စိမ့္စမ္းေရ

The cat has given language many special expressions that show you what its life among men has been like. For the most part, "a cat's life" has been as bad as "a dog's life". But there are a few phrases that show something else. One of them is the expression, "to bell the cat." When a man is given a job that may prove disastrous, he is said to be trying to bell the cat. The phrase comes from an old story.


A family of mice could get no food because of its fear of a cat. The mice decided that the best thing to do would be to tie a bell around the cat's neck. That would tell them where the cat was. All agreed that it was a splendid idea until one wise old mouse stepped up and asked, "Who will bell the cat?"


There are a number of stories on the beginnings of the expression, "to grin like a Cheshire cat." Most of us first heard of the Cheshire cat from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.


When Alice found a large cat in the kitchen grinning from ear to ear, she was indeed surprised. She did not know cats grinned. "Ah," she was told, "but this cat is from Cheshire" -- a county in England. Later, as the cat began to leave the kitchen, its tail went first and the grin was the last to disappear from sight.


However, as we are told, the mysterious smile of the cat from Cheshire was well-known long before Lewis Carroll. It seems that some sign painter created the mystery. He painted a picture of a smiling lion on the sign of an inn in Cheshire. It was a strange smile, for the painter tried to paint a snarling lion. The phrase, "to grin like a Cheshire cat," is not as widely used today as it had been in years past. But the expression, "to be somebody's cat's-paw, " still is. It means to be used, to be fooled, to be made to do someone else's dirty work.


The word "catty," to describe a malicious person who likes to gossip and say unpleasant things about another seems to be lasting forever. That is because such people never disappear. They show a cat's cutting claws and act like an angry spitting cat.


In recent years, American jazz musicians have made cat a household word. Its use has spread over a wide area. Many are now "cool cats." Cat in some places has taken the place of the word, "man." For example, it is no longer that man but that cat. Rich men are fat cats. Some are just plain cats, others are cool cats, and still others are sharp cats. In the words of the great American horn player, Louis Armstrong: "I had on a brand-new Stetson hat, my fine black suit, and new patent-leather shoes. I was a sharp cat."


Is it true that a cat has nine lives? So we are told. It must be true. How else could the cat have survived?