I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of the expression, “Cats have nine lives.” Have you ever wondered where it came from?

Apparently, a huge part of the expression has something to do with the clumsy biped (read: you and me). People are fascinated with cats because of their seeming grace, stealth, and athleticism. Cats are really more tenacious than most creatures, which means that they’re more curious (let’s not insert another expression here, please) and adventurous than other animals. This implies that they get into more fixes than others, because they tend to put themselves at risk. Just imagine them falling off a height and then landing on their feet, and you’ll have an idea on how well they can survive adverse circumstances.

Now, why nine? Let’s bring the explanation to the place where they were revered in the past: Egypt. For starters, their gods were collectively known as the Ennead, or the nine. If that’s not enough, Atum-Ra, said to be a cat-headed god there, is known to have nine lives.

In reality though, cats don’t always end up falling on their feet, as some kitties who end up limping and bruised have found out. So kittens, felines, cats, and kiddies, don’t try this at home.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 7:43 am and is filed under Trivia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.