French Saying - Quand le chat n'est pas là, les souris dansent

"Quand le chat n'est pas là, les souris dansent."



When the cat is not around, the mice dance. The problem is: How do those poor mice know that the cat is not around? Unless he was seen being hustled away to the vet in a carrier, the typical mouse would be hard pressed to know for sure.

Anyways, there's the same idiom in English but it reads a bit differently: When the cat's away, the mouse will play.

It's not a mouse and it has little to do with idioms (actually, it does - see later) but the French name for Tweety, the yellow canary, is Titi. What about Sylvester, the cat? It's "Grosminet" ("gros" is big/fat and "minet" is cat/kitty).



That's "Titi et Grosminet" (in French). Titi always says "j'ai cru voir un rominet" (yes, that's "I thought I saw a pussycat") whenever Grosminet is near. I guess that qualifies as another idiom.

Comments

  1. We have the same saying in Italian, same like in French, it sounds like "Quando il gatto non c'è, i topi ballano". Nice how wisdom is all the same everywhere :)

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