Get prepared to learn all the things you ever wanted to know about the funny French expression "J'ai d'autres chats à fouetter". This include a detailed explanation of what it mean and how you can use it in a dialogue with an audio example. And because we want to help you on your learning journey, we also added some useful things like slow pronunciation audio, dialogue example, literal meaning and more!
Translation : I have more important things to do
Literal meaning : I have other cats to whip
Register : Informal - Funny
Slow
Normal
IPA : / ʒe dotʁə ʃa a fwɛte /
It literally means:
In the 17th century, when people wanted to show that something was not serious or unimportant, they said "Il n'y a pas de quoi fouetter un chat" (That's not a reason to whip a cat).
And with time, it inspired the expression: "Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter" which means "To have more important things to do / To have bigger concerns".
Whenever you are asked to do something you don't care about or have more important things to do, you can use: "J'ai d'autres chats à fouetter" (I have other cats to whip)
You might wonder why these poor little cats had been condemned to be whipped for such a long time?
Well, the truth is, the metaphor of the cat in all these expressions remains inexplicable. The English version: "To have other fish to fry" is already a bit more logical, since the fate of many fish is to be fried.
Dialogue
Tu vas à la réunion ?
Are you going to the meeting?
Non, j'ai d'autres chats à fouetter
No, I have other cats to whip*
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