PET WORDS

Summer is almost here and lots of baby animals are being born. Would you like to adopt a pet? The word "adopt" comes from two Latin words meaning "to choose" and "pet" comes from the French word petit which means small and is used as a term of endearment. But which pet? Perhaps a puppy. The dog days of summer are in August when the Dog Star, Sirius, is in ascendancy. Some unusual names for dogs from history and fiction include Bulova the Watchdog, Bridgette Bar-dog, and Virginia Woof. Another Virginia, Virginia Graham, once said "Say something idiotic and nobody but a dog politely wags his tail."

A cat or kitten is another choice for adoption. Saki in Tobermory stated, "Cats, those wonderful creatures which have assimilated themselves so marvelously with our civilization while retaining all their highly developed feral instincts." Some cats have retained more feral instincts than others. Many people complain about the number of birds cats kill each year but few complain about the rats and mice similarly exterminated. Unless the mouse or rat is a pet.

"Rats!" is an exclamation of disgust due to the animal's reputation and we say someone looks ratty if they are unkempt. The white rats I've known have been very fastidious although with a strong natural odor. This odor tells a cat when a rat is near and thus to smell a rat means to suspect foul play.

Hunt and Peck

Speaking of fowls, my mother kept two chickens as pets to keep the bugs and caterpillars down in her garden. They were so spoiled they waited at the back door for her to come out to weed or pick vegetables before they would venture into the garden. One might say they were chicken, a term that has been applied to people as early as 1633 to denote a coward. A chick on the other hand is an attractive young woman and a woman no longer young might be referred to as no spring chicken, both phrases dating from the early 1800's. Aesop's Fables gave us the cautionary "Don't count your chickens before they hatch!"

Several types of pets hatch from eggs. Parakeets and canaries are very popular, particularly with people who live in apartments or are allergic to fur. In a graceful haiku poem Masaoka Shiki stated: "When my canary flew away
                                                  That was the end of spring in my house."

The canary was introduced into Europe in the late 16th century from (where else?) the Canary Islands. It is much loved for its sweet song. In the late 19th century a canary was slang for a female singer and later came to denote an informer. Another term for an informer is "stool pigeon" which probably comes in a roundabout way from the French "estale pigeon", a pigeon used to lure a hawk. It first just meant a decoy but later came to be applied to a man who hung around on a stool in a bar picking up gossip as an informer. "Pigeon" in the early 20th century meant a young woman (remember in the Walt Disney movie Tramp called Lady "Pigeon"?). Now it means a dupe.

Snakes also hatch from eggs and some people are quite attached to them. Most slang terms that come from snake references are negative. "Snake oil" refers to the supposed ability of a snake to deceive and became popular around 1925 in the U.S. It refers to a patent medicine of dubious efficacy. A snake in the grass is a deceitful person. Virgil mentioned danger in the form of a snake in the grass in Eclogues ("Latet anguis in herba.") A parallel phrase in the 16th century was a pad in the straw. "Pad" is an old English word for "toad" (the term padlock came into being because it was a lock shaped like a toad) and a toad is poisonous if you try to eat it. A colorful Southern idiom to describe a person of low morals is "lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut!". "Snake eyes" on the other hand means throwing two one pips when rolling dice which usually isn't a bad thing.

Pets help put all of our thoughts and ideas in perspective. Stephen Hawking conveys his view about humanity in the following story:
     A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from           keeping goldfish in curved bowls...saying it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl         with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view       of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of             reality?

Pets help keep us sane even if our view of the world is possibly skewed!