Origins

Cats, Cons, and Cautions

by John Collins

English is a funny old duck, isn't it? For instance, I can liken our language to a feathered waterfowl, and it makes sense (sort of). Makes you wonder, though, how these little turns of phrase came to be. I mean, just to look at a duck, you wouldn't immediately think of it as funny (or, at least, no funnier than, say, a platypus or an aardvark, but you don't hear their names bandied about in everyday usage). And it's not only ducks, but geese, too (you silly goose). And chickens (you big chicken). And cackling hens, and strutting roosters, and... notice a pattern?

Actually, for some of the above examples, the origin is probably right on the surface: chickens do scatter when you approach, and hens do cackle on endlessly. But it's not always that straightforward.

In this column, I'm going to "let the cat out of the bag" on everyday phrases, tracing them back to their origins to show what we really mean when we say what we think we mean.

There's a good place to start: "let the cat out of the bag". In common usage, you've let the cat out of the bag if you reveal a secret, a plot, or a subterfuge of some kind. Do you suppose early conspirators carried around a sack of kittens, only releasing them when the long arm of the law closed its steely fingers around their knobby throats? Probably not.

Actually, it seems that, in the quaint days of the English country fair, the venerable rip-off artist was alive and well. This confidence chappy would advertise a lovely, plump sucking-pig for sale. A prospective buyer would approach, all a-salivating, and be shown his piglet-to-be. A deal would be struck. Once a deal was made, the pig would be put in a bag for transport. However, unbeknownst to our guileless purchaser, while ha'pennies and farthings were being counted, the palatable porker was being exchanged for a not-so-tasty tomcat. This was always a tense moment for the would-be profiteer for, if his mark opened the bag too early, he would, indeed, "let the cat out of the bag", and the scheme would be exposed. Obviously a suspenseful time for our larcenist: making the switch, then waiting anxiously for the other shoe to drop.

Hey, wait a minute, there's another one. What other shoe? I thought we were talking about pigs (and cats).

Well, we know that "waiting for the other shoe to drop" means waiting with bated breath, suspenseful, and all that, but why? Actually, this turn of phrase originates (according to a popular story) in an old German joke (you will have to fill in the laughtrack on your own here):

A traveller comes to an inn late at night, and asks for a room. "There is one room available," says the grizzled innkeeper (is there any other kind?), "but you'll have to be very careful. The guest in the next room is an extremely light sleeper, disturbed by the slightest noise. He's also very influential, and I wouldn't want to get him upset."

Taking this caution with him, the traveller retires quietly to his room. As he's getting ready for bed, he makes every effort to be silent, but since he's so anxious about being quiet he becomes nervous, and drops one of his shoes. It lands with a resounding thud on the floor. Sure enough, it no sooner strikes the floor than he hears his next-door neighbour tossing, turning, and grumbling, most certainly awakened. Our intrepid lodger then silently removes his other shoe, and creeps into bed.

Throughout the night, he was occasionally awakened by the sound of the fellow in the next room, still unable to sleep, banging frustratingly about. Finally, around dawn, there came a loud pounding on his wall, and a shout from his tempest-toss'd neighbour: "When are you going to drop the other shoe?" (Okay, obviously Robin Williams wasn't an old German, but you get the point.)

At this point, you may be asking yourself if everything here is the absolute, naked truth. Well, contemporary wisdom has it that you should take most things with a grain of salt, since the teller may just have an axe to grind. Confused? Well, tune in next time, when we'll talk about the naked truth, grains of salt, and axes to grind.