Cats at the Lessons

Cats are the most popular pets among Englishmen and Americans. There are many expressions about them. Let’s learn some of them:

If someone looks very proud or satisfied with himself, we say he or she looks like the cat that ate the canary.
If you play cat and mouse with someone, you change between different kinds of behaviour when dealing with another person.

A copycat is someone who acts like someone else or copies another person’s work.

A fat cat is a person with a lot of money.

Cats spend most of their time sleeping. Sometimes people sleep for a short time during the day. This is called a cat nap.
If you tell about something that was supposed to be a secret, we say you let the cat out of the bag.

If you are not able to speak or answer a question someone might ask if the cat has got your tongue.

When the cat’s away, the mice will play means people sometimes misbehave when there is no supervision.

You may have heard this expression: curiosity killed the cat. This means being too concerned about things that are not your business might cause problems.

If your home is very small, you might say there is not enough room to swing a cat. But you probably should not try this at home!

Everybody knows that it is difficult to train cats or to get them to do something. Cats are not like sheep or cows that can be moved in a group. So we say a difficult or impossible job is like herding cats.

Based on the article
‘Words and Their Stories: ‘Cat’ Expressions (VOA Special English 2009-09-25)
http://www.manythings.org/voa/words/5.html

A great collection of "dog and cat" expressions can be found here:
http://community.eflclassroom.com/group/dogstories/forum/topics/cats-dogs-for-language

Stories from my blog:
http://valenesc.ucoz.ru/blog/charlie_39_s_letter_to_gus_and_maggie/2011-05-29-25
http://valenesc.ucoz.ru/blog/pismo_mehggi_124_maggie_39_s_letter/2011-06-03-40