
FYI - For Your Inglés
Hello, English explorers! Welcome to FYI (For Your Inglés)! You'll learn so much more than just English in this weekly show. We delve into a wide range of fascinating topics. No topic is too tough to tackle: jeans, dogs, sneakers, Central Park, wine, Area 51, essential verbs, and etc. Send me suggestions for topics you'd like to hear about in future episodes. I'd love to hear from you. My aim is to educate, enlighten, and entertain you, all at the same time. Have fun while learning about spectacular stuff in English! For exclusive bonus content in our curious community check out my https://patreon.com/albertoalonso *Intro music = Souvenir by Augusto Hernandez
FYI - For Your Inglés
Cats
They’ve been called everything from cute to crafty, picky to playful, laidback to lovable, mellow to mischievous, naughty to needy, frisky to furry, and even sneaky and snuggly. You can describe our funny feline friends however you’d like, but one thing is for certain; they have captured a place in our hearts and homes. Today, we’ll contemplate these crazy creatures called cats on today’s FYI!
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[Music] they've been called everything from cute to crafty picky to playful laid back to lovable mellow to mischievous naughty to needy frisky to furry and even sneaky and snuggly you can describe our funny feline friends however you'd like but one thing is for certain they have captured a place in our hearts and homes today we'll contemplate these crazy creatures called cats on today's f y i welcome to for your info english you got it[Applause][Music] hello hello hello everybody and welcome to another exciting edition of the fyi podcast for your info for your english and we've got a great show for you today in fact this is the second time that we've had a special guest on the show and i'm really really excited to welcome her so let's get right into it ladies and gentlemen please welcome one of my favorite teachers online please welcome suzanne hello suzanne hey hi alberto thanks so much for having me on your show i can't believe i'm actually finally doing this but here we are yes it took me a while to talk you into it right to combine fed to talk you into it absolutely absolutely and uh yeah uh you gave in fedeistic i did i did i did give in i thought it's now or never i have to leave my comfort zone and yeah give it a shot so i think this is this is a good lesson to our students who are listening leave your comfort zone even us teachers have to do that at times right that's what they say the the magic is on the other side of your comfort zone apparently so we shall we shall see but but today we're going to be well within your comfort zone because we're going to be talking about a topic that you know quite a bit about well because you're a cat lover i am indeed i am indeed when what made you become a cat lover when did you first get interested in cats right i've always been an animal lover but i would say that my love affair with cats began when i was quite little and we had our first pet cats and that's when they put their their spell on me because um i think cats are a little bit magical don't you yeah they've always been associated with magic you know in disney movies and things like this i think of cats as having like some mystical or magical abilities right absolutely right so when i was a kid when i was quite little we had a couple of cats when we used to live in cyprus and i think that's where it started started off this fascination with them and then in my teens and in my early 20s or most of my 20s we didn't have any pets and so when i finally got cats again i was just over the moon i was absolutely thrilled to get to get cats again so you've you had cats as a kid then well due to circumstances in life you didn't have cats but cats are back in your life so you couldn't keep away from cats is what you're saying absolutely not they had their claws into me ah good good i like that yes a warning for everyone i think there's going to be there are going to be quite a few feline puns in this show so claws in you i love it i love it you're coming with the jokes already suzanne now wait a second we're talking about your love for cats but maybe our listeners right now don't know who you are why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself okay so my name's suzanne suzanne edie and i am originally from north london but i live near barcelona and i've lived here for about 20 or so years and i am a stay-at-home mom and i teach english for free on social media now this is where you the the plug you have to tell us where we can follow you on social media so you can follow me um mostly at where i'm most active is on twitter and that's english smarts aroba english smarts don't forget the s at the end of smart remember smart cars that helps and i also will put a link too in the show notes so people can follow suzanne english smarts perfect i learn things from your account every day i'll tell you that thank you very much that's perfect i don't know you know there's another pun suzanne you're not an english teacher you're a comedian you can't lie to me now to explain the pun that you just made right there perfect right well i think the listeners will know what perfect means but her is the sound that a cat makes when it's content and it's the most it's the most beautiful sound the snap thing sounds absolutely it is so soothing and i think this is where cats have one up on on dogs dogs don't purr dogs are amazing dogs are wonderful but dogs don't purr and i think i don't know what the scientific um basis is but um it does reduce our heart rate when we like stroke[Laughter] see guys she used the word per i think in spanish that's a difficult one to say to her and she said perfect all right well suzanne you are upping the ante over here i've got to come back at you with some jokes eventually all right so guys follow suzanne it's english smarts and you have a couple other accounts too you want to give us any other links or accounts that we should follow of yours okay i have um i am um active on other accounts but twitter is where i'm most active but i also have a blog which is called dot recipesforenglish.com okay recipes for english dot com and you can also follow suzanne on twitter where she's very active and that's english smarts aroba at english smarts i highly recommend you follow suzanne um all right well suzanne let's look at the intro as you can see i'm sure you knew this already uh i mean just given my name i'm a guy who loves alliteration alberto alonso do you like alliteration or do you think this isn't overused as a as somebody who knows a bit about languages i i love it too i think it sounds great and it's used throughout literature it's very powerful yeah why not and you remember it yeah yeah you're more likely to remember something if there's alliteration i think anyway absolutely repetition in general helps us remember absolutely all right so let's look at it i i looked up this was incredible i was uh when i was researching i looked up uh cat adjectives and i think i found over 175 adjectives to describe these crazy creatures so uh there's no doubt that we love cats uh let's take a look at some of the ones i said in the intro they've been called everything from cute cute is like mono in spanish right uh sometimes we use cute to talk about babies or puppies as well crafty now how would we describe this this is a good one here crafty suzanne oh thanks give me well how would you like passing the back okay crafty i think of foxes when i think of crafty sure and um cunning um sneaky actually come slide like like you're plotting to do something sure like you're plotting to take over the world or something that's what people who don't like cats think you know but well they do look like they're they do look like they're plotting to take over the world now i don't know if they're really crafty but uh yeah another way we could say is devious too but i think it's just the way they walk and the way they move around that uh sometimes people can think they're this way all right uh picky are cats picky or is this just a stereotype vicky you mean regarding food they're very fussy yeah they're fussy like what they like okay alfie is pretty fussy with his with his food i have to say we often have to change it because he'll he'll love something for a while for several weeks and then we buy lots of tins of it and then you open it one day this tin and he doesn't want it anymore and he wants something completely different so he is a little bit picky he's a little bit fussy sometimes but we love him he's fantastic of course then playful is another one especially when i think of kittens kittens are baby cats uh i think of playful juggerton in spanish right[Music] are cats laid back they're pretty chilled out in general right garfield was laid back wasn't he is laid back yeah he hated mondays he was laid back tranquilo lovable yeah what about love absolutely yes yes i know there are some cats sorry i'm i know there are some cats that people would say that they're nasty and not lovable but it's like humans you know not every human is lovable are they so there you go right it's true well again we're stereotyping and these came from a list of 165 different adjectives so i had to choose some and since i chose the ones that had double alliteration well i went with these but again these are are words that we can use to describe humans as well the next one mellow mellow is somebody who is not very nervous or or anxious they're pretty relaxed mellow and some cats are mellow as well mischievous do you pronounce this like me suzanne i do mischievous but when i was a kid i would say mischievous i've heard people say mischievous as well so that's why it's interesting this is uh an interesting word i'm not sure that's correct because i'm pretty sure i got corrected when i was a kid for saying that it's devious it sounds good though doesn't it i say mischievous you say mischievous tomato tomato let's call the whole thing off all right naughty now this one can have a double meaning too because naughty is you're a bad boy or a bad girl but also naughty can have uh let's say a sexual meaning as well so i wasn't referring to that one when i was talking about cats by the way[Laughter] but you did come up with frisky and i kind of associate frisky and naughty in the in the other sense in the sexual sense frisky right or not necessarily yeah but those are two words that can describe people like think about playful too i mean that can be people as well so um again these are great adjectives to describe not only cats so we've got naughty needy i i know a few people who are needy too somebody who's needy do we all they always need attention they always need you to pay attention and to listen to them they are needy and are cats needy i think dogs can be needier right the cats i've had i don't don't think they were needy no no i don't know if we'll keep that one on the list all right we'll take them outside we might take that one off you guys can use the word to describe people but not cats okay the next frisky is a little bit like juggerton frisky naughty furry contello furry that's a good word to know yeah i like that one because they're our furry friends when we talk about animals in general sometimes we talk about our furry friends you know and our kids have fairy toys there you go absolutely little kids anyway sure and sneaky is arc they come on you can't say cats aren't sneaky because they need to be because they're hunters that's right i'm a cat advocate so i'm going to stick up for these for these lovely felines different dead great words so sneaky and then the last one is snuggly which could be like cuddly as well and that's uh is your cat snuggly alfie yeah alfie is very snuggly one of our cats uh lily was not so snuggly but in general the cats we've had yeah you can cuddle up cuddle up with them and yeah on a cold winter's day snuggle up on the sofa with a purring cat and you're in heaven guys some really good vocabulary already on the podcast um also i want to remind you guys if you want to get this vocabulary if you are a patron and you subscribe you can get access to vocabulary sheets and follow along with all the vocabulary that we're going to look at in this part of the show and also in the bonus part of the show which is exclusively for patrons and suzanne by the way thank you you're one of my patrons i am i am of course i am i have to support you in this venture of yours yeah i thank you and it's great stuff it's great stuff yeah so yeah i wouldn't just just uh be a be a would i be a patron i wouldn't just be a patron to anyone thank you so much i i really appreciate it if you guys want to join suzanne and tons of other people who have joined our exclusive online community you can find out more at patreon.com slash alberto alonso and as i said you can get a bonus episode every week you can also get pdfs with vocabulary tons of expressions classes with me both weekly and monthly so if you want to find out more it's patreon.com alberto alonso and in fact today since we've got suzanne with us who is a fellow patron we're going to make the second part the bonus part of the show free for everybody today what do you think suzanne yeah go for it yeah let's do it give it the green light of course i do that that's fantastic right great great all right so uh then i said you can describe our funny feline friends however you'd like but one thing is for certain or one thing is for sure they've captured a place in our hearts and our homes and what is it what do you think it is about cats that has made them so popular in our hearts and our homes and in our feeds on youtube on twitter what is the secret to the success of cats globally there's lots of things okay apart from being magical in a good way they they're hilarious if you've ever owned a cat you will know that they're hilarious they're always doing funny things getting up to all these antics because they're very curious they're very curious creatures and um what else do we love about them they're they're just fascinating to to watch because it's like having uh a tiger or a lion at home because they're not actually not that different well they are different but they have the same behavior in many in many ways yeah but i read a figure here and it could be wrong i mean you can't believe everything you read on the internet but i read that a house cat the common house cat is genetically 95.6 percent tiger so they are little tigers running around your house who said they are and less dangerous i guess right and they're just perfect for videos that's why there are so many videos on on youtube because they are always up to crazy stuff i think cats i think that my my personal opinion is i think they are unpredictable and they do crazy funny things and they're showmen they're they're entertainers they're natural when they see the camera go on they know that they have to be cute or funny or jump or do something crazy this is how they have wormed their way into our hearts this is darwinism they have endeared and well um the meow apparently they don't meow to they don't meow to other cats they meow to us they've used the meow to you know get their way to get us to give them food to to give them you know home comfort and all that right i'm reading that here so uh meow which is in spanish they developed this skill this sound to be able to communicate with humans so they get excuse me did i say communicate i meant manipulate it's the battle of cat versus dog i can i can see it yeah yeah well you know what uh i may be a dog lover but if you'd if you've noticed i am not denying the power of the cat people often ask the question are you a are you a cat person or your dog person and that kind of bugs me because i bet there's loads of people listening to this that will feel the same way as me why do you have to choose right right i absolutely adore both cats and dogs um they are apples and oranges sure uh that's all that's what we say about comparing things that are totally different um but you can love them both sure sure so we are going to we're going to make you a cat lover by the end of this show i i i love cats i just you know what it is in my home i guess i can't have both because it's small a and who knows if they're going to get along or get on like you say in england i think your uncle has a cat that you shared shared a picture of him recently oh yeah my mother like death death rays or something yeah just yeah using that as a case in point there this is why partly why cats i think are misunderstood it's because they don't have as many expressions as as dogs and you can't it's often very difficult to work out what they're thinking and i think we yeah we misinterpret what what the cat what the cat is thinking it's normal we don't speak cat we we you know they can't actually talk to us but i think that's partly why so many people dislike them although there are millions of people that love cats there are millions of people that just don't get cats i want to say this though i mean i don't know the figures out there but uh i think there are more cat lovers in the world than dog lovers but i i agree with what you said why can't we just be animal lovers and and that's something that you said yourself you're an animal lover and generals while we're at it while we're on the topic we'll go a little bit off topic what other animals are you into besides cats i really love i love everything apart from uh let's say cockroaches and and certain creepy crawlies like i know you have scorpions in spain and i'm very glad i've never come across one have you seen a scorpion here uh i had a pet scorpion in fact when i was in how did you yeah i was a little bit sick and twisted no not at all i think no i i think it's great that people have interest in uh unusual creatures obviously yeah some of them you shouldn't keep at home but and did you could you pick it up um i i they said i could but the guy who sold it to me had like six piercings in his head and and i was just kind of like you know what i'm not going to take his word for it anyway so it wasn't it wasn't that speaking of uh what was the word we said before snuggly and cuddly let's put it this way if you want to snuggle or cuddle with your pet don't get a scorpion but interesting i know what you mean the non-traditional pets as long as it's in the legal limits i'm always when i hear this news about people having you know alligators kaimanes in new york city i'm like come on that's just cruelty there you know then they end up in the sewers somehow oh yeah yeah well they find their own revival they'll find food whatever it is um all right so cats there's no doubt we're i think we all agree whether you're a dog lover cat lover or just a general animal lover cats are the kings and uh they've made it there just gotta look at youtube and see who's got the most views and that's cats but where did it all start i always like to look at the the history the foundations uh now usually people talk about egypt this is a word by the way a lot of my students mispronounce they say egypt but careful guys it's egypt egypt and uh yeah you've heard this right that in egypt they domesticated the cat it's a very well known uh fact right i didn't actually know that i wasn't sure that they'd domesticated them but i did know that they um revered cats revered is that they like worship them like some people worship messi or um jesus christ or christianity or exactly yeah okay um the the ancient egyptians worshiped cats right and if you could i think i even remember seeing hieroglyphics as a kid like in school books where there were cats depicted as part of their home and they were buried with their cats but you know what it goes they mummified them oh right exactly that's true as well just like now i guess the egyptians because right now anybody who's got a cat or a dog or any pet considers that pet part of the family and the egyptians i think even they were on a pedestal a part pardon the pun but these these cats were put on a pedestal but it wasn't egypt even though egypt they were the predecessors of many many things in 2004 uh french archaeologists discovered a 9 000 500 year olds almost 10 000 years old uh 9 500 year old cat grave duma in cyprus a place you mentioned before in fact okay i was born in cyprus did i mention that that's when i had my first cats anyway that that's where the fascination i think um started and and that's also where i learned that cats aren't always cuddly one day i heard my mum screaming in the kitchen and i ran into the kitchen and the cat had brought in a grass snake and the and the snake was still wriggling i mean grass snakes are harmless my mom was screaming anyway and yeah and it was wriggling across the floor and and the cats would bring in a little they would bring in like dead lizards and things like that which sounds very icky but that's they are hunters that's what they do many people think like they're bringing it to you as like this little little gift for for you look at look at this look what i got and i read that apparently it's the cat saying look here you are i'm i'm showing you um that i've hunted it for you because you're a lousy hunter they think you're a lousy hunter that's why they brought it to you they're trying to help you out because you can't take care of yourself good word defend for yourself a poor human let me bring him some food well you know what i want to look at an idiom now that you said that in idiomatic expression and we're going to look at some more idiomatic expressions in the bonus part of today's show but it reminded me of the expression look what the cat dragged in you know this very you use this one in england we know it very well it's it yes a very well-known phrase i personally i don't know if would i use it um but i've heard it definitely in movies a lot it's like it's very disapproving yeah it's like look you know i think it's like a good way to describe it is like you guys are all hanging out and your friend who always gets there late arrives and everybody says oh look what the cat dragged in you know look who just came through the door finally you know that kind of and as you said it's got a negative too like oh my god let's see what the cat dragged in today yeah i can imagine it on um what's that series that you have um the housewives in the states like outsides of new jersey or something etc etc i can kind of picture it like some of them are because it's very catty it's very very [ __ ] very catty you can imagine them all together um well some of them together and one of the ladies comes into their party or whatever and then looking at looking and saying huh look where the cat dragged in very sarcastic look who just came in the door and it's not a positive way of saying it unless again you're being sarcastic with your friends and i love the word caddy you said too it's another word that we use and we're going to look at that guys in the second part and the bonus part which i said is today going to be free for everybody uh we'll be looking at more expressions and uh words that we get from felines from cats uh so amazing i can't believe that 9 000 almost 10 000 years old we've got proof of cats uh living among us and oh here's another thing i wanted to talk about if you were a cat wouldn't you rather be an anglo an english or an american cat than a spanish cat suzanne um you've lost me why'd you say why do you think they're treated better over there than here well i don't know about you when i played video games i always wanted an extra two lives ah gotcha yes okay what is it why why in spain do cats only have they only have seven lives right yeah that's why i asked you for us they have no i yeah you lost me i'm sorry i didn't follow your lead there where are you no lead yeah i got you i gotcha so obviously we the joke was that we would i think anybody in their right mind anybody of sane mind would say that they would prefer to be a cat that was born in the united states or in england because our cats have nine lives but here for some reason they only have seven in spain you know they've been short-changed good word i don't know guys if you know the answer please write to me i'd love to hear from you uh and and i'll share it with susan or write to suzanne tweet it speaking of you know cats and culture what about the black cat what what do you think when i say black cat suzanne well i obviously i love black cats but it's very um but very sadly um there's a lot of superstition around uh surrounding black cats because through the centuries or especially in the middle ages they were associated with witchcraft okay if you think of halloween you think of pumpkins you think of witches you think of skeletons and you think of a black cat don't you right yes i mean you even have black cat costumes and things so i i think that uh that attitude towards black cats still continues today and for well it does it does i know that um this is really sad actually animal shelters have um problems homing black cats oh because because of these attitudes that still persist today it's pretty sad you know that we still are held back by these these superstitions i mean sabrina sabrina was was a good witch wasn't she i didn't watch sabrina but i know that uh that the tv series she had a black cat and everything was fun funky no hunky dory hunky dory thank you dory not funky dory the english english speakers make mistakes don't worry we're human too guys i hate to say this because it's not the time to make jokes but we're racist even with cats we are we are we really and we really are you know unbelievable i believe so but as i think you said in some cultures black cats aren't a symbol of bad luck they're symbol of good luck right yes that's right apparently in japan if uh if a cat crosses your path it's a sign of good luck whereas uh in america i think if it crosses your path in spain if it crosses your path a black cat no good bad luck it's a bad bad bad omen ah jinx we have to say jinx because we said the word at the same time right jake explain that one explain jinx jinxes when the when you say a word at the same time you say jinx which is also another word that means gaffe like when you talk about something bad that's gonna happen and then it happens you jinxed it interesting stuff suzanne i've as i said i'm not i'm more of a dog person but i've be i'm becoming more of a cat lover and you know what there's more than just one kind of cat rathas we say breeds uh they're what i was reading is there are 44 different breeds of cats is that true i don't know i know that because you told me that so i'm gonna take your word for it uh i can believe it i can believe it i can think of some off the top of my head abyssinian bengal siamese manx manx cats have no tails i think oh interesting i don't know how that came about um but i can tell you about the persian cat they many persian cats are used in memes or is it mems mems memes memes yeah these are the cats that look very grumpy oh yeah they're the ones i mean apparently apparently they um you know human we say we thought cats are bad but humans have bred persian cats to to have some extreme ex um like facial features okay that they they don't actually have um as far as i know okay disclaimer we're not cat experts here um they don't actually have a snub nose naturally a snub nose is narith chatter and so they have this expression that looks like they're permanently grumpy and they're you know this explains again why people don't quite understand cats they think that cats are maybe grumpy when they're not it's just they were born that way right you know and also i mean we're talking about the word breed it's ratha but to breed as you said before is also to to procreate so this i think happens too there's been a lot of over breeding with dogs and cats and you know trying to like make these as you said like these uh almost perfect quote-unquote animals to their liking and it doesn't work like that in fact i think this is a perfect time because we have to get going uh and take a quick break before the free bonus part today guys um but i think this is a good time to talk about adopting um how to you know how to go about maybe you know taking a cat into your home can you give us any advice on um how to go about doing it or what to do if we find a stray cat maybe on the street when it comes to a stray cat on the street i would be quite wary about taking one into my my home um and i would recommend that people actually if they want to adopt a cat that they go and get one from a shelter why is this because if you go to a shelter the staff at the shelter um get familiar with the cats and they know what kind of personality the cat has what temperament it has right this is really important when you're you know when you're deciding on on adopting any animal it helps if you know a little bit about you know their temperament before you take it home and find out that it's a complete crazy right and also that they have their shots you know for rabies or whatever shots they may need or you know that they're well taken care of you just don't want to take a stray cat but you can probably report it i'm sure in the united states we have something called animal control i don't know in spain uh in the uk we have the rspca yeah i've always wondered about that i don't know if do you have a body like the rsbc yeah we have spca they're a little bit different they protect animals but there we have animal control like if you have i grew up in the woods so if there was a bear or something literally i swear to god i grew up having breakfast looking at bears so you know we would have uh all kinds of animals that the best thing to do is obviously to adopt um because there are many uh cats out there looking for a home they won't just have a a place in your home they'll also find uh a place in your heart forever and uh well we we've got to take a quick break but uh what we're gonna do guys uh in the second part of the show we're going to look at some cat vocabulary we're also going to look at some idioms that come from cats we'll look at cats in pop culture some fun facts and we're also going to look at a cat that was the mayor el alcalde of a small town we'll also see what isaac newton had to do with cats and we'll also talk about the first cat in space all that and much more in the second part of today's f y i[Music][Applause][Music] hello hello hello everybody and welcome back to this the bonus part of today's fyi and as i said it's totally free for everybody now remember if you want access to the bonus stuff every single week all you have to do is become a patron over at patreon.com slash alberto alonso and speaking of my patrons i want to send a special thank you to them because without them this would not be possible this is a self-produced podcast i do this in my spare time and thanks to the 78 people who follow me this bonus part and the pdfs and the classes and all the extra stuff is available so let's send all of my patrons a shout out especially my super duper students john jose maria carolina eva mila deside alex patricio edgar and lolas and don't forget about my interstellar students carmen pilar and diana so thank you thank you thank you patrons and if you guys want to find out more just visit my patreon page patreon.com alberto alonso and if you want more information you can even ask my special guest suzanne suzanne you're a patron do you recommend it 100 well i have to say that because you're sitting right in front of me you better i wouldn't subscribe if it wasn't worth it yes absolutely go do it all right not right now listen to this first and then go into it listen to this and be blown away and then say i've got to subscribe because i want to find out about interesting topics every single week and not just that think about adopting a cat please a black one hey if you adopt a cat and learn english wow i hope this will be a really life-changing show for you all right so let's get back into this week's topic which is cats and there's no doubt about it cats have taken over the world they have uh their goal is world domination and they have done it well at least as i said they've dominated youtube but uh they've seeped into every aspect of our pop culture from musicals to cartoons so let's look at some of those uh suzanne any come to mind uh any famous cats come to mind the first one i think of actually is tom and tom and jerry i don't know if anybody watches that anymore because is it on tv anymore it's not correct anymore yeah it's wonderful it's wonderful you have to see tom and jerry that is a classic of course i how could i forget about tom and jerry which one was the cat tom was the cat right tom was the cat thomas the cat who was obviously always trying to catch the mouse with the jerry with uh it was very he had he was very accident prone in his uh in his attempts to catch jerry good word there accident prone propenso accidentes vamos torpe clumsing he was wasn't he um yes yeah and and that reminds me of an idiom it's a cat and mouse game right it's a cat and mouse game it's such you know a bit of a chase you know you gotta go after and uh chase as a as a cat would do with a mouse right like in a detective show or something exactly playing a game of cat and mouse with the the serial killer for example who what what do you think is the most famous cat in pop culture hello kitty hello is today's probably today is the one that springs to mind yeah hello kitty i mean because hello kitty is famous all over the world i remember when i was in japan it's like a religion there hello kitty and you can get all kinds of uh merchandise with with uh hello kitty on it i've even i have to admit i confess i have hello kitty pajamas cats the musical i mean this was one of the most longest running this was one of the longest running musicals on broadway and it was about cats i believe it's andrew lloyd webber was the composer are you familiar with the musical i am indeed i went to see it right at the beginning which is um a long time ago you saw the original cast i saw it right was it the original cast i'm not sure but i saw it you know pretty much at the beginning i remember going to the theater with school and um that's what i love about you know school in london is you you uh often have trips to to the west end and and we went to see cats wonderful wonderful speaking of plays there's the classic cat on a hot tin roof speaking of cats i mean there's cats everywhere in our cartoons in our theaters uh on our clothing as we said what about garfield he was a cranky kind of moody cat wasn't he i'm not so familiar with garfield uh he's he's more of an american well he's an american guy he's a cartoon cartoon strip yeah he was a comic strip and also it was a cartoon as well on tv and uh garfield was really famous and i think one of his catch phrases was don't like mondays like he was he was just cranky all the time he was a cranky cat that's the boomtown rats isn't it absolutely absolutely you said it first send us your answers listeners and what about the one now antonio banderas even played a cat didn't he a famous one which i think caught the attention of many people both in english and in spanish oh yes put some boobs yeah which was spin off of shrek because wasn't that puss and boots part of shrek was from their prison boots was in shrek right and then they did the spin-off film and and uh yeah he was i thought he was very good so look at that cats are so popular that in the movie shrek it was the only one that got their own spin off and there was a lot of cool animals and now come to think of it that's one of the okay garfield is okay it's kind of a positive uh way of looking at a cat but generally cats in movies have been shown to be villains or they're really aggressive and i think this kind of this is perpetuating um the fact that you know people think that cats are not to be trusted if you think you know ladies sure lady and the [ __ ] those two siamese cats we are siamese if you really remember that one sure they were really they were kind of creepy and i love cats and i love siamese cats and i and i have siamese cats right and yeah but they were creepy that so they're like vilified or they're often portrayed in hollywood as like evil or not to be trusted as you said vidified very nice but really anybody who has a cat or in their family somebody has a cat knows that they're not these evil creatures it's all hollywood you know i think as you said before they're the way they express themselves the way they move it's just i think you could even say sleek they only move when they need to and in the way they need to i love the way cats move it's very interesting stealthy selfie is a good word isn't it moving around in a way that people aren't gonna hear or see you and also if you're gonna if you're hunting you have to be stealthy we've seen those documentaries of lions you know crouching down to um you know lying in wait for a poor gazelle to go past or whatever sure they're stalking their prey as they say which is something that cats are doing and even if that prey is a toy uh they they are stalking it as if it were you know an animal in the jungle which is great that's what part of what makes them so interesting exactly that's why they're so entertaining i was going to say that that's why they're fun to watch when you observe a cat when you have one at home and you watch it behaving like a big cat it's fascinating it's fascinating and very funny which i've already said they do funny things they're funny little feline friends all right well let's look at some fun facts how many f's can i put in one sentence um all right speed these are fast little if you say c-k-e-r-s i'm not gonna say the word because i don't want a bad rating here and explicit but they are fast little efforts aren't they um well i knew that the cheetah is very very fast who's the fastest land mammal isn't here cheetah i don't know why is it here because there are girls as well and the girls are fast the cheetah fastest land animal that's right i think so yeah well i'm talking about the normal cat the household cat can run at about around 48 kilometers per hour 30 miles per hour for our british and american friends um so 40 48 kilometers per hour now this is short distances they're not uh you know they're more sprinters than long distance runners but you know what you know what that when you do the math here and i didn't do the math i found this listen to this this i think we need a drum roll here let's get a drum roll in here[Music] a house cat could beat superstar runner usain bolt in the 200 meter dash what do you think of that say what say what are you kidding me these are fast are you kidding me you're kidding me i love it are you kidding me suzanne i'm telling you you missed your call and you should have become a comedian okay i want to talk about the cat's tongue too because you know everybody knows what it's like everybody's been licked by a cat and sometimes it's been described as sandpaper papel what do we know about a the cat's tongue biologically i don't i don't know but i just know they've got very very rough tongues and they serve several purposes and one of them is to um it's for grooming they can actually use their tongues to to help untangle their fur i did not know that their bird gets tangled they can untangle their fur so they're not just cleaning themselves or grooming themselves when they lick themselves but they're also untangling their fur that's amazing isn't it i didn't quite yeah i didn't know that so they're multi-taskers they're they're doing a lot of different things at a time you know yeah amazing another reason why they're so amazing but i also heard that it aside from untangling their fur grooming it also uh stimulates blood flow to their skin so it also regulates their body temperature and it helps them relax so let's just say these cats know what they're doing when they're grooming themselves all right we can't talk about cats without talking about sleeping how many hours a day does your cat sleep suzanne he sleeps about two-thirds of the day and that is what another your average cat does they they sleep for like 16 hours a day i mean he always always seems to be either sleeping or eating and then a little bit of playing and then back to sleep again i've got a frog in my throat i've got a frog in my throat so at least you don't have a cat in your throat uh she used or a fur ball well do you know in spanish they call it uh they say to have a frog in your throat what do you think i call it a chicken yeah yeah how have i lived here so long i not heard that one yeah a frog a frog in my throat and cats well speaking of you just you just made another pun suzanne see your comedy you are all i'm telling you i would pay to see you do some comedy um oh and you said a good word too you said the word fur balls a fur ball is what is it how would you describe a furball i've seen these before but is this just hair that collects in the cat's stomach i'm not sure exactly where it where it collects but it's potentially quite dangerous for a cat all this grooming that they do they are um swallowing hairs okay and i think yeah there's a danger of it going into this i don't know if it ends up in the stomach or what happens is is don't be surprised if suddenly your cat looks like it's um in in a bit of pain and starts to um wretch because very often it's because they've got a fur ball which is yeah a ball of fur which gets stuck somewhere in their anatomy right in their throat or in their esophagus something yes and yeah i guess it's some natural reaction to expel expel it looks it's not nice it's not it's not nice you can see that they're just in discomfort you can you can give them um i'm not too sure what it is in english malta malt there's a special paste that you can give them and you you spread it on their pores and they lick it we haven't done lick either have we lick is a good word so they lick they lick this um substance and um it helps it go through their system oh wow interesting i have a fact trivia i have this is one of my favorite ones okay did you know that you can have kittens in the same litter with different dabs okay so let's look at those that vocabulary first kittens are baby cats and litter is the family of baby cats that are born together right so you can have small you can have kittens in the same leader that can have different dads how does that work biologically i i couldn't explain it to you but i just know it's a fact because it's what happened that's what happened to to our cats we we we had a mother and a daughter cat the daughter was a siamese and the other four kittens were were european the european breed so we had like a cute not that not that not cute the european ones but there was this siamese cat and four big black and white uh european cats and and with the same obviously the same mum but that meant that they had to be different dads see guys learning so much about cats here another thing i read a cat's nose would be almost like the equivalent of a human's fingerprint in in in the fact that it's different it's unique every cat has a different nose is this true i learned that from you you taught me that why if you told me then then it must be true listen i'm asking you because you're the cat lover here i i found it on the internet that doesn't mean it's true but it sounds right i have to admit i have never learned so much about cats you know in the in the last week or so i've learned tremendous amount of about cats that i didn't know in the in the 20 years or so of having them and it's just it's endless there's so much fantastic wonderful fascinating information about them they have such a history sure so go go out and you know if you like cats that's one way to practice your english is is read it read up in the internet about cats read books about them and yeah it's a they have a very very interesting stock at points uh history so yeah it's an interesting it's a fascinating topic and uh all right well i i told people i i owe you a couple explanations let's put it that way i told you i was going to tell you about a cat that was the mayor of a small town in alaska and have you heard about this uh this cat tabby me no okay well it's uh excuse me the cat's name is not tabby it's that the type of cat is an orange tabby i didn't even know this breed and the cat's name was stubbs and the cat was the mayor of a small town in alaska called talkitna and the cat was the mayor for 20 years they voted this cat the mayor so i guess there were no good politicians in the area it might happen again yeah i think uh you know right now some people are thinking about it maybe i should vote for a cat uh but yeah there could be worse there were several uncontested elections and uh of course the cat didn't have any legislative power but uh the locals loved the cat so much and even tourists loved the cat so much that they decided to elect the cat mayor this is uh talkitna alaska seems like they have a lot of free time on their hand and no good candidates all right so isaac newton uh a fellow brit cambridge if i'm not mistaken uh isaac newton you know what he has to do with cats susan i do should i spill the beans of course let the cat out of the bag oh yeah of course tell us good expression there i don't know the the ins and outs of the story but i believe that he has something to do with the invention of the cat flap that's right the cat flap the the hole in the door that lets the cat go in uh come inside and and get and leave the house as well and how did that come about well supposedly now i read this on the internet suzanne i don't know we uh like every wikipedia expert yeah but if you have to say that before everything you say then it's going to be a long show so uh so newton was supposedly there you go supposedly we don't know we can't confirm it because we weren't alive but uh newton was supposedly working on his experiments at the university of cambridge and he was constantly interrupted by cats that was scratching scratching at his door so he called the cambridge carpenter and he sawed to saw as with a saw sierra espanol two holes in the door one for the mother cat and one for her kittens and supposedly i don't know i haven't been to cambridge uh i was only there once but uh those doors with the holes are still there on campus that is absolutely fascinating i didn't i didn't know that i i heard something about the the cat flap but uh i didn't know the actual details move over gravity i mean newton yeah gravity that was cool but the the cat flap door come on that's genius it's very handy it's a very handy invention yes as long as the cat doesn't get stuck oh i have another i have another thing to add sure the whiskers the whiskers are the like the thick hairs that cats have around their mouth above their um eyes and even on their legs and um they use well they have multiple uses but one of them is so that they can um navigate narrow spaces it helps them know whether you know a space is going to be too tight to move into and then they would get stuck and that those whiskers help them it's not amazing and apparently they are gent they're generally are the the width of the cat so if you get a big garfield must have had pretty long whiskers is not a word that you're going to forget because it's a brand apart from the brand it's about w h i s k a s and the proper word is w h i s k e r s if you guys are patrons then you'll have access to the vocabulary sheets but uh you know what i'm i'm thinking as you tell me all these things that cats do to adapt and how they multitask i think cats are a beautiful example of darwinism of how you know you have to adapt to survive and how you use you know your body and your tongue and what you have to to keep your race thriving your breed whatever you want to call it and they are thriving they are the domestic cat is thriving but the big cats aren't sure what they're not we're going to do another episode on uh big cats jungle cats are you in are you in i guess so she's uncomfortable this one comes out if this one gets like one star then uh then no but if they could get five stars then suzanne will come back and do one on jungle cats on big cats and we can call you the tiger queen now that the tiger king is so so popular we've gotta i owe you guys some other things before we get going i we've always talked about the first dog in space but uh and monkeys and all this stuff but nobody really talks about the first cat in space and the first cat in space was felicet felizet uh also known as astro cat i like the astro cat name and uh supposedly she was the first and only cat to go to space and this was on october 18 1963 so poor astro cat kind of got upstaged by the russian dog and you know all these other animals don't you think i think she came back didn't she some of the dogs that went into space never came back that they're there's a very famous dog that went into space which whose name i cannot recall and so if you want to pop that in twitter you can do that too i just can't remember well yeah i think that's a cool shirt astro cat with a picture of philly set you know with like a with like an astronaut helmet on i don't know i think this could uh we could market that the astro i like it sounds cool to me you know i can put it on cats on pajamas yeah well speaking of let's go right into it we've got so many not just in pop culture uh not just on youtube but uh also we've got cat idioms we've looked at a few so let's review some of the ones we've looked at and we'll look at some new ones um one that we've said before and suzanne mentioned a couple times i believe is to let the cat out of the bag which means to tell someone a secret that or a surprise that you weren't supposed to say uh to let the cat out of the bag one you just said uh suzanne was the cat's pajamas yes when something is amazing when it's wonderful we say it's the cat's pajamas but i have to add that i think it might be a little bit dated oh we also say the cat's whiskers but i actually love to say again you know cat lover me um i do like to say that something is the cat's whiskers okay it's worth bearing in mind that you know um expressions will go in and out of fashion some will become a bit dated but it's a nice one though about raining cats and dogs for me so let me tell you something soon i got i got a bone to pick ah see like there's my first joke i've got a bone to pick over here so when someone is awesome it's the cat's pajamas or it's as you just taught me the cat's whiskers but if if it's something awesome and we use the dog as the examiner as the example excuse me it's the dog's bollocks las pelotas so what the hell what the hell that's what my mother would say what the hell it's the cat's pajamas the dogs bollocks las pilotas obviously it's vulgar all right you just said one what was the other one you said and i cut you off sorry about that um we were gonna talk about uh reigning cats or dogs i think that's correct yeah how do you feel about raining cats and dogs how often do you say that alberto do you say that every day when it's raining let me think of it that's the last time let me think the last time i said that hold on hold on for 10 minutes i don't think i've ever said that since well maybe when i was five years old normally we say it's pouring when it's raining hard that's what i would say yeah i i hate to break it to people because that that is one of the first idioms that the learners will learn and it's and it's very sweet and it's very graphic but i have to say i i cannot remember the last time i heard it you know i'm not sure that we use it very much yeah they they teach the name it's cute we like it but we don't really say native speakers don't really say it's raining cats and dogs you know if you're talking to a child to be cute but normally we'd say it's pouring well there's a more vulgar way which i'll bet i don't do the vulgar ones out there to do those oh thank you thank you very much yes again because my my mother may listen to this so oh no so alberto's the bad guy right you know what i'm going to say to you next time we have to say a swear word i'm going to say what's the matter suzanne cat got your tongue very good very good yeah that's that that is a good expression people do use that one yeah when when someone is supposed to talk and that and then words are not coming out and you look at them and you say cat got your tongue it's like have you looked it's like have you lost you have you lost your tongue have you lost theater yeah what you got nothing to say now you know i think you say this one in spanish too elgato said something about elgato and too so that one you might recognize our spanish listeners what's the matter cat got your tongue all right we looked at caddy before earlier in the show what about fat cat if somebody's a fat cat how would you describe someone who is a fat cat a fat cat for me this is used a lot actually um in the uk press the uk newspapers to talk about it it tends to be directed at men wealthy men um in business you know at the top of the top of a company may be taking all the you know the idea that they're taking all the money maybe they're taking all the cream so to speak that's maybe that's why they're called fat cats yeah yeah i think it's like the big corporate greedy bosses sitting around these big tables smoking cigars making decisions that affect people they don't care about summing it up would you use it with yeah for us to be like these guys are a bunch of fat cats you know they're just sitting around getting rich and kind of you know like you know big wigs kind of but it has it's got kind of a negative thing in english if somebody's a fat absolutely absolutely in the uk press it's it's a negative thing you wouldn't you know greedy type yeah taking more more than your definitely definitely is used to say when you know if they have a big um pay rise where um when the company is actually doing really badly that's when fat cat gets used a lot absolutely all right well now i hate to say this because we are running out of time here we literally have a couple minutes we have like 10 other idioms and words to look at but we don't have time which is good because that's your homework uh you got to look into this uh amazing world of cats on your own and look up further vocabulary and also remember there's some great documentaries about these interesting animals out there that i highly recommend you watch in english all right suzanne let's choose one more word each which one do you want to take one that you think we've got to teach them before we get going perhaps no room to swing a cat all right well you know what that's one i would use a lot i don't use this one so this is great because you're no it's nice yes you're gonna teach the students and when do you use no room to swing a cat i would use it to talk about a room that's very small you know like yeah he's got a great lovely kitchen but well there's no room for swinging a cat you know some people have very tiny well i used to have a very tiny kitchen living in barcelona and there was no room to swing a cat where does it come from i don't know this is the idea that you stand there swinging a cat by the tail i i i get i i don't know i don't know but yeah to describe a very little room you can say there's yeah but there's no room to swing a cat now that you say it i mean it makes sense there's no room to swing a cat but again guys don't be swinging cats we don't recommend it it's cruelty to animals and we don't recommend it all right i'll give you the last one over here one that i like as well it's one i think that uh is also used in spanish and it's curiosity killed the cat and um you know what i always say after this uh suzanne as a as a curious person poor cat um so i i don't know is that your favorite one or no that's not your favorite one curiosity i don't know i but i i will i might use it if someone's being a bit too nosy i may say sure yeah okay you know curiosity killed the care right yeah somebody's being nosy correct possibly yeah that's how i think that's how i would use it yeah and there's a band well there was a band called curiosity called the cat the uk band it's going back in time before your time well there's a group called the stray cats los gatos cayenne they're wonderful they're great they're great homework right now suzanne guys your homework is to go out there and find all these cat references in movies music series and of course learn about these fantastic felines i had to get another double alliteration in there suzanne give us your social media handles just so we can follow you this way guys if you're not following suzanne you should follow her right now when this podcast ends okay i'm in several places on social media but where i am most um prolific most active is on twitter and that's uh aroba english smarts um but i also have a blog and that's called recipesforenglish.com and um yeah check check them out and i would love you to to tweet pictures of your your felines or your dogs i don't care i love them all so bring it on all your cat videos suzanne says anything you got about pets cute animals doing tricks whatever just smiling being cute and cuddly send them to her it's uh suzanne is at english smarts on twitter and her blog is recipes for english suzanne i want to thank you so much for being here uh i learned a lot i laughed i had some fun and i hope well i hope the listeners did as well thank you so much for having me it's been a blast really good fun really good fun yes and thank you for yeah pushing me out of that comfort zone there you go guys and take that as your lesson too get out of your comfort zone because that's when life really really starts that's it for today's episode of fyi hang on hang on bring that music back in how could i forget about my amigos special thanks to augusto hernandez for the song souvenir also my amigo nacho for lending me his voice and expertise in editing now the show is officially over see you next[Music] week[Music] ah