smell

This month’s cat vocabulary is scent. A very important thing to cats. They have an excellent sense of smell. Probably better than many humans. They can smell their prey, if they hunt. If not, then they smell their food. They even smell us and can learn what our unique smell is. Especially if our appearance changes too much for them to recognize us just by looking at us.

Saying Scent in European Languages (source)

Language Ways to say scent
Albanian: parfum
Basque: usaina
Belarusian: нюх
Bosnian: miris
Bulgarian: аромат
Catalan: olor
Croatian: miris
Czech: vůně
Danish: duft
Dutch: geur
Estonian: lõhn
Finnish: tuoksu
French: parfum
Galician: perfume
German: Duft
Greek: μυρωδιά(myrodiá)
Hungarian: illat
Icelandic: ilmur
Irish: boladh
Italian: profumo
Latvian: smarža
Lithuanian: kvapas
Macedonian: мирис
Maltese: riħa
Norwegian: duft
Polish: zapach
Portuguese: aroma
Romanian: aromă
Russian: нюх(nyukh)
Serbian: мирис(miris)
Slovak: vône
Slovenian: vonj
Spanish: olor
Swedish: doft
Ukrainian: нюх(nyukh)
Welsh: arogl
Yiddish: רייעך

The age old story of cats and dogs. The famous sayings that we’re not meant to get along. I don’t usually like dogs. Although I’ve been associating with some on Twitter. They aren’t so bad on Twitter. In real life, they have tormented and chased me. But not always. Some were fans of cats. But I still didn’t like them. Even my girl tried to tell me about the one dog who wanted to get to know me better. He was a major cat fan. He even lived with a cat.

I don’t get it. I’m used to the mean sort of dogs who will kill us cats given the chance. Not like the dog who likes to play with Nuri. She isn’t me. She doesn’t attack this dog who is bigger than she is, but still a small dog. Nuri tends to smell him, but he usually gets too hyper for her. It is kind of funny in a way. She handles herself better with dogs than I ever have.

Except for those on Twitter. What is it about Twitter that makes it okay for me to have something to do with dogs? I know they can’t attack me. Perhaps that’s part of it. That and I can’t smell them.

Smell is very important to us cats. We have an excellent sense of smell. We know each individual human and cat has a unique smell. Sure those of you who are related smell similarly, but you still have a unique smell. You humans may not be entirely aware of it. As I understand it, cats have a much better sense of smell than you humans do. We do appreciate humans who bathe regularly. Otherwise you will smell bad. It’s not pleasant. Please clean up for us.

We also appreciate a clean place to live in. If you’re a slob, your place will smell bad to us. If you’re good about cleaning up after yourself, and usually my girl is, then your place will smell better to us. Definitely keep up with your dirty laundry. That can smell bad too. Unless, like your shoes, your dirty clothes smell just like you. Our favorite human in the whole wide world.

Tag: smell

Scent in Other Languages

Cats & Dogs