Stupid Question ™
Feb. 7, 2002
By John Ruch
© 2002
Q: Why are cats sometimes called “pussycats”?
—Joe H.
A: “Pussy” means “cat.” So it’s indeed a good question why we cat lovers can often be found babbling the equivalent of “cat-cat” to passing felines.
It at least makes more sense than “kitty-cat,” which literally means “kitten-cat.” Imagine cooing “baby-person” over an infant’s crib.
In “kitty-cat,” the first word, “kitty,” is obviously a diminutive form of “kitten,” a way of making it more cute and endearing. The same thing happens in “pussycat,” wherein “pussy” is a diminutive form of “puss.”
I can’t come up with any fruitful thoughts on why it’s so satisfying to combine a diminutive with the regular form of the word. I can only observe that it happens a lot, and in many languages.
The real question for us, then, is why cats were ever called “puss” in the first place.
Cats have been called “cats” (or something essentially similar) since the dawn of our language. “Puss,” variations of which exist in almost all Germanic languages, is a more recent invention with a different purpose.
Appearing in English in the early 1500s, it was used as a “call-name” for the cat. As the “Oxford English Dictionary” so clearly puts it, a call-name is a “conventional proper name.” If I forced you to sit in a room and talk to a parrot, you’d probably start by calling it Polly. That’s the call-name of parrots in modern English.
Likewise, all cats became Puss. (Remember Puss-in-Boots and all that?) This was especially useful in a time when most cats weren’t embraced as household pets and given personal names.
The origin of “puss” is unknown, but may be based on the sound one makes when calling a cat—that percussive whisper that in modern use indeed sounds a lot like “puss.”
Lest we be too pat about it, however, it must be noted that “puss” was sometimes used as a call-name for other animals, especially hares. Cats have a near monopoly on the term today, but in Australia you can still hear rabbits referred to as “pussies.”
“Pussy,” of course, is a diminutive form of “puss,” used as baby talk or a term of endearment. It shows up later in the 1500s, when it also became applied to girls, women and then homosexuals, variously as an endearment or as an insult.
Putting “pussy” and “cat” together makes for even better baby-talk, and was therefore just a matter of time. Other languages do it, too—you can mewl “puss-katte” over German kitties if you like. “Pussycat” has probably been in English for centuries, but it became an established nursery-rhyme term around 1800.
Showing posts with label cats etymology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cats etymology. Show all posts
March 28, 2008
March 27, 2008
"More Than One Way To Skin A Cat"/"Stat"
Stupid Question ™
May 17, 2001
By John Ruch
© 2001
Q: How many ways are there to skin a cat?
—R.P.
A: Unfortunately, the great American slang phrase says only that there is “more than one way to skin a cat.”
Dating to the late 1800s, the phrase means that there is more than one method of accomplishing a given task.
I couldn’t find a single source that even speculated on the origin of this morbid phrase, beyond one that not very usefully claimed it was a variation on the supposed earlier British phrase “more ways of killing a cat.”
It could simply come from the Victorian trade in cat fur, which was used as trim on coats. Indeed, this industry is supposedly the origin of the intriguingly similar, though less popular, 1800s phrase, “What can you have of a cat but her skin?”, meaning a thing has only one purpose (supposedly because the skin was the only commercially valuable part of a cat). It is possible that “more than one way to skin a cat” was coined as an answer to this phrase (or vice versa).
However, I’m also intrigued by the phrase “to skin the cat.” Dating to around 1845, this phrase started as slang for a gymnastic exercise in which people hanging from horizontal bars passed their legs up and between their arms. The phrase soon expanded to mean any slick maneuver, either literal or metaphorical (e.g., “Ronald Reagan skinned the cat on the Iran-Contra scandal”). This meaning persisted as late as the 1940s and would seem to have some bearing on our phrase.
Indeed, “skin” had a wide variety of slang meanings in the 1800s, most suggesting trickiness or deception. In 1830s school slang, to “skin” meant to cheat or to plagiarize. From around 1860 to 1930, it meant to completely beat or outdo someone in a competition.
And in the late 1800s—the period that apparently also spawned our phrase—to “skin out” was to abscond or get away in the nick of time, and a “skin game” was a rigged gambling game.
Cat-fur trading? Gymnastics? Illicit gambling? There’s certainly more than one way to skin a cat on “more than one way to skin a cat.” But which is the right way?
Q: What does the medical acronym STAT, meaning to do something quickly, stand for?
—Chris Vachio
A: Medical jargon that has been popularized by the TV show “ER,” “stat” actually doesn’t stand for anything.
It is in fact an abbreviation of the Latin adverb statim, meaning “immediately” or “at once.” It was originally used, beginning around 1875, on prescriptions, where it was properly written as “stat.” (with a period).
“Stat” has found unprecedented popularity in trauma centers, emergency rooms and television dramas—all of which have a great need for things to happen immediately.
May 17, 2001
By John Ruch
© 2001
Q: How many ways are there to skin a cat?
—R.P.
A: Unfortunately, the great American slang phrase says only that there is “more than one way to skin a cat.”
Dating to the late 1800s, the phrase means that there is more than one method of accomplishing a given task.
I couldn’t find a single source that even speculated on the origin of this morbid phrase, beyond one that not very usefully claimed it was a variation on the supposed earlier British phrase “more ways of killing a cat.”
It could simply come from the Victorian trade in cat fur, which was used as trim on coats. Indeed, this industry is supposedly the origin of the intriguingly similar, though less popular, 1800s phrase, “What can you have of a cat but her skin?”, meaning a thing has only one purpose (supposedly because the skin was the only commercially valuable part of a cat). It is possible that “more than one way to skin a cat” was coined as an answer to this phrase (or vice versa).
However, I’m also intrigued by the phrase “to skin the cat.” Dating to around 1845, this phrase started as slang for a gymnastic exercise in which people hanging from horizontal bars passed their legs up and between their arms. The phrase soon expanded to mean any slick maneuver, either literal or metaphorical (e.g., “Ronald Reagan skinned the cat on the Iran-Contra scandal”). This meaning persisted as late as the 1940s and would seem to have some bearing on our phrase.
Indeed, “skin” had a wide variety of slang meanings in the 1800s, most suggesting trickiness or deception. In 1830s school slang, to “skin” meant to cheat or to plagiarize. From around 1860 to 1930, it meant to completely beat or outdo someone in a competition.
And in the late 1800s—the period that apparently also spawned our phrase—to “skin out” was to abscond or get away in the nick of time, and a “skin game” was a rigged gambling game.
Cat-fur trading? Gymnastics? Illicit gambling? There’s certainly more than one way to skin a cat on “more than one way to skin a cat.” But which is the right way?
Q: What does the medical acronym STAT, meaning to do something quickly, stand for?
—Chris Vachio
A: Medical jargon that has been popularized by the TV show “ER,” “stat” actually doesn’t stand for anything.
It is in fact an abbreviation of the Latin adverb statim, meaning “immediately” or “at once.” It was originally used, beginning around 1875, on prescriptions, where it was properly written as “stat.” (with a period).
“Stat” has found unprecedented popularity in trauma centers, emergency rooms and television dramas—all of which have a great need for things to happen immediately.