Room to swing a catalan
Have you noticed how popular cats are in Catalan?
‘Quatre gats’ is the expression of choice to mean ‘only a few people’. It should be uttered with a dismissive gesture: ‘Bah! Només són quatre gats.’
Of course, Els Quatre Gats is a really famous Modernista coffee house and restaurant in Barcelona where Picasso and other artists used to hang out.
One of my favourite idioms is ‘cercar / buscar tres peus al gat’. If you’re looking for three feet (paws?) on the cat, you’re making things unnecessarily complicated. You can also look for ‘cinc peus’ (five feet) and possibly set (seven). In Barcelona there’s a junk/ antique shop on Travessera de Gràcia called Els 7 Peus.
Love the logo!
‘Qui posarà el cascavell al gat?’ Who will put the bell on the cat? This is what you say to refer to a dangerous action that probably no one will dare to carry out.
And now the question you must all be asking. What is the connection between cats and Catalan? Well, none. The animal is probably from Late Latin ‘cattus’. And various suggestions have been made by linguists about the origin of the name Catalunya, but none of them have anything to with our multi-footed feline friend.
So why not make up your own folk etymology linking cat and Catalunya, and send it in to us.
Tags: Catalan language
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:10 pm
CATS signified “sophisticated”, “in-the-know”, “in-the-groove” people in India amongst the burgeoning urban middle class in the early-/mid-1970s. One was a “CAT” (pronounced “KAY-e-AT to stretch the word with a vengeance, emphasizing the ubiquitous Indian English accent) if one had the wherewithall ($$, Rs. GBP, whatever currency of significance) and if one could spout lyrics from Leonard Cohen and Traffic and The WHO and could afford to have travelled (or to know someone who had travelled) “abroad” to get the right LEVIs to strut around in and around campus.
Of course, no idea what this has to do with CATS and Catalunya but thought I’d share this on this blog.
May 25th, 2010 at 7:32 am
Just tweeted
@ RosieReay
Valerie &Theresa have done it again &made me smile.Do read http://inthegarlic.com/2010/05/room-to-swing-a-catalan/
thanks ladies
May 25th, 2010 at 9:05 am
Well, in fact all those sentences are not exclusively catalonian, they also exist in Spanish: “buscarle tres pies al gato”, “cuatro gatos”, “ponerle el cascabel al gato” (this last one is based on a popular fable http://www.guiascostarica.com/fabulas/fabula07.htm). And there are many more: “dar gato por liebre”, “de noche todos los gatos son pardos”, “defenderse como gato panza arriba”, “la curiosidad mato al gato”, “llevarse el gato al agua”, “gato con guantes no caza ratones”,….
May 26th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
@ Anuradha Thanks for sharing. Let’s crack open our imagination and create a folk etymological connection!
@ Rosie Glad you it made you smile and thanks for tweeting.
@ londinense Thanks for all these – some are new to me. Curiosity killed the cat is also well known in English. I once wrote an article about the Catalan language for a magazine, and they entitled it “Catalan got your tongue?”
May 26th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
My favourite: A cat may look at a king.