What affects us affects cats
The 18th-century phrase “he let the cat out of the bag” was used very recently by Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers in their efforts to convince a judge to block the release of documents which contained “intimate, sensitive and personal” information about Ghislaine Maxwell which she had divulged in a deposition taken in April 2016 for …
Cats don’t have nine lives and neither do dogs. Obviously they both have one life unless you believe in and include the afterlife or reincarnation which I am not doing here. “A cat has nine lives’ is simply a saying which means that inquisitve domestic cats take risks and often survive those risks because …
This phrase means no room to swing a cat-o’-nine-tails, the whip used to punish British sailors and soldiers from the 17th century until it was outlawed in 1881. The cramped quarters below deck on ship prevented the use of this long whip and so the punishment had to be carried out above the lower …
The words in the title were said by Sir Kingsley Amis (1922-1995). Sir Kingsley Amis was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels and six volumes of poetry and a lot more besides. Also, he was a cat lover. He associated gentleness in people who are the guardians …
‘Cathouse’ is slang for brothel. It has been used for centuries. The origin of the word is rooted in the perceived promiscuity of the urban female cat who attracts many tom cats when she is in heat and mates with them in sequence. Sentences: There is a cathouse down the road. The madam of …
It means that a person has little or no chance of success in what he/she is about do. It is an abbreviation of the phrase ‘no more chance than a cat in hell without claws’. The two key parts of this earlier version of the phrase are ‘hell’ and ‘without claws’. Hell signifies a …
The belief that a domestic cat could suck the breath out of a baby probably stemmed from a combination of factors: Cats were considered to be witches’ familiars, companions to witches, at the time when people believed in witchcraft. Some people still do. At the time that people believed that cats could suck the …
Recently, Mark Zuckerberg was asked to attend an important international grand committee set up, as I understand it, by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee at the Houses of Parliament in London, UK. The intention was to question Mr Zuckerberg over recent data breaches, allegations of business malpractice, allegations of the spread of …
