Before quoting the latter, I transcribe the explanation proposed by the former: Legh is by no means satisfied with, must be put the circumstance that other counties than Cheshire are equally well supplied with lions for family devices, and these are quite as liberally distributed over the inn doors.Īlfred Rimmer refers to A Glossary of words used in the dialect of Cheshire, published in 1877, by Egerton Leigh (1815-76). (Lewis Carroll, who was born in Cheshire, was a subscriber to Notes and Queries from its inception until his death and may well have grinned at these linguistic speculations.) Additionally, in Our Old Country Towns (1881), the artist and author Alfred Rimmer (1829-93) wrote:Īgainst this derivation, which Mr. A public-house by the roadside is commonly known by the name of ‘The Cat at Charlton.’ The sign of the house was originally a lion or tiger, or some such animal, the crest of the family of, I believe, Sir Edward Poore.īut one can doubt the theory of somebody who “ remember to have heard many years ago” of these “ unhappy attempts”. A similar case is to be found in the village of Charlton, between Pewsey and Devizes, Wiltshire. The resemblance of these ‘lions’ to ‘cats’ caused them to be generally called by the more ignoble name. I remember to have heard many years ago, that it owes its origin to the unhappy attempts of a sign painter of that county to represent a lion rampant, which was the crest of an influential family, on the sign-boards of many of the inns. The second theory seems to have first appeared in Notes and Queries of 24 th April 1852. This may possibly have originated the saying.īut no evidence that such cheeses were produced has been found. Some years since Cheshire cheeses were sold in this town moulded into the shape of a cat, bristles being inserted to represent the whiskers. The first one was apparently first proposed by a contributor to Notes and Queries of 16 th November 1850, signing himself T. The origin of this expression is unknown. He grins like a Cheshire cat said of any one who shews his teeth and gums in laughing. For example, in the second edition of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1788), Francis Grose wrote:Ĭheshire Cat. “It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why.”īut the phrase was already well established. “Please would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, “why your cat grins like that?” The Cheshire cat is now largely identified with the character in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), by the English writer Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson – 1832-98):
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