‘Superlatives’ in the context of the cat breeds are adjectives describing the:
- friendliest
- most intelligent
- calmest
- most talkative
- smallest
- cuddliest
- most affectionate
- longest lived
- healthiest
- unhealthiest
- hairiest
- loudest
- quietest
- most aloof
- most loyal
- most natural
- commonest
- rarest
- the most hypoallergenic
- etc….
You see superlatives in respect of the cat breeds a lot because they interest people who are thinking of adopting a purebred cat. Buyers/adopters are researching the cat breeds and they want guidance.
So, the website owners ask their authors to come up with an article. Unfortunately, nearly all of them are bogus 🤔. The worst offending websites are the newspaper called The Scotsman and the website: Pets Radar 🤢. There are many others.
Why do I say they are almost always bogus? Firstly, I know the cat breeds. I have written about them for 16 years. I know them back to front.
It is impractical and misleading to call one cat breed the loyalist or the cuddliest etc. It is possible to designate one breed the smallest and one breed the largest (Singapura and Maine Coon respectively) but the rarest is very hard to designate and all the superlatives listed above are ‘article fodder’ (pap) to please readers and get website hits but the purpose is not to provide accurate and useful information.
I wonder how many cat breeds have been described in superlative terms only for the buyer of the purebred cat to be left scratching their head when the cat they bought does not match the superlative description by the website.
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Authors of articles about cat breeds cannot claim that one breed is the best as anything. It does not work that way. All the individual cats of all the breeds have one overriding personality characteristic: they care cats! 🙂
That simple and obvious fact overrides everything else very conclusively. Through selective breeding breeders can’t mold and manipulate the character of their cats so much and so precisely to the point where they can be described in superlative terms.
Each cat is an individual in any case. They are all different. You cannot label an entire breed with a well demarked character or personality. It does not work that way. The best you can expect is a general rather vague similarity between individual cats of the same cat breed.
There are some fairly minor exceptions. The following come to mind while writing this:
- The Siamese has a the hardest most demanding meow
- The Siamese is the most loyal (perhaps)
- The British Shorthair has the quietest meow (perhaps)
- The Persian has the longest fur
- The Sphynx is the coldest cat!
- The Turkish Van is the most aggressive breed (but still very friendly)
- The Bengal cat can have the smelliest poo!
- The Maine Coon is the most impressive
- The Siberian (the real item living in Siberia) has the warmest fur
I have pushed my luck in the above list. But I want to try and help and make a point at the same time.
Please be aware of the need for websites to dream up stuff to try and get hits. I know all about that but I always provide accurate facts and if I can’t I say so. Some other websites – and some are notorious for writing fiction – most often don’t in my experience. Wrong? Tell me. I am right though. 🙂