A Cat May Look at a King Trivia Quiz

Answer: A person is very conceited

The origin of this adage is unknown. The first record of it appears in "The Proverbs And Epigrams Of John Heywood" (1562):

"Some hear and see him whom he heareth nor seeth not
But fields have eyes and woods have ears, ye wot
And also on my maids he is ever tooting.
Can ye judge a man, (quoth I), by his looking?
What, a cat may look on a king, ye know!"

In 1713, Oswald Dykes published "English Proverbs with Moral Reflexions". However, the context of the proverb's usage muddies the use of the adage.
Over time the phrase has been used to illustrate inferiority, boldness and human rights. A summary of the saying can be perhaps best explained as "no matter how high your status is, you can't control everything. Others will always be your equal in some way".

As for being conceited, the adage "As conceited as a barber's cat" is appropriate, but the history surrounding this idiom is even more convoluted...

Answer: Face

This term is probably derived from the Old English word "buss" which means face, especially the lips. Over the years, the word began to be pronounced as "puss", (also a Scottish word meaning face), thereby associating it with a cat but with no real connection to a feline. An informal synonym is the word "picklepuss".

Answer: Piglet

In England in the Middle Ages, piglets were sold in open marketplaces. The vendor kept the pigs in bags, for ease of transportation for the new owner. But dodgy sellers sometimes duped their buyers by putting a cat into the bag. If a smart buyer looked in the bag, then the cat was literally out of the bag.

(Note: A bag was called a "poke," which is probably from where the phrase "a pig in a poke" originated. Today this phrase means buying an unknown quantity.)

There is an additional explanation offered in the literature, but it does not appear to be substantiated: "In nautical lore, a cat-o-nine tails had to be made new for each flogging. The whip was made, then put into a bag and held while the charges were listed. Then, just before the flogging, the cat would be brought out of the bag". In this context, "punishment is about to begin".

Answer: Like herding cats

The phrase "like herding cats" is a modern saying. While the origin is unknown, the earliest example I can find is a 1985 reference to managing programmers in the IT industry, where apparently managing programmers and managing cats are both impossible tasks.

All cats are gray in the dark means that all persons are unrecognised until they have made a name for themselves .

To be given a moniker of a "cat's paw" means you have been taken advantage of. Apparently you weren't intelligent enough to cat-ch on. The phrase comes from an old folk tale in which a smart monkey tricks a cat into reaching into a fireplace to pull out roasting chestnuts. The monkey got his chestnuts, but the cat only got burned.

A bag of cats is a bad tempered person. It also makes them a sourpuss.

Answer: No

"Catgut" originated from the German word "kitgut", meaning a small fiddle, as catgut was also used for making some strings in some musical instruments that utilised a bow. The folk tale "cat and the fiddle" also may have something to do with this translation. Catgut came from sheep or goat, or occasionally other animals like the horse, pig or donkey, but it never came from a cat.

Catgut has been replaced to a large degree by synthetic materials in the manufacture of tennis racquets.

Answer: Timid, wary

This phrase can be traced back to an American novel, written by William L.G. Smith, about slavery: "Life at the South; or, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin': As It Is". A garret is an attic, often used as a space for boarders. A cat introduced to any new space is going to be wary and cautious until it reconciles with its new surroundings.

Answer: An old saying that linked women and cats

In the mid-1500s, John Heywood, a scholar, wrote "A woman hath nine lives like a cat". This soon turned into a phrase about women who gossiped about other women, and were said to be making catty remarks. (What about men who gossiped?) Today its usage has been refined, but it still smacks of a large gender imbalance: "The term 'catty' is a sexually biased way of describing an unhealthy way women act on an otherwise healthy feeling of competitiveness" says Lisa Firestone of the "Huffington Post" in October 2012. "Sadly, as women, we sometimes inadvertently strengthen this false notion of gender norms by failing to face our competitive feelings directly or to learn to deal with these feelings in a positive way".

Answer: Tailor

According to the book, "Cats out of the Bag" edited by Terry, Don and Ken Beck (1996), "cat's pajamas" comes from Mr E.B. Katz, an English tailor of the late 18th century and early 19th century, who made the "finest silk pajamas" for royalty and other well-to do patrons.

There is an additional theory, somewhat less plausible: A slang phrase was coined by Thomas Dorgan in the 1920s when the word "cat" was used as a term to describe flappers from the jazz era of the time. When combined with the word pyjamas (a new fashion at this time), a new phrase was formed to describe something that is the best, therefore making it highly sought and desirable.

Answer: It is a misquote

This saying can be traced back to 16th century England, where the phrase was known as "care kills a cat". In this context, "care" meant a warning that anxiety was bad for your health and led to a premature death. Cats were (and are) seen to be wary and cautious. In time "care" became "curiosity" though it is difficult to determine how this occurred.

Answer: Put the cat among the pigeons

"Put the cat among the pigeons" is a British adage meaning to cause an enormous fight or confusion, by revealing a controversial facts and/or secrets. When Britain ruled India in the 19th century, a popular barbaric pastime was to place a feral cat in a pigeon pen. Subsequently wagers were then made to see how many birds the cat would bring down with a single clawed swipe.

"Dead cat on the line" means something suspicious is transpiring. The proverb refers to fishing for catfish where lines are checked every day. Therefore if there is a dead catfish on the line, there's something definitely wrong.

Similarly, "more than one way to skin a cat" means there is more than one way to accomplish a task. The "cat" in this saying refers to preparing caught catfish (named so because of their long whiskers) for cooking, which must be skinned because the skin is tough. The British idiom about skinning cats for their fur, appears to post-date the catfish idiom.

There's not enough room to swing a cat mean the room is very cramped and crowded. The cat in this case is a whip, made up of three strands with three knots in each strand. The association of "nine" and "cats" being that if you were fortunate to have survived such a flogging you were as "lucky as a cat with nine lives". Below deck, there was never enough room to lash the whip, so the whipping was given on deck, where there was "enough room to swing a cat."