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Cat phrases
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关于猫的成语
Perhaps because the cat has long been a domestic animal, there are many idioms related to it. "To bell the cat" (采取冒险的行动) means to take an action that is risky. The phrase comes from an old story. A family of mice could get no food because of its fear of a cat. The mice decided that the best thing to do would be to tie a bell around the cat's neck. That would tell them where the cat was. All agreed that it was a splendid idea, until one wise mouse stepped up and asked, "Who will bell the cat?"
There are a number of stories on the beginnings of "to grin like a Cheshire cat" (像柴郡猫那样咧嘴大笑). Most of us first heard of the Cheshire cat from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. When Alice found a large cat in the kitchen grinning from ear to ear, she was indeed surprised. She did not know cats grinned. "Ah," she was told, "but this cat is from Cheshire"---a county in England.
Later, as the cat began to leave the kitchen, its tail went first, and the grin was the last to disappear from sight.
However--as we are told--the mysterious smile of the cat from Cheshire was well known long before Lewis Carroll. It seems that some sign painter created the mystery. He painted a picture of a smiling lion on the sign of an inn in Cheshire. It was a strange smile, for the painter tried to paint a snarling lion.
"To grin like a Cheshire cat" is not as widely used today as it had been in years past. (Part I)
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