The Cat’s Mother

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Peter Schack from Davis, California. How are you, Martha and Grant?

Hello, Peter. We’re well.

Hi, Peter.

Great. Something popped into my head the other day that I hadn’t thought of probably in 30, 40 years, a phrase my mother used, and I’m wondering who the cat’s mother was.

For example, when my sister and I would be doing something naughty or something like that, and I’d say, oh, here she comes, my mother would yell out, who do you think she is, the cat’s mother?

And I never understood what it meant.

I do now.

I think it’s a term of, you know, it’s showing disrespect for using a pronoun instead of somebody’s name, I guess.

But where does it come from?

I can’t conceive of how somebody would think of that.

That’s a really great question, Peter.

So you’re saying that your mother was just a little peeved that she was being referred to as she and not by mother or her name.

Exactly, or mom.

And she would even do it, you know, if we were referring to some other woman.

And, you know, I was talking, well, she said this or she said that.

And she said, well, who do you think she is, the cat’s mother?

In other words, use her name.

Right.

Instead of saying, you should have said Mrs. Robinson.

Exactly.

Right.

Very good.

Very good.

This is part of a longer tradition.

You can find this back as far back as the 1870s, maybe even earlier, of people talking about this particular phrase.

It’s pretty interesting.

There’s a famous journal called Notes and Queries.

You know this, Martha, right?

This is a classic journal where scholars and dilettantes who had a desire for knowledge will send their queries to notes and letters to ask a question.

And then everyone else will respond and that will be published in the following issue.

It’s basically kind of a precursor to a discussion forum on the Internet.

Or our show, right?

Exactly.

I’m the dilettante.

I’m just the guy who reads.

There’s a great example.

It’s exactly like yours.

It says, a little girl runs into her mother and says excitedly, oh, mama, we met her just as we were coming home from our walk and she was so glad to see us.

Upon which the mama says, who is she? The cat’s mother?

Right?

And then the child laughs merrily and replies, no, it was Lucy Jones.

And the mother says, but how could I know that when you did not mention her name?

And that’s the crucial argument.

So the cat’s mother is just kind of a way of saying she could be any woman or any female animal of any kind.

You know, you could be referring to the house cat, you know?

And it’s really interesting to me because this particular bit plugs into something I wondered as a boy as well, Peter.

Just like you.

My mother didn’t have that phrase, but she would get very upset when she would hear me and my four siblings talking about her and just saying she instead of mom.

Yeah.

Right?

Because she would just get kind of upset because she was raised in a way that meant that you referred to your elders by their title or some kind of term of respect.

You know, something that she deserves.

Exactly.

And it was only with females.

It was never with males.

Really?

That’s interesting.

There’s a famous book called She by H. Ryder Haggard where he comes up with the acronym for She Who Must Be Obeyed.

And it’s been used numerous times since by other authors.

Yeah, John Mortimer, I think.

Yeah.

Rumpel of the Bailey.

Exactly right.

Is it an acronym? Swimbo?

Yeah, SWMBO.

In any case, the whole point of this, that in the Rumpel books, he refers to his wife as she all the time.

And it’s an idea that she’s got a presence, and even when she’s not around, you know, and she wastes heavily upon his mind.

And she is, well, anyway, whatever.

She is not the way to refer to your wife or your mother, right?

Right, right.

It’s like referring to the other, right?

Yeah, yeah.

There’s a third kind of she here, which I think plugs perfectly into this culture paid to a woman who deserves your respect, right?

We require that.

That is part of who we are.

In the Tolkien books, right, Gollum refers to the big spider, a she with a capital S.

That’s right.

The spider who guards the pathway to, I don’t know how you say it, the Kirith Ungol or whatever, that goes up to the Dark Tower.

And it’s the same idea.

She’s not whatever her name is.

It’s she.

So anyway, this is all related, part and parcel, to the expression the cat’s mother, as in who do you think I am, the cat’s mother.

You should use the name, and that’s what your mother was telling you.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, our pleasure, Peter.

Thank you so much.

That was great.

Peter, thanks for bringing it up.

Okay, take care now.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

And Grant, I had never heard of that, and so I was thinking that it must have to do with her sneaking up behind them as quietly as a cat or something.

Oh, very interesting.

That was fascinating.

That’s possible.

All the history of that.

If you’ve got a question about something that your mother used to say seems to be a trend, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or put the long story in email to words@waywordradio.org.