Unusual Idioms
The cat’s got your tongue?
Sometimes said as the slightly longer ‘What’s the matter? The cat’s got your tongue?’, this idiom is used to prompt a person to speak, especially if they are being unusually quiet. It is a somewhat strange expression and the first known appearance of it in writing comes from the 19th century, at which point it was said to be a “children’s phrase”. Various origin stories have been suggested over the years, but all are speculative.