Today we are taking a break from our interviews with the totally pawsome cats we have met. But don’t worry. They’ll be back next month when we talk to the folks at Three Chatty Cats.
Mom finally brought home a decent book. It’s called Catopedia: A Fascinating Collection of Feline Curiosities. It’s all about cats, so of course it’s fascinating. Unlike those human books she usually gets.
Snoops: So Kommando, what did you think of the Catopedia?
Kommando: It was really good, but it needed better editing. A lot of the words were misspelled. Too many “u’s” and “s” where there should have been some other letter.
Snoops: That’s because the lady who wrote it, Justine Hankins, is British.
Kommando: That’s like English, right? Like the language? If the lady is from the same place as the language, why can’t she spell right?
Snoops: Moving along, what else do you remember?
Kommando: Well, I didn’t think it was very nice of her to insult us.
Snoops: She doesn’t even know us.
Kommando: It doesn’t matter. She called us moggies.
Snoops: That’s not an insult. It just means we don’t have pedigrees.
Kommando: Nope. You’re wrong. Look at what it says on page 66: “Initially a variant on the woman’s name Maggie, a name which was given to cows from the 18th century and was also used to describe a scruffy woman.” I am not a cow. Nor am I scruffy.
Snoops: It’s nothing personal. I’m sure if she met you, she’d know you were a cat.
Kommando: That’s not the point. Did you notice that it rhymes with doggy? She better not come over here and call me that. I’ll shed on her.
Snoops: I’ll be sure to let her know. I thought it was really interesting that in the 10th century King Hywel Dda of Wales said that if you killed someone’s cat you had to pay them enough grain to physically cover the whole cat.
Kommando: Wow. I wonder what I’d be worth?
Snoops: Less than me. I’m bigger.
Kommando: It probably would have been better to have been a mouser for the Royal Mail. The book says that they were paid a shilling a week between 1868 and 1984. Just think, if all those cats put their money together they could have bought land. By the end, they would have had enough to get one of those seats in government.
Snoops: I don’t think they sell government seats.
Kommando: Are you sure?
Snoops: I was a little disappointed to see that the 10 Cat Museums they listed didn’t have a single one that is run by a cat.
Kommando: Probably because the book is for people. People aren’t interested in the good stuff.
Snoops: People are a little weird sometimes.
Kommando: Did you see that Kitty Litter was invented by a guy here in Michigan?
Snoops: Good thing since Mom and Dad won’t let us go outside.
Kommando: Yeah. But now they make it out of clay, wood pellets, recycled paper, silica gel (whatever that is, it sounds disgusting, like going on Jello), walnut shells and whole kernel corn.
Snoops: Walnut shells and whole corn? What about our delicate little paws?
Kommando: I wonder if the humans have tried going on it?
Snoops: Probably not. They seem to like that soft stuff on a roll.
Kommando: Did you notice that Queen Victoria likes cats? That’s good for us.
Snoops: It would be if she wasn’t dead. The current one is a dog person.
Kommando: That’s unfortunate.
Snoops: It’s OK. A lot of the government buildings have official mousers. Those cats live in nice houses.
Kommando: I guess those British people are OK.
Rating:
(Kommando refused to give two paws up to a book that called her a cow.)
Proceeds from the sale of the Catopedia go to the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in London, est.1860. If you are interested, you can learn more about them here.
(pictures courtesy of Google Images – except the one of us)
Adventures in Cheeseland 
When we were still living in Minnesota, we got a rescue cat who’d been misnamed Angel by someone who (a) didn’t understand her and (b) abandoned her, and we thought she needed a name change to go with her new home. Our New Zealand friend came over and said, “Oh, you’ve got a moggy.” The name stuck–Moggy she was, even after we moved to Britain where our cat was, effectively, named Kitty.
In the U.S., people couldn’t really hear the word and turned it into Maggie and Muggy. So even if it was a silly name in Britain, at least no one called her Muggy anymore.
And the people knew it was a real word.
Exactly. And if they wondered why we used it as a name–and I’m sure they did–they were too polite to say so.
Which is how you could tell you were in Britain and not here.
I didn’t know that’s where the word “moggy” originated from…I always say Domestic Short Hair-much more polite 😸x
Kommando appreciates your discretion. 🙂
Sorry, but we’re with Kommando on this one. A cow? Really? We never liked dat word, moggie. And now we know why. MOL Big hugs fur all.
Luv ya’
Dezi and Raena
Kommando here – I appreciate your support.
Yeah, I don’t like how it rhymes with doggie. But I like that it sounds pretty. I’m on the fence. I wonder if British tuna tastes better than American tuna?
hmm – good question