CAT GOT YOUR TONGUE?
“Cat got your tongue?”, which means “Have you nothing to say?“ অর্থাৎ কারো যখন কিছু বলার থাকে না বা কেউ যখন একেবারে চুপ হয়ে যায় তখন সেই অবস্থাকে বুঝাতে এই Idiom টি ব্যবহার করা হয়। এই Idiom টি দিয়ে সাধারণ প্রশ্ন করা হয়ে থাকে। মূলত মুখ বন্ধ হয়ে যাওয়া বা নিরব হয়ে যাওয়া বুঝাতেই ‘cat got your tongue’ idiom টি ব্যবহার করা হয়।
☑ Example Sentences
- Speak up boy or cat got your tongue?
- The shy boy was afraid to speak up and his mates kept asking him “Cat got your tongue?“
- Are you dumb or cat got your tongue?
- With the way you are keeping silent, one would wonder if the cat got your tongue?
- Why aren’t you answering? Cat got your tongue?“
- You’re breaking up with me? I don’t know what to say. Cat’s got my tongue I guess.
- Don’t just sit there like the cat’s got your tongue! Say something!
- Whenever we ask my boss about anything at the staff meeting he just looks at us like the cat’s got his tongue.
- When you’re giving a speech and the cat suddenly got your tongue it’s the worst feeling in the world.
- What? Surprised, or is it just that the cat’s got your tongue?
♜ORIGIN OF THIS IDIOM:
Cat got your tongue? is a question asked when someone doesn’t answer a previously posed question or otherwise remains silent. The origins of this phrase are quite murky. The earliest use of the phrase cat got you tongue? is found in an American magazine in 1881, where it is described as a taunt used by children. One origin theory is that cat got your tongue? stems from the medieval fear of witches and their familiars, black cats. Another theory is that the “cat” referenced in cat got your tongue? is the cat-o’-nine-tails, a vicious whip used on early sailors which would render the victim speechless. A third theory is an assertion that ancient kings cut off the tongues of liars and fed the tongues to their cats. All of these stories are apocryphal, there is no evidence that the phrase cat got your tongue? is anything more than odd, childish imagery.
What’s an Idiom?
Broadly speaking, an idiom is a widely used phrase that, when taken as a whole, has a particular meaning that you would not be able to deduce from the meanings of the individual words. The ubiquitous greeting “How are you doing today?” is an example of an idiom. Normally, how means “in what manner” or “to what degree.” Taken literally, the question doesn’t make a lot of sense. But fluent English speakers understand the idiomatic meaning; “How are you doing today?” usually just means “hello.”
Idiom vs. Cliché
The terms idiom and cliché are often used interchangeably, especially when people talk about things you shouldn’t say. But they’re not quite the same thing. A cliché is an expression like “throw the baby out with the bathwater” or “the cat who ate the canary”—a phrase that has been repeated so often that it’s no longer effective. Clichés are like idioms in that you can’t understand the meaning of the phrase by looking at the literal meaning of each word. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater has nothing to do with babies or bathwater; it means that you’re in such a hurry to get rid of something that you accidentally throw out something valuable, too. Someone who looks like a cat who ate the canary doesn’t look like a feline. She looks like someone who is proud of getting away with mischief.
But not all idioms are clichés in the same way that “throw the baby out with the bathwater” is. Consider the phrase “all of a sudden.” You probably know that this phrase means “suddenly.” But it’s hard to see why. We don’t normally use sudden as a noun, as it seems to be in this phrase. And why all? Can you have part of a sudden? Some idioms that seem nonsensical now actually did make logical sense in the past (sudden was a noun, once, but that usage died out everywhere except in this phrase).
Prepared by-
FAYSAL KHAN (FK)
BA, (Hons), MA; English (ELT)
Founder and CET, FKENGLISH
ইংরেজি শিক্ষক এবং কনটেন্ট রাইটার,
উদ্ভাস-উন্মেষ
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KNOW MORE GRAMMARS-
1. Definition and classification of parts of speech.
2. Definition and classification of punctuations.
3. Use of capitalization and punctuation marks.
5. Difference between phrase and idiom.
6. How to find out the parts of speech.
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