English around the world: nervous cats and rocking chairs

In dieser Ausgabe unserer Rubrik „English around the world“ geht es um nervöse Katzen, die sich in Räumen voller Schaukelstühle einfach nicht sicher fühlen. Lesen Sie mehr über diese kuriose Redewendung aus dem Süden der USA!

By Carol Richards

“He was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.”

Southern USA

This phrase describes someone who is extremely nervous. The legs of a normal chair rest stably on the ground and don’t move. A rocking chair, however, rests on two “rockers,” the curved rails on which the chair rocks back and forth. Because rocking chairs move, there is a chance that a cat could get its tail caught under a rocker. The greater the number of rocking chairs in the room and the longer the cat’s tail would increase both the cat’s risk of getting its tail painfully squished and its nervousness.

Photo: Pixabay