• Cats... 2.

    From Ardith Hinton@1:153/716 to alexander koryagin on Fri Mar 2 18:00:57 2018
    Hi, Alexander! Recently you wrote in a message to Roy Witt:

    [re what cats are thinking]
    The answer is of course that nobody knows.


    On the surface of it, yes. Together with the British & the Chinese,
    cats are said to be inscrutable... OTOH such a remark often tells me more about
    the observer than it does about them! Several years ago, for example, Dallas &
    I watched a fictional account on TV of what went wrong between Prince Andrew of
    the UK & his wife Sarah (AKA "Fergie"). In one particular scene Fergie screams
    at the Queen's secretary that he's ruined her marriage. Without doing a frame-
    by-frame analysis I can't tell you exactly what the male actor did to give both
    of us the same impression. As a servant this man would be expected to keep his
    feelings to himself until asked to offer an opinion, but the actor let the mask
    slip just enough to let *us* know he was glad to hear what Fergie said.... :-)



    But looking at the cats' faces during such moments we

    certainly can suppose that they are deep in thoughts.


    Yes, like the guy who shouted "EUREKA!" in the bathtub... [chuckle].



    If we consider the first variant we can suppose that

    when a human washes a cat the whole life flashes through
    |its

    its mind and a state of consternation is the aftermath

    of the washing process.


    Nice description. People often say their whole lives flashed before
    their eyes when they thought they were about to drown... [grin].

    I also like your use of the word "consternation" here. From the POV
    of a scientist we may be anthropomorphizing, i.e. attributing feelings (perhaps
    incorrectly) to other species on the basis of how we might feel if we were in a
    similar situation. While I can't say exactly what's going on in the cat's mind
    I know from personal experience that the cat will try to escape & the scratches
    on the bather's arms may take weeks to heal. In short stories where every word
    is important I'd give "consternation" full marks for functional elegance. :-))

    The cats I've known certainly seemed to dislike getting wet, anyway,
    unless it was their idea! We can use the reflexive for clarification by saying

    when, while washing themselves, they suddenly freeze.



    I can't vouch for the second variant - I've never observed

    cats freezing when they wash themselves.


    I have seen them pause in mid-action & gaze into space for a moment.
    And when a schoolteacher says "Freeze!" it means s/he wants all the kids within
    earshot to stop action... right now this second. ;-)



    But who knows - maybe the process wakes up some thoughts

    inside their brains. After all people are often

    deep in thoughts after scratching their heads. ;-)
    |there's another idiom... "deep in thought [singular]"


    Such repetitive motions can help people relax & enhance the activity
    of alpha rhythms in the brain. That's one way to stimulate intuitive thinking,
    and improve their chances of a "brainwave". Maybe it works with cats too. :-)




    --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)
  • From alexander koryagin@2:5020/400 to Ardith Hinton on Wed Jun 20 14:51:04 2018
    From: alexander koryagin <koryagin@erec.ru>

    Hi, Ardith Hinton!
    I read your message from 18.06.2013 23:52

    [re what cats are thinking]
    The answer is of course that nobody knows.
    On the surface of it, yes. Together with the British & the Chinese,
    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).

    OTOH such a remark often tells me more about the observer than it
    does about them! Several years ago, for example, Dallas & I watched
    a fictional account on TV of what went wrong between Prince Andrew
    of the UK & his wife Sarah (AKA "Fergie"). In one particular scene
    Fergie screams at the Queen's secretary that he's ruined her marriage. Without doing a frame- by-frame analysis I can't tell you exactly what the male actor did to give both of us the same impression. As a servant this man would be expected to keep his feelings to himself until asked to offer an opinion, but the actor
    let the mask slip just enough to let *us* know he was glad to hear
    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.

    But looking at the cats' faces during such moments we certainly
    can suppose that they are deep in thoughts.
    Yes, like the guy who shouted "EUREKA!" in the bathtub... [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.

    If we consider the first variant we can suppose that when a human
    washes a cat its whole life flashes through its mind and a state
    of consternation is the aftermath of the washing process.

    Nice description. People often say their whole lives flashed before
    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!"

    <skipped>
    The cats I've known certainly seemed to dislike getting wet, anyway, unless it was their idea! We can use the reflexive for clarification by saying when, while washing themselves, they suddenly freeze.
    I can't vouch for the second variant - I've never observed cats
    freezing when they wash themselves.
    I have seen them pause in mid-action & gaze into space for a moment. And when a schoolteacher says "Freeze!" it means s/he wants
    all the kids within earshot to stop action... right now this 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.

    But who knows - maybe the process wakes up some thoughts inside
    their brains. After all people are often deep in thoughts after
    scratching their heads. ;-)
    |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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