"Cat Got Your Tongue?"

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People like anthropologist, Sabina Magliocco have been trying to figure out where this idiom originated. She thinks it may have started as a way of children teasing shy ones. "Did the cat steal your tongue?" "Is that why you can't speak?" There is also an old theory that claims that criminals, liars or those who committed religious offenses had their tongues cut out and offered them to cats as punishment or sacrifice. This would explain the idea of a cat "taking" someone's speech.