Originally posted by yorkster:
<STRONG>Isn't it funny.......that little noise coming out of such big kitties?</STRONG>
The *experts* are telling us that the MEOW is a two part word in cat language. The ME part means "come here. I want ..." (Could be anything: water, food, love, food, attention, food, open the door, food, close the door, food, turn off the light, food. Anything at all, even food.)

The OW part means "leave me alone. Don't hurt me."

With the MC's the OW can be very short and they can even vocalize the two parts seperately. Lamoni goes "mACK, mACK, mACK" when he wants me to do something with him. "OK, Lamoni. Show daddy." He gets up and leads me to where the "problem" is. Empty water dish, empty food bowl, a door he wants open.

Late one night I was up working on a computer problem ("If I complete this level, I get a hundred thousand bonus points, a new weapon, and the right to go 'rescue' the princess."). My wife was already in bed asleep. Lamoni kept coming in and pestering me. "OK, OK. Show daddy."

He lead me into the kitchen and lept up onto the table. When I went to pet him he said "AH-OO-OO-W" and shied away a little. What the ... I turned and started to leave. "WAH-OOO! mACK, mACK." Hmmm. I read that as "don't hurt me, come here."

He was not sick or hurt. He had fresh water and a full (for once) food bowl. Cindy had cleaned the litter box about an hour before.

Every time that I would try to pet him he told me to go away. Every time I tried to leave, he called me back. In frustration I turned off the light and said, "GOODNIGHT!"

He said, "mACK, Ick, Ick. Meow! mACK." I came to the table and he was purring so loudly that the table was almost shaking. I can see fairly well in the dark (which surprises the heck out of cats). He was purring with his mouth wide open. As I approached he lowered his head. Our friendship greeteing is for him to lower his head and rub the back of my hand with the forehead. We did that and he turned to wipe the side of my hand with his open teeth. he grabed my arm with his paws and pushed my hand toward his forehead.

I petted him for the next minute, kissed him on the head, and told hime good night.

He just wanted the light off. He actually said "thank you".

Being in advanced computer systems, I kind of keep up on the "Artificial Intellegence" movement. Gratitute is very high up the tree of concepts.

This is the heart of my arguments with the SETI project at NASA. "You are spending all this time looking for communications from the cosmos and you can't communicate with the life that is already here!"