CATS, WHIPS AND WITCHES

"No room to swing a cat" might relate to the cruel sport of roping two cats together by their tails and slinging them over a branch to fight (as in one Kilkenny cats explanation above), though it is generally believed to refer to the compact cat-o-nine-tails used on ships. Swinging cats by their tails as a mark for sportsmen was also once a popular and barbaric amusement, thankfully overtaken by clay pigeon shooting. A longer version, unambiguously about felines, is "no room to swing a cat without getting fur in one's mouth. As well as referring to the animal, "cat" was an abbreviation for the cat-o'-nine-tails, otherwise known as a flogger. "Cat" is also an old Scottish word meaning a rogue, in which case "swing a cat" referred to the judicial hanging of a condemned criminal. A more plausible explanation is that "no room to swing a cat" was an old nautical term describing the lack of room to manoeuvre using mooring lines a sailing ship called a "Cat" in a confined space such as a dock or narrow waterway A "cat" in this context is a compact merchant vessels (in fact the "cat" with which Dick made his fortune in the Dick Whittington tale was a merchant ship rather than a feline cat). Being compact, any mooring where there was not even room to swing (manoeuvre) such a vessel was very short of space indeed. The arm that projects from a tower or similar to hoist things up is known as a "cathead" and in confined spaces, there would certainly be no room to swing such an arm. Another nautical catty saying is "to cat the anchor", meaning to secure the anchor on the cathead.

However, the most plausible derivation for "no room to swing a cat" is mentioned in Peter Ackroyd's book "London, The Biography". During the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Whitechapel, when a family moved home it was customary to swing the family cat around one room of their new home to deter it from running away (much like wiping a cat's feet with butter in other folklore). Being a poor area of London, many families would have ended up in homes where there wouldn't be any room to swing the cat.

"To get the wrong cat by the tail", which means make an error with nasty results, could also hark back to bloodsports or to being on the wrong end of the cat-o-nine-tails. A sailor who went silent before a lashing might be asked "cat got your tongue?". It is also claimed that several centuries ago in the Middle East (the date 500 BC is often given), it was customary to rip out the tongue of a liar, slanderer or blasphemer (cutting off of hands still happens today), thus removing the offending body part. The person might then have the added indignity of seeing the severed tongue fed to cats, either common strays or royal pets. Having one's severed tongue thrown to common strays would have the more humiliating of the two options. if he had blasphemed, it might be fed to the temple cats as an offering straight to the god(s) whose name(s) had been wronged. Alternatively, it could relate to the Middle Ages when witches were put to death. People believed that if you saw a witch, her familiar (often a cat) would steal or silence your tongue so you couldn't report the sighting.

Does "a cat has nine lives" refer to cats' often life-saving agility or to the nine thongs of the cat-o-nine-tails, to a witch being able to assume the shape of a cat no more than nine times or simply to the magical trinity of trinities? English witchcraft has provided "having kittens", meaning due for a shock, from the belief that witches could turn unborn babies into kittens which then scratched about inside the womb. Women having difficult pregnancies could once obtain abortions because of "cats in the belly". Some people get irritable bowels when under stress and which might also have been likened to internal kittens! From the 17th Century comes an obscure saying whose true meaning has been lost: " the cat has kittened in your mouth" which possibly means someone is talking nonsense or sharp (catty) words.

A "cat has nine lives" might refer to the cats landing on their feet after a fall (or throw) which would kill another creature - perhaps cats clung so tenaciously to life that they were believed to have a magical number of lives. More tenuously, it may come from the ancient Egyptian (cat-form) god; the one god embodies nine or has nine lives in one creator being. These nine great gods are collectively called the Nine. It might even refer to the number of thongs on that nautical flogger, the cat-o-nine-tails which would remain useful until the very last thong had broken! However, the naval flogger was usually made of partially unravelled rope, it was made specially for a flogging and was only used once, making a nautical derivation of the nine lives unlikely.

Considering that "curiosity killed the cat" cats must have needed all those nine lives. Feline curiosity makes them prone to getting into life-endangering places and situations. "Curiosity killed the cat" is also said to derive from the 16th century "care kills a cat", which had nothing to do with curiosity. "Care" meant anxiety and too much worry or anxiety was bad for one's health. A cat - and for that matter a person - might worry itself into an early grave. Over the years, the meaning of "care" changed and lost its meaning (except in phrases like "not a care in the world") and the saying mutated into "curiosity" killed the cat". Meanwhile "care killed the cat" came to mean over-indulgence was bad for cats; making them overweight and unhealthy or making a soft pet out of a working cat. Cats were (and in some countries still are) utility animals not pets. Too much care was believed to make it soft so that it didn't do its job of hunting vermin. The curiosity of experimenters has sadly killed many cats and "curiosity killed the cat" or "curiosity killed this cat" is often used, along with graphic illustrations, in protests against animal experimentation.

"May a cat eat you and the devil eat the cat!" is a double-curse I've heard from Irish colleagues. Not only is the person cursed to be eaten by a cat (possibly a witch's familiar), but the cat is then eaten by the devil and the curse's target doomed to end up in hell. Sometimes a single curse just isn't enough!