Last week I was looking into cat bleps - when a cat sticks their tongue out a little - and it made me think of the saying "Cat got your tongue", so I wanted to look more into the cat got your tongue meaning and origin.
What does the cat got your tongue mean?
I checked out the Merriam-Webster dictionary and they said it is used when asking someone why they aren't saying anything. In my experience it has an accusatory tone, like if someone asks who did something and you don't answer, they might ask, what's the matter? Cat got your tongue? HistoryofEnglish.com agrees, saying it's often used when one person is wrong and the other person is waiting for an explanation. The first person is guilty of something and the other one has caught them, but of course no one wants to admit they are wrong, so when they don't answer the other person asks if the cat has got their tongue.
What about the origin of cat got your tongue?
Here is where things get muddy. The historyofEnglish.com article mentions a theory that it originated in the 17th century with British sailors. A sailor caught misbehaving would be subject to punishment by being whipped with a cat o' nine tails - a whip with 9 knotted cords. They say that the pain from this whipping would be enough to render the sailor speechless, thus prompting the other sailors to say "Has the cat got your tongue"? However, phrases.org.uk say the earliest examples of the saying in print come from the USA, so that argues that it did not originate with British sailors.
Allthatsinteresting.com reports another possible cats got your tongue origin story, and it sounds even more painful! They say that during the middle ages people feared that witches would steal their tongues in order to keep them from reporting the witches activities. And, black cats were believed to be familiars with the witches, so the saying cat got your tongue was a suggestion that a cat had stolen your tongue at the behest of a witch so that you weren't able to speak!
Still another theory goes back to the days of ancient Egypt! Allthatsinteresting.com says if someone said something against the established religion or government they would get their tongue cut out and then fed to cats! They would never speak out again!
Phrases.org.uk casts doubt on the dark ages and egyptian explanations, saying there is no shred of evidence for either one. They say the first example in print that they could find of saying "cat got your tongue" was from 1859 from a Wisconsin newspaper.
“How I love a rainy day!” he said.
To this I made no answer. I loved a rainy day too, but I was not disposed to say so just then.
“Oh ho! The cat got your tongue has it?” was his next remark.
They mention that the author did not feel the need to explain the saying, so it must have already been familiar to people in the mid-west US at that time, but the absence of it in historical works argues that it was not in common use since Egyptian times or the middle ages.
It seems that the phrase "has the cat got your tongue" may just have started as an imaginative way to talk to a child when they are being sullen or not wanting to admit to some mischief that they've been up to.
What do you think?
What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?
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