I'm far from the first writer to reflect on the importance of naming cats. T.S. Eliot thought it sacred. Tad Williams, in his Tailchaser's Song, was the first, so far as I know, to recognize that cats have a name for the human world they deign to interact with and a much more revealing name they use among each other.
Our present cats, as I have said, are named Streak and B.B. Streak was named both for the white thatch of hair amongst the gray and for her propensity to run around the house like lubed lightning. B.B. is short for Bug-Butt. After years of devotion to these kitties, they have granted my request to know their Felish names.
A few words of explanation. Felish naming is a delicate affair, and Felish names are incredibly complicated to human ears. They almost always consist of eight or more syllables which are extremely difficult to render into English phonetics, and they can be even harder to translate.
Technically, the first part of every cat's Felish name is 'mrrr' , which is Felish for 'mother' and represents the Great Mother, the ancestor of all cats. However, 'mrrr' is an honorific and is only vocally addressed to cats (both male and female) of great intelligence and distinction.
The second part of the cat's name is a descriptive phrase. It's comparable to the names given to Native Americans, encapsulating something important about each cat's personality or the day of its birth.
The final part of a Felish name is something the cat gives itself when it becomes of age (aftter eight months). It's usually something grand., reflecting the glory of being a cat. But not always. Some domesticated cats name themselves after their attitide towards humans. Without delving into feline sociology too much, it's safe to say that most wild cats, upon hearing such a surname, will react with contempt. But your average tamed tabby will know nothing of that and care less than nothing.
Without further ado, the Felish names of our two cats:
B.B.: Purrowr-blur-KACK-KACK Mrow mrrowr-purrrrble,
"One who swallows hairballs for sport Come love me, Mommy/Daddy!"
Streak: mrrr Mrowr mewrr-yarrow Meow-murr-BLURT!-purrrrrow
"the Esteemed Graybeast I came, I saw, I conquered, and now I need a nap, damnit!
This third cat was presenting problems.
At first, I was thinking C.C. for Coon Cat, or Gracie, for gray Coon Cat. Too boring. Perhaps something cloudy like Wisp or Nimbus? Naw. I observed her skulking, stalking behaviour and decided on Lady Macbeth.
And then Eva noticed that she was as like to stalk her own tail as anything else, or to forget mid-pounce just what she was stalking in the first place. Lady Macbeth was cunning. This cat ain't that..
In fact, the dumbness if this little ball of moron knows no bounds.She accidentally got outside yesterday morning. I only noticed her because I happened to be looking at the gate to the backyard when she arrived at it, stopped for a second, and pondered whether she should try to dig under it, vault over it, or maybe eat it.She decided to scoot between the slats just as I got to her, whereupon we chased her in slow motion for the next fifteen minutes throughout our backyard and that of our neighbour. Total distance travelled from the house? Maybe seventy feet. Any other cat would have been long gone. This one...well, it tried to climb our back fence but didn't know that extending its claws would have given it more purchase, so it kind of did a slow motion somersault. We caught her soon after. Depositing her back inside where she belonged, Eva suddenly announced her name:
Dory.
That's Dory, as in that cute-but-unbelievably-forgetful fish in Finding Nemo. A truer name has never been coined.
I'll let you know her Felish name in a few years, after she feels comfortable enough to divulge it. But I can assure you of one thing: this cat will never be addressed as 'the esteemed'.
No comments:
Post a Comment