A Michael Broad Blog
Here are 4 facts about calling female cats ‘queens’. I think that there is a misconception by quite a large number of people about how this description came about and is used. Why is a female cat called a queen? The answer is because “when she is on heat, she lords it over the …
This is a page on the origin and history of the saying “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”. I am very thankful to a French citizen, who speaks and writes English better than many Brits, Pascal Tréguer, who completed a thorough breakdown of the saying, which makes it much easy for me to write …
The origins of are quite difficult to trace actually and I am not sure I have the answer but here goes. I have included the answers of other people as well for comparison. It is not unusual for the origin of words to be clouded in the mists of time and sometimes it can …
I am seeing the saying “flat cats” a lot nowadays. Just this morning it was used as follows, in a headline for The Mirror in the UK: “Fury as NHS staff lose out in pension changes – while fat cats are quids in”. We all know what it means: rich people who perhaps lack …
It seems that “scaredy-cat” first appeared in print as “fraidie-cat” (fraidy-cat). The two sayings having very similar meanings. And they’re both based on the fact that domestic cats are often frightened of strangers. A person is described as a scaredy-cat if they are unwilling to try something new. You can see the similarity. Something …
The idiom “a cat’s paw” means a person or persons (or even a country) that is being used by another to achieve an objective and especially if that objective is being achieved in a cynical or duplicitous manner. It’s interesting that China appears to have accused the Australian government of acting as a “cat’s …
The “cat” in “fat cat” is there because the saying rhymes and because “dog” does not conjure up the required image in one’s imagination.
Ben Jonson is in the news today! On this day, 22nd September, in 1598, the English playwright Ben Jonson was charged with the killing of an actor in a duel. He was acquitted after reciting a Bible verse. He shot a fellow actor named Gabriel Spencer at Hogsden (Hoxton) Fields in Shoreditch, London. He …
