Okay, so I posted that picture of Kitty on icanhascheezburger.com just because it’s funny. Kitty really can extend her leg at bath time. But someone named Stacey was kind enough to comment on the pic and explain what the heck it means! See this BBC article.
“So far as I’m aware, no other language has anything equivalent to the Icelandic ‘setja upp gestaspjot’, a verbal phrase denoting the action taken by a cat when cleaning itself, with its body curled tightly in a circle and one back leg sticking directly up in the air. Literally it means ‘put up a guest-spear’ and when a cat was seen doing this it was supposed to indicate that visitors would be turning up.”
Nicholas Jones, Cambridge, England
Thank you, Web 2.0, for making me this much smarter.
