The Sad Truth about Feline Grammar

Sir Edward Gobswain, professor of Zoological Linguistics at Oxford University, has just published a damning new report in Animal Language. The paper, based on extensive studies in the past few years, outlines a dramatic drop in the quality of feline grammar, both written and spoken. Sir Edward concludes that this could lead to tragic consequences for all animal language in the future.

Gobswain’s paper, The Sad Truth about Feline Grammar, begins with a history of cat language, and the developments noted in this essential field. Carroll’s 1865 paper on the Cheshire breed of Cat showed a feline creature with a remarkable linguistic ability, while Lloyd-Webber (1981) noted the ability of various cats to sing, as well as talk, with great grammatical ability. Sadly, somewhere down the line, this ability seems to have abandoned the domestic feline.

The decline in linguistic excellence seems to have started around 2005. This is the point when, Gobswain notes, “a terrible disease began to affect cats everywhere, and their ability to vocalise internal feelings became stunted and infantile.”

Whereas the cat mentioned by Carroll in the 19th Century was able to engage in philosophical debate, nowadays cats seem to have trouble formulating simple sentences. Verb tensing, question phrasing and verb/pronoun agreement are now almost alien to the feline race. Phrases such as “…can has…” and “I is…” are now the rule rather than the exception. When asking questions, many cats will now utter a statement with a rising intonation instead of a properly-phrased question statement. And in written English, cats now seem completely unable to spell even the simplest words, like ‘is,’ ‘your’ and ‘itty bitty kitty committee’.

This is all depressing stuff, and Sir Edward warns that this linguistic failure may even be crossing over into the rest of the animal kingdom. Dogs, mice, owls and even walruses have shown signs of this grammatical disease.

As for explanations of this worrisome trend, Professor Gobswain can only theorise. His most fruitful line of inquiry shows a correlation between the deterioration of cats’ language and their diet. In the past few years many cats have moved away from the more traditional feline foods to junk food, such as cheeseburgers. The levels of nutrients in a cheeseburger are not enough for a growing kitten, and so it could be that cats’ collective brain power is falling as their diet gets worse. More studies are certainly needed, though, as the changes in both diet and linguistic capabilities could be symptoms of a greater underlying cause. It’s a long-shot but maybe, Gobswain hypothesises, Basement Cat is somehow responsible.

Whatever is to blame for this terrible blight on zoological communication, Gobswain concludes that things will get worse before they get better. Many pet owners are reluctant to correct their cats’ linguistic failures, and some even encourage them, believing them to be ‘cute’. Sir Edward warns that “giving your cat a cheeseburger when he says ‘I can haz cheezburger?’ will not wean them off this behaviour. On the contrary, it will reinforce it. Like children, we must reward good behaviour and punish the bad. I recommend pet owners withhold all burger products from their cats until the animals can ask for the food correctly. Doing otherwise would constitute what I refer to as ‘pet ownership FAIL’”.

To conclude the review, this is a worrying report of a trend that looks unlikely to improve soon. With more publicity, however, we might be able to roll back some of the damage through education and more public spending in feline literacy education. Sir Edward is to be commended for his fine work and dedicated study.

The Imaginary Reviewer is in your noun, verbing your related noun.

Musical Theatre Review – Andrew Lloyd Webber: The Musical

The career of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber has been an incredible success story, with many of his musicals running for years in the West End and on Broadway. He has placed in the Sunday Times Rich List of the top 100 wealthiest people in England for several years, and he has been both knighted and made a life peer. The one thing missing from this prolific musician and composer’s résumé is a stage musical about his life. Until now.

Written by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber himself, Andrew Lloyd Webber: The Musical follows the life and times of the great man, from his promising school days through all three of his marriages and the success of his many musicals, including Evita, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and The Beautiful Game. Webber’s fans will be ecstatic to discover that he has revisited many of his old songs, updating the lyrics to reflect the points in his own life.

There are times when these new songs work very well, such as when a popular song from Joseph is rewritten for the birth of his children (Webber and Sons), and when one his best-known songs illustrates his rise to fame (“Lloyd Webber/Superstar/Written some songs now he can buy a car/Lloyd Webber/Superstar/We always knew that you’d go far”). At other times, unfortunately, this technique seems to limit the composer, and the songs seem to fall flat. This is particularly evident when the famed Evita anthem is rewritten for Lloyd Webber’s first divorce (Don’t Cry for me Andrew Lloyd Webber). While this was being sung I noticed a lot of awkward shuffling in the seats around me.

Another quibble I would have with the production is the set. For much of the play this is a realistic representation of Lloyd Webber’s surroundings, but at the end, when the composer has become famous, a giant replica of his head comes down from the rafters, almost filling the stage. I was terrified by this apparition, so what the children in the audience made of the grotesque spectacle, I can only imagine.

The music is as good as you’d expect from such a production, and Gareth Mead shines as the eponymous musical genius. (His performance is even more amazing when you consider that he was selected through a reality show, Who Wants to be Andrew Lloyd Webber?) It’s also nice to see that Lloyd Webber, fearing accusations of egotism, changed the titled from Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber: The Musical, to remove the mention of his knighthood. The man doesn’t have an egocentric bone in his body!

All in all, this is a good, if slightly flawed production, but one that is sure to please Webber’s many gibbering, Cats-t-shirt-wearing fans. As the song goes, never has there ever been a composer so clever as Magical Mr. Lloyd Webber!