Cat on Hot Bricks!

[JillP]

Anyone know where this phrase originated? I am originally from Cheshire and we used to say "You're like a cat on 'ot bricks!" if someone was pacing about restlessly.

[Quizmonster]

The earliest version of this idea is listed a a proverb as long ago as the 1600s, so it must have been around for some time prior to that! It went,"like a cat upon a hot bake-stone". By the middle of the 19th century that had become "like a cat on hot bricks". It is clearly so old that there is little prospect that we will ever know its actual origin.

[Loosehead]

There is also the "cat on hot tin roof" version but I know not the origin.

[Quizmonster]

I suspect that 'cat on a hot tin roof' started life as the title of the Tennessee Williams play. If not, it was presumably just an American variant of our much older 'bakestone/bricks' version.

[JillP]

Thank you both for your replies. Quizmonster, you do seem very well informed.

[Quizmonster]

Most kind of you to say so, ma'am...thank you.