[Ads-l] cat got tongue

[Stephen Goranson]

Antedating? Both US; both spoken to children.


"...she can't speak. The cat has got her tongue....you have a pretty name and the cat hasn't got your tongue either."

Clovernook: or, Recollections of our neighborhood in the west. By Alice Carey. 1852 p. 294.

<http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/>https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112002554175;view=1up;seq=300


"Oh ho! The cat has got your tongue has it?" was his next remark. The speech was so childishly absurd, like the teasing [[of?]] Ralph Clifford of years ago that I laughed in spite of myself. Wisconsin Daily Patriot, Dec. 13, 1859, p.2 AmHistNewsp


Stephen Goranson

http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/



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