I taught French for 25 years at a nearby institution in South Bend, and I’ve been wondering about this for the longest time.
Now, I should make clear that I am not a big fan of cats, but I’ve noticed that not just in French but in English as well, cats kind of get a bad rap when it comes to language.
And the expression that triggered this thought in my mind, I was teaching a conversational French course at Notre Dame, and there’s an expression in French that’s the equivalent of, I’ve got other fish to fry.
The French expression in the infinitive is, which means I’ve got other cats to whip.
And I just wondered, you know, why would you whip a cat?
And then I started thinking more and more about some of the other idioms in French that are violent with cats.
And it’s not so violent, but, you know, we say, I’ve got a frog in my throat. But the French say, avoir un chat dans la gorge. They’ve got a cat in their throat.
Now, of course, in English, we do say more than one way to skin a cat. That sounds a little bit aggressive.
And we also say there’s not enough room to swing a cat, which also sounds physically aggressive, or to let the cat out of the bag, or curiosity killed the cat.
So what is it with cats? I just don’t get it.
Well, and it’s interesting that you mentioned having other fish to fry, because there’s also an Italian expression that means that, but that literally translates as have other cats to skin.
To skin, oh.
Yeah, isn’t that interesting in Italian?
But all these phrases reflect a time when we didn’t have the same attitude towards cats as we have today.
And in fact, there are references in the literature to cat fur being used for women’s clothing, to line women’s clothing back in the day.
And I’m looking at a Cincinnati newspaper from 1836 that talks about more than one way to skin a cat, as a butcher would say.
As a butcher would say.
Yeah, which is kind of a creepy thought.
Well, and I would hope that, I mean, it would never occur to me to go to a butcher to buy cat, but I understand that, you know, that’s probably a cultural thing.
So I don’t know if you would have the answer off the top of your head, but I mean, obviously the two most popular domestic animals in this country and in France, last time I checked, are cats and dogs.
So are there as many violent expressions with dogs? I haven’t really taken the time to look that up.
There are quite a few.
Sure.
Sticking around until the last dog is hung and that sort of thing.
Right. Or more ways of killing a dog than choking him with pudding.
Oh, my gosh. I’ve never heard that one.
Yeah, the English language is a record of our sorry treatment of animal or of different attitudes from the attitudes we have today, for sure.
Because now they’re family members, at least cats and dogs are, and then they maybe were more resources to be exploited or working animals that you fed and kept up because they did a job for you of, you know, hurting animals or killing the rats and that sort of thing.
Okay, so an agricultural aspect to this as well.
We have to face our history, and the way that we do that is just by accepting that we weren’t as good as we wanted to be and that we’re trying to be better as a people, right?
We have to accept that we have been savage and mean and evil and corrupt and that each of us is now trying to push the society forward, and our treatment of animals is part of that.
And learn from our mistakes, yes.
I can’t possibly tell you how excited I am and how happy I am, how ecstatic I am to talk with you and to get some answers to these questions that I’ve been mulling over for years.
Well, Paul, you’re the cat’s pajamas, obviously.
You’re the cat’s meow.
We’re waiting for the right moment, you two.
Thank you, Paul.
Well, thank you so much.
We’ll look forward to your future calls.
All righty.
Bye-bye now.
Thanks, Paul.
Yeah, just to head it off to the expression, more than one way, just kidding a cat, is not the acrobatic term.
We know this with 100% certainty, so I just want to stop that email you were thinking of writing.
But otherwise, we’ll take your calls at 877-929-9673 or send your questions or comments or thoughts about language to us at words@waywordradio.org or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.
