Words with Webster and Friendly Fill-Ins for November 18

Words with Webster

Hi, all! It’s Webster, here to welcome you to this edition of Words with Webster. Today I’d like to thank our friend Suz for sharing a link with us that helped us find a whole bunch of cat words—in Irish. I’ll share just a few of them here, but you can check them all out at the Irish Language Blog. The pronunciation is…tricky, but the words look really neat.

First, and I guess most important, the Irish word for cat is…cat. But you don’t say it like you’re used to. It’s kaht. I think you can remember this with this rhyme:

The big Irish cat

Had quite a nice yacht.

What's this cat riabhach
saying? I have no idea.
Stock image by VJ, via Adobe Stock.

Easy peasy, right?

Next, if you want to ask, “Did you feed the cats?” you need to use na cait to mean “the cats.” You pronounce it nuh k^witch. I don’t know a rhyme to make that easier.

Continuing on a food theme, suppose you wanted to say “the food of the cats.” Well, that would be bia na gcat. Again, I don’t have a rhyme.

If you wanted to refer to a tabby cat, you’d say cat riabhach (kaht REE-uh-vukh) or cat breac. Rhyme? Forget about it!

And finally, to say “mancat,” use fearchat or cat fireann, neither of which is pronounced like it’s spelled. I can’t even begin to help you there.

Friendly Fill-Ins

And now to Friendly Fill-Ins. from 15andmeowing and McGuffy’s Reader. They are a fun way to learn a little bit about the authors of the blogs you read. The first two questions, answered by old SoLT, are from Ellen of 15andmeowing, and the next two, answered this week by Real Cat Paisley, are from Annie of McGuffy’s Reader.

 Old SoLT’s answers

1. One Thanksgiving tradition I have is … hmm … we’ve never had any specific traditions.

2. Black Friday is something I’ve never gotten into. A couple of times (as in literally twice) I’ve rolled out of bed at the crack of 3:30 a.m. to shop on Black Friday, but frankly I’d rather sleep than shop. Also, it seems like that Friday is not as much fun now that so many stores open on Thanksgiving Day (what’s up with that, anyway??). Now, if a really great bookstore was going to open at some crazy hour on Black Friday, I might be standing in line!

Real Cat Paisley’s answers

3. The best part about Thanksgiving Day is I usually get a little taste of turkey, even though everyone says I shouldn’t have any .

4. One Thanksgiving… Well, really, every Thanksgiving is pretty much like all the ones before it, but that is okay because my people are home all day and there’s that turkey I mentioned above.