I doubt there was meant to be any more meaning to “the cat’s mother” beyond pointing out that without a proper antecedent, she could mean anyone and failing more specificity is assumed to be someone not worth being detailed further.
I also suspect that it is one of those things that was introduced by parents to teach proper use of pronouns but it didn’t come through clearly in all cases and left some with the idea that she alone is incorrect in reference to one’s mother.
That being said, this was not a part of my childhood but I find a lot of the example phrases where people have marked getting in trouble for using ‘she’ I do not think I would use. I would prefer using a name rather than a pronoun in those instances.
Interesting. I was actually thinking of starting a thread on something like this. I should have known there would already be one.
I grew up in the 50s. Lived all over-father from the south, mother from Pennsylvania, a child of immigrant parents.
I don’t recall a “no pronoun” rule about parents, but there was this language rule when taking to an adult: you couldn’t refer to the person’s spouse (whether they were present or not) as “your husband,” or “your wife.” You had to use their name (last name, of course).
Examples:
Hi, Mr. Jones. How is Mrs. Jones?
It’s Mrs. Jones coming over, too? (Never, “Is your wife coming over, too?”)
First, I’ve been in NJ from tip to tip and from hip to hip. I’ve never heard of this as a NJ thing.
Second, I did hear part of the “Mommy Dear” meme once, but it died out quickly. Years later I asked that person what it was about and they said it was a ‘manners’ thing that migrated up through PA from Philly. I spoke to another elderly relative about that later, and they said that the whole “Mother Dear” thing originated as manners to hit others over the head with from well South of ‘The Main Line’.
If it matters, the person who originally quoted this to my ears had One Truly Fucking Evil Bitch of a step mom growing up in PA.
My paternal grandmother, born in Ottawa, said something like this once; “Who’s she, the cat?.” Apparently it was a thing to really old people. I had no idea what she was talking about. My parents never had a problem with pronouns.
I wonder whether cats, as opposed to dogs, were sometimes less “important”, or more likely to be animals that weren’t even really part of the family.
Right, that doesn’t make complete sense but it could often be the case that, well, you’d certainly know whether you had a family dog or not, but there might easily be some neighbourhood cat that would appear as and when it felt so inclined, possibly be given some household scraps, but just as possibly be viewed as a “outsider” sort of entity, not only a mere quadruped but not even a family member, therefore not being given much respect, with even less respect being given to its (completely unknown) mother. Or its unknown aunts or cousins, as earlier posters have mentioned.
Oh, and it was also used for pretty much any adult lady that a child should speak of with respect, because I’m sure I heard my mother say it to me or my brothers when the woman in question might be an aunt, or a neighbour, or the mother of a friend. A friend who was human, that is, not a friend who actually was a cat. Oh, and the “she” thing being rude wasn’t really restricted to when the lady-definitely-not-the-cat’s-mother was present in the room.
(Glasgow mid 1960s onwards)
I just looked at the date when this thread began. Heck, 2009. It’s taking longer than we thought.
I seem to recall my mother instructing me not to refer to my siblings as “she” or “he”. I believe this would have held true for references to my parents as well.
I got the “cat’s mother” line a few times, jokingly, from my Irish dad. I’ve never heard a native American (er . . . native-born American?) use it, though.
Not to mention, “you’uns” (one syllable, sort of rhymes with goons, but the vowel sound is more like the double-o in look) or the ever-popular “youse-guys.”
Or, if you’re from the Pittsburgh and general Western Penn area, “yinz.” In Chicago, it’s “youse” or “youse guys” if using dialectal second-person forms.
My parents never had an issue with this, but I must admit there were times my kids used the she/he pronoun in a way that rankled me. It just felt disrespectful somehow and I never grew up with it or remember hearing about it.
Honestly, it’s no weirder to me than the sir/ma’am thing in the South (which, to be honest, I really don’t like).
But it’s the cat’s mother, or less often, the cat’s other relatives, that seem to make it so interesting. Not just a “respect your elders” thing, but the cat aspect seems to occur in quite a few different places. I suppose perhaps it is just cats being mysterious.
From this excerpt from the 1897 novel The Beth Book by Sarah Grand it appears that this rule was absolute and had nothing to do with the child’s tone of voice, whether the mother was in the room, or if the identity of “she” had been established as referring to the mother.
I suppose perhaps it is just cats being mysterious.