Meowza hoomans,
The story you open your social media feed to is this: The cat has been taken to the dreaded V.E.T., the cat gets the cone of shame and even has to stay at the V.E.T.’s overnight for observation. What a story! A story you say? Yes, a story, a small story.
We are going into feline storytelling in this newsletter. And to warm you up for your monthly 🌿 catnip hit, here is a short poll for you:
Small stories are brief narratives on social media. They are all about people’s lives with people sharing little details of their everyday activities: on-the-go stories, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and breaking news. And of course it’s not just people who tell the stories but also cats.
Following cats and keeping up with their daily shenanigans is fun. Many cats are out there that let us share in their lives. We get images together with short text updates.
In these stories, cats play roles, which are actually the roles that have always been assigned to cats: trickster, guardian, deities, companions, and so on. The humans, too, play their roles: can opener, servant, parent, and others.
Let’s take the story with cat at the vet’s. A visit to the vet’s is a typical occurrence in a cat’s life and other humans as well as cats can well relate to that. Below the shared small story, other cats then put in their paws and send healing vibes. Wishes to get better are one thing, the other thing is “suing the owner for damages” as the cat may be entitled to compensation, i.e. treats and the likes. There are cattorneys and catvocates out there who offer their services to the cat in the comments.
If you want to know more, you can read my blog post here ⬇️
A Sample of the Monthly Meowlogisms
Here are some of the meowlogisms and other catspeak collected in the last month. As per linguistic conventions, the meowphemes making the word feline are written in <>.
Some words are easy to guess, others are more difficult. Let me know if you need a solution to what the original word actually is. 😸
pawffice <paw>
pawmazing <paw>
spokespawson <paw>
purrhaps <purr>
Mewtopia <me(o)w>
Catzilla <cat>
furiends <fur>
furrendly <fur>
purrfekt <purr>
supurrvise <purr>
Meowther's Day <meow>
And some days you can use in the small stories for your cat:
#SunbeamSunday
#CatboxSunday
Caturday eve: Friday
For more examples and linguistics with cats, check out my book 📖 ⬇️