Sweetie Pie Turner here, and I think I might be a little bit worried.
MomGoth was advised by her friend Andrea Gilbey to buy Alexandra Sellers’ book, SPOKEN CAT AND RELEVANT FACTORS IN WORLDVIEW. MomGoth bought it.
It tells all about our language! It tells about our pronunciation, grammar, tonality, and even some of our religion!
If MomGoth studies this book, she’ll be able to understand everything I say, and I don’t know if I want her to. She understands, now, when I say, “I want to be fed,” and, “Open the basement door and turn on the downstairs light so I can not go downstairs after all.” That’s really all I care about.
If she studies this book, she’ll not only understand me, she’ll be mooching around trying to talk to me in cat, telling me corny jokes and making suggestions about how I ought to behave.
Fortunately, Ms. Sellers understands that it’s grammatically impossible to give orders to a cat in the cat language. Still, if anybody can make that linguistic breakthrough, it’s MomGoth. She’s the only person I know who can give orders in the form of a question. “You’re doin’ WHAT?” means, “Stop that this very red-hot second, or you’re gonna wish so hard you’d never been born.”
If that isn’t an order, it’ll do until an order comes along.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: What do you wish your human understood or could say in your language?
SPT
Dan Antion
October 18, 2014 at 7:18amI understand our cats a little, but from the facial expressions and looks I get after talking to them, I thing they understand me very well. Of course, they choose to ignore most of what I say.
Marian Allen
October 18, 2014 at 8:39amI hear that, Dan! My late cat, Katya, had a look that said, “And your point?”
Jane
October 18, 2014 at 9:17amMy boy Rory was a very vocal cat. And by that I don’t mean he just laid around yowling. He had statements, long narrative sections, various suggestions, and occasional demands. At first, I did think he was just yowling. But it turned out he had to ask me the same thing over and over again until I got the drift. Then he began to wise me up on various other topics. I sure miss those conversations.
Marian Allen
October 18, 2014 at 10:32amSome cats are talkier than others. Sweetie Pie gets very talky some days. Katya pretty well relied on body language, including a touch of the claw-tips.
Jane
October 19, 2014 at 9:44amAt least she wasn’t a biter and chewer, like dear Tootsie was. And I trust she didn’t ever chew through your purse (It was the handle, wasn’t it?).
Marian Allen
October 19, 2014 at 2:29pmIt was the handle of MY FAVORITE PURSE, yes. :/ I have a friend who loves that story so much, she asks me to tell it to her again every now and then. lol