With this post, I think I’ve pretty much covered idioms using mammals. Although I’m sure I could find more if I looked.
I started with horses, then went on safari, covering lions, bears, elephants and monkeys. My next idiom post talked about wild animals and rodents. Then I took a closer look at farm animals. The last post dealt with dogs and now cats and mice get their 15 minutes of fame.
Cats
Für die Katz sein. Direct translation: to be for the cat.
If something is senseless or worthless you would say ‘it’s for the cat’. A possible explanation of where this saying comes from can be found in a fable from the 16th century. There, a smith let his clients decide how much to pay him for his work. When all he got was a ‘thank you’ he would tell his cat ‘this is for you’. After his cat died of hunger he decided ‘thank you’ was for the cat and set his own wages.
Ein Kater haben. Direct translation: to have a tom cat.
A tom cat isn’t a tomcat (a missile) but a male cat. But, believe it or not, this saying has nothing to do with cats. If you say you have a tom cat you are saying you have a hangover. A hangover leaves you feeling, well, not very well. Interestingly enough in doctor language a ‘catarrh’ (Katarrh in German) is a buildup of mucus in your head. It can give you a pretty nasty headache and can leave you feeling probably a lot like a hangover. The spoken word sounds very much like ‘Kater’ in German. Who knows, maybe some German speaking doctor was trying to be clever. Maybe he told a patient, ‘It looks like you have a ‘catarrh’’. The patient, not understanding doctor-language thought he said that he had a tom cat. Then ‘poof!’ a new idiom was born.
Katzenjammer. Direct translation: cats misery.
Basically this means a hangover, too. In contrast to the ‘catarrh’ above this probably does have to do with the way cats wail. If you’ve ever heard love-sick cats, you know they don’t sound happy. If you’ve ever had a hangover you know you just want to wail.
Katzenmusik. Direct translation: cat music.
Speaking of wailing. This is a not-so-nice way to describe music that is neither melodic nor in the right tones.
Die Katze im Sack kaufen. Direct translation: to buy a cat in a bag.
If you buy anything that’s in a bag then you really don’t know what you’ll get. This is an old, old saying probably going back as far a 1200. In the book ‘Till Eulenspiegel’ from 1515 there is story about a cat in a bag that was sold as a rabbit to roast.
Die Katze aus dem Sack lassen. Direct translation: to let the cat out of the bag.
Well, if you bought a cat in a bag, I suppose at some point you would have to let it out, right? That would be the humanitarian thing to do. If you said that you let the cat out of the bag you would be relating your true intentions or revealing a secret.
Ist die Katze aus dem Haus, so tanzt die Maus. Direct translation: when the cat is out of the house, then the mouse dances.
I guess that means mice like to dance. Or the rhyme might mean when there is no supervision, everyone does what they like.
Mouse
Katz und Maus spielen. Direct translation: play cat and mouse.
Well, we all know what happens when a cat plays with a mouse. It very rarely means a good outcome for the mouse. If you play cat and mouse then you try to trick someone. The saying is the same in English.
Mäuschen still. Direct translation: mouse quiet.
Mice have to be quiet if they don’t want to be caught by a cat. Or, maybe it’s the quiet after the cat is done ‘playing’ with the mouse. In both instances we’re talking very quiet here.
Das ist zum Mäusemelken. Direct translation: this is to milk a mouse.
I assume that very few people have ever milked a mouse. One can only imagine how despairing and exasperating an endeavor like that would be. And, no, I’ve never heard this expression in English.
So, that about does it for my excursion into the wonderful world of idioms about cats in German. I hope you enjoyed it and now feel like the cat that got the cream!
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