716.0_1c12e5d0@fidonet.org>
From: alexander koryagin
Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from 18.06.2013 23:52
AH> [re what cats are thinking]
ak>> The answer is of course that nobody knows.
AH> On the surface of it, yes. Together with the British & the Chinese,
AH> cats are said to be inscrutable...
When do we speak "cats" and when "the cats"? For instance, "The(?)
cats are small animals." or "What do cats think when they look into a
washing machine?" I am somehow not very sure (on the account of the
articles).
AH> OTOH such a remark often tells me more about the observer than it
AH> does about them! Several years ago, for example, Dallas & I watched
AH> a fictional account on TV of what went wrong between Prince Andrew
AH> of the UK & his wife Sarah (AKA "Fergie"). In one particular scene
AH> Fergie screams at the Queen's secretary that he's ruined her
AH> marriage. Without doing a frame- by-frame analysis I can't tell you
AH> exactly what the male actor did to give both of us the same
AH> impression. As a servant this man would be expected to keep his
AH> feelings to himself until asked to offer an opinion, but the actor
AH> let the mask slip just enough to let *us* know he was glad to hear
AH> what Fergie said.... :-)
Probably you just looked at him, and often it is enough to say that
this guy smells of a scoundrel. We can dislike a man just because of his
unpleasant appearance. And in cinema and theater they choose actors so
their appearance to be in line with his role. So the actor could do
nothing special, but if he has a diabolic smile or laugh, for instance,
he can impress you even without words.
ak>> But looking at the cats' faces during such moments we certainly
ak>> can suppose that they are deep in thoughts.
AH> Yes, like the guy who shouted "EUREKA!" in the bathtub...
AH> [chuckle].
IMHO that guy had already invented his law and shouted out just
because of his joy and desire to share the discovery with other people.
ak>> If we consider the first variant we can suppose that when a human
ak>> washes a cat its whole life flashes through its mind and a state
ak>> of consternation is the aftermath of the washing process.
AH> Nice description. People often say their whole lives flashed before
AH> their eyes when they thought they were about to drown... [grin].
I stole this joke from the animation "Chicken Run". The master of
the chicken farm came to a fat hen, just to measure how fat it was, with
a measuring tape. The hen thought that her end had come. It fainted and
said afterwards to her friends, with a weak voice: "All my life flashed
before my eyes!"
AH> The cats I've known certainly seemed to dislike getting wet,
AH> anyway, unless it was their idea! We can use the reflexive for
AH> clarification by saying when, while washing themselves, they
AH> suddenly freeze.
ak>> I can't vouch for the second variant - I've never observed cats
ak>> freezing when they wash themselves.
AH> I have seen them pause in mid-action & gaze into space for a
AH> moment. And when a schoolteacher says "Freeze!" it means s/he wants
AH> all the kids within earshot to stop action... right now this
AH> second. ;-)
We can try to place themselves in cats boots. Probably, we'd find a
more down-to-earth reason. For instance, the cat could catch flees, and
suddenly it realized that the free was not caught, but it was felt
nowhere. This is exactly the time when the cat must take a pause and
feel itself over.
ak>> But who knows - maybe the process wakes up some thoughts inside
ak>> their brains. After all people are often deep in thoughts after
ak>> scratching their heads. ;-)
AH> |there's another idiom..."deep in thought [singular]"
I wonder why there cannot be another idiom "deep in thoughts". It
sounds similar to saying of a student that was deep in books. ;-)
Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
fido7.english-tutor 2013
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