Evolving Language: How to Talk About Cats

A magnificent floofy cloud...
Image from Sheryl Leigh, via Wikimedia (public domain).

I use the internet a lot. I use it for work and I use it for leisure. I use it to keep me in touch with my friends and family, and to stay updated with the news. I use it for instant alerts on the progress of my sports team (sometimes there’s no progress and therefore no alerts) and most of all, it sometimes seems to me, I use it to look at pictures of cats.

There are fat cats and thin cats, smart cats and cats that are what we’d call in Scotland “thick as mince”. There are appealing cats and appalling cats. There are cats in high places — such as Larry the Number 10 cat, Palmerston the “diplomog” and other governmental felines with their own Twitter feeds. Some of my happiest places in the sewer that social media can be are Facebook groups where people post random photographs of strange cats, or of their own pets.

As I’ve tripped merrily through this forest of feline felicity, I’ve noticed a strange thing. It’s to do with language. Cats, when they’re not slaying you with a look, are more than capable of communicating via meows and hisses and chirps or, in the case of my own elderly moggy, deafening wails in the dead of night, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about how we, their humble servants, talk about cats.

Language evolves and it fascinates me to watch it in action. Cats in general might be known as cattos rather than cats, or sometimes as floofs, a word often preceded by the adjective “majestic”. Those with long fur, especially all white, all black or all grey, are fondly referred to as clouds.

Look closely: this cat has a blep

I have learned that when a cat sits with its tongue out, that’s a blep. If the tongue flips in and out in a lapping movement, that’s a mlem. (You get a lot of extra likes if you post a photograph of a cat doing either of these.)

 There’s more. Look at the soles of your cat’s paws. Look at the pads. Those are what we initiates know as toe beans or jelly bean paws. And if you see a very large cat, the chances are (regardless of gender) that it’s a thicc boi, also known as a chonk or choink. (For some reason these last two are often capitalised.)

I’m sure other animal groups develop their own language. In fact, I know they do, because sometime I venture into rabbit — sorry, bun — circles, where I have learned the difference between a binky and a sploot.

I love seeing how people develop their own secret languages to cover their own interests…and I wonder how long it will be before some of these terms make it into the dictionary, if they haven’t already. And what about my readers. Do you have any favourite (repeatable) words?

Apology: dear spellchecker, I’m very sorry. I know this article almost broke you…


Jo Allen