004 Mačji kašalj!

Croatian sayings and expressions #004

Mačji kašalj!

Easy peasy!

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Literally: A cat's cough

In the Croatian idiom: A lot of noise about nothing, no dramas, easy peasy. What's all the fuss about?

Mama: Ante, kako je bio ispit danas? Brinula sam se na tebi.  How was the test today? I was worried about you.
Ante: Mačji kašalj!  A piece of cake.
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That is not a yawn - it's a cough.


It seems that the origin of this saying is to do with the apparent crisis that sometimes seems at hand when a cat has a furball stuck in its throat.

But one cat's cough and ..... what was all the fuss about?
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​Image by Luis Wilker Perelo WilkerNet from Pixabay

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Of course, whenever friends ask me how my learning Croatian is going, I reply (with fingers crossed) "Mačji kašalj!"

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QUIZ: Which of Shakespeare's plays might have been named "Mačji kašalj!"​? Answer below.

According to eKapija [a Serbian site]:   www.ekapija.com/after-workhours/1313533/zasto-se-kaze-maciji-kasalj

Ako ste se nekada zapitali zašto se kaže baš "mačiji kašalj", evo odgovora. Mačkari će znati dramu koja se odvija kada mačke iskašljavaju kuglice dlaka, "dođe čoveku da se odmah pozdravi sa njima".

Nakon sve te drame, kada iskašlju sadržaj, sve se momentalno vraća u normalu, kao da nije bilo pitanje života i smrti.

Dakle, ovaj izraz služi da se slikovitio objasni da je mnogo buke ni oko čega.
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Answer to quiz:  Much Ado About Nothing.


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