Mr Noah Webster in his Websters Dictionary published in the United States, includes a definition of the domestic cat which makes for uncomfortable reading for most cat owners or even non-cat owners. Some Americans will probably agree with the definition! (✿◡‿◡) Fair enough, but I am afraid that they’ll be wrong as was Mr Webster. The infographic explains my thoughts but what are yours?
“It has been my aim in this work, now offered to my fellow citizens, to ascertain the true principles of the language, in its orthography and structure; to purify it from some palpable errors, and reduce the number of its anomalies, thus giving it more regularity and consistency of forms, both of words and sentences; and in this manner, to furnish a standard of our vernacular tongue,” Webster wrote in the preface.
But as I mention in the infographic, I have to be sensitive to the relative lack of knowledge about the domestic cat in 1828 compared to today. There were misconceptions and biases. And Webster has anthropomorphised (humanised) the domestic cat’s character in calling them ‘spiteful’ and ‘deceiful’. He was projecting his thoughts about human behaviour onto the cat. Deceit and spitefulness are almost certainly not in the cat’s vocabulary!
Deceit comes from a complex emotion and we just don’t know, even today 196 years later, if cats have these deep emotions. They probably do not. The same goes for spitefulness.
It almost appears that Noah Webster was a bit of a cat hater as his definition is so critical of the cat. So negative. His inability to remain objective and more neutral would have undermined his whole dictionary which is described as “The first edition of Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language”.
I wonder if Noah Webster single-handedly altered the opinion of millions of American citizens to where they disliked the humble domestic cat! ＞︿＜. I am guessing. Probably not. But he may have influenced some people. Or perhaps his definition reflected the general beliefs of American citizens at that time.
That may have been a factor as although the domestic cat lived in people’s homes as the definition states, they were almost all indoor/outdoor cats with perhaps much more time outside and fed on human scraps which may have made the domestic cat wilder in character; more like their ancient ancestor, the wildcat compared to today. There is no doubt that the domestic cat is evolving and becoming ‘domestic’, an animal that humans want.
Link to Websters Dictionary – cat definition.
