From: STella@thelema.uucp (STella)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.cats
Subject: Ah-OO, Ah-OUGH was What we say; what cats hear
Date: 11 Sep 92 08:53:58 GMT
Organization: Idiosyncratic Anarchic Order

In article <20124@drutx.ATT.COM> bdm@druwa.ATT.COM (Brian Millham) writes:
>When I first got Fletch, it didn't take me long to learn that he knew
>what hungry meant.  After I figured that out, I remembered hearing
>somewhere that cats only understand the first syllable of any word,
>so I did an experiment:  I asked Fletch if he was "Well Hung?"
>He claims that he is. :-)

Well, good for him.  I can just see it in the shops, right next to the
Jeff Strykers....

But I have a cat, Gandalf, who is also Speaker to Humans.  When he was
younger, I was so pleased at his first word of English that every time
he said "ah-oo", I ran and opened a can.  He, and to a lesser degree,
the other cats, became fat.  Eventually, I stopped opening a can every
time he said "ah-OO".  But whenever he said "warRER", I checked that
there was some "war-RER" in their dispenser.

Because I'd heard that "cats only dig the first syllable" thing, it
took me a long time to figure out what his other important word was.
This word was only said during my "morning meditation", during which I
rehydrated, sat on the throne, smoked a first cigarette of the day,
and said "morning" to each of the cats as they walked into the john to
use _their_ facilities.  Another chaotic day off to its usual fragile
start.  (I love life, but waking up is ALMOST enough to change my
mind.)

And every morning, Gandalf would walk into the bathroom, stare
imploringly into my face, cry "ah-OUGH!" in a decidedly imperative
tone, and bap me one in the nose.  I thought it had to be the "ah-OO"
word, so I'd check the catfood when I got off the john.  For a long
time.  Months.  EVERY morning.  "You know," he might say to the other
cats when I wasn't listening, "I'm beginning to think that despite
their manual skills (canopeners, fleacombs, and ear-skritching),
humans just don't understand words of more than one syllable.  Cute,
useful, but not too bright."

Even if he DID think I was pretty damn stupid, Gandalf kept walking
into the john in the morning, shouting "ah-OUGH" at me, and looking
disgusted when I just did NOT get his meaning.

One day, sitting in morning fog, poly-drug titrating my way back
toward sentience (swill the coffee, suck the cigarette, wash down a
couple aspirin) -- Gandalf came to me.  "Ah-OUGH!!!" he ordered.
<swat> he nailed me across the nose, drawing a drop of blood,
"Ah-OUGH!!!" and I looked past him, and suddenly realized that one of
'dalf's brothers, Merlin, was sitting in, and using, a "ah-OUGH".

I changed the ah-OUGH right then, but it's hard to do that when you're
laughing at yourself so much it's hard to stand up.

So whether what Gandalf is doing is at all like human language or not,
he's one cat who has produced vocalizations of more than one syllable,
with syllables after the first being apparently linked with different
items.

(Of course, I also remember Reverend Not-Fredsel Dammit, who seemed to
me to say "nnnnnyin" if he was in the hall, and "m'OW" when he was in
the apartment, if he desired that a door be opened for him.)

>So, if you have a cat that understands a multi-syllable word, try just the
>first syllable of what word, and check the reaction.

Speaker to Humans seems to grok polysyllables.  But Speaker with Cats
had a LOT of trouble with the idea.

Speaker with Cats

STella@xanadu.com	1016 E. El Camino Real, #302, Sunnyvale, CA 94087