Why do people say that cats have 9 lives? Is this some Egyptian thing? Please help.
I got a mixed bag of answers to this on the net. The following link has a commonly quoted answer
http://www.moggies.co.uk/html/pawsproverbs.html
“One theory on the origin of this expression is that in ancient times nine was a lucky number because it is the Trinity of Trinities. As cats seem able to escape injury time and time again, this lucky number seemed suited to the cat. While in most countries the cat is said to have nine lives, in Arab and Turkish proverbs poor puss has a mere seven lucky lives and in Russia, is said to-survive nine deaths.”
The other common answer I came across was that the origin of the proverb is unknown.
My (Mexican) wife says that their cats have the unluckier quantity of seven lives. Hey, when it comes to extra lives I think seven really is an unluckier number than nine!