2023-10-15 07:02:36
The history of expressions is full of enigmas: how can we know for sure when and where these phrases that spice up our daily lives appeared? It is rarely simple, but at least we are able to reconstruct the historical journey of “giving the cat its tongue”… thanks to literature.
Monsieur de Sévigné threw his tongue at the dogs
A literary figure in spite of herself, Madame de Sévigné only rose to fame after her death, when her letters and those of her loved ones were published. In 1676, her husband composed a riddle and, before giving the solution, asked the question “do you throw your tongue to the dogs?” » According to the author Georges Planelles, passionate about the history of expressions, this turn of phrase would evoke the remains of food left for dogs, which here symbolize speech. We also find, among earlier authors like Rabelais, other expressions relating to the abandonment of a part of oneself or one’s possessions to canines and felines. According to the lexicologist Jean Pruvost, there was a time when, in Gard, “eating the cat’s tongue” meant… not holding your tongue.
George Sand put something in a cat’s ear
What we know for sure is that “giving one’s tongue” passed from dogs to cats in the 19th century. Presumed guilty: the poet George Sand, who “put something in a cat’s ear” when she confided a secret. What does this have to do with riddles? It’s not super clear, but Georges Planelles and others suppose that all these expressions got mixed up in the minds of the French, who would have made a sort of mash-up to the point of freezing the expression as we know it today.
Some also think that the feline figure emerged because it was more refined, and therefore more pleasant, than that of man’s best friend. Still, it was in 1860 that finally, Finally“giving your tongue to the cat” makes its appearance in literature, under the pen of Jules de Goncourt.
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