Cat Got Your Tongue?

Curious Feline Phrases from Around the World

In this charming, gift-worthy collection, Hannah Shaw shares 60 feline-focused proverbs and idioms collected from around the world during her travels as an animal advocate. Perfect for cat lovers, language nerds, and avid travelers, Cat Got Your Tongue? presents each saying in its native language along with an English translation, a simple explanation of its meaning and use, and a delightful illustration by New Yorker cartoonist Sophie Lucido Johnson. For example:

• Portuguese: “Quem não tem cão caça com gato” or “One who has no dog hunts with a cat” (we must make do with the resources we have)

• Yiddish: “Vern zol fun dir a blintshik, un di kats zol dikh khapn,” or “May you turn into a blintz and be snatched by a cat” (a curse expressing ill will)

• Dutch: “De kat op het spek binden,” or “tie the cat to the bacon” (to forbid something that’s very tempting, like kids with a cookie jar)

Featuring proverbs from India, France, China, Malaysia, Türkiye, Holland, and many more—in languages from Arabic to Spanish—this enchanting little book reveals the central role that cats play in cultures everywhere, whether to impart a wise piece of advice, insult a rude neighbor, or as they say in Romania, to “look like the cat at a calendar” (appear very confused).