Curiosity

Posted by TheFallen on December 18, 2002

In Reply to: ORIGIN posted by Frank Callaway on December 18, 2002

: Hello,

: I'm a grandpa several times over and I love this place. Already passed the word to a few people.

: This question comes by way of my wife's nine month old kitten, Callie, who wants to know where we got the saying: "Curiosity killed the Cat." I suspect she's curious about her own family tree.

: Bye for now.
: Frank C.

It's a good question - I'm finding references to the fact that the original (16th century?) phrase was "care kills the cat", no doubt referring to the independent streak that cats have, but that the proverb got altered over the ensuing years. I've also seen claims that the full version of the proverb is "curiosity killed the cat, and satisfaction brought it back". Nothing conclusive though.

• Curiosity ESC 12/18/02