Grinning Like a Cheshire Cat

 Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland has been a novel, turned movie that has taken many generations on an exciting journey. In 2010 there was another remake of the movie starring Johnny Depp and other famed actors and actresses. One of the films trademark characters, though not in the movie for long, is the Cheshire cat. Being a whimsical character, the Cheshire cat has an enormous grin and the ability to make himself, or just parts of his body vanish.

Like most people, I too thought that the cat and the phrase "grinning like a Cheshire cat" was a creation from the mind of Lewis Carroll, but after further investigation, I found that to be wrong. The true origin is unknown, but there are several theories. The first, was that a sign painter in Cheshire (North West England) painted grinning lions on the sign boards of local inns. The second, was that Cheshire cheeses used to be molded in the shape of a grinning cat.

The phrase was first seen in print in the second edition of Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue published in 1778. The text reads: ""Cheshire Cat He grins like a Cheshire cat; said of any one who shows his teeth and gums in laughing." The term and phrase were then made popular by Carroll in 1865 when he wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It is interesting to see where the inspiration of such a remarkable story come from. Seeing the time gap between Grose's novel and Carroll's, it would not be far fetched to say that Carroll might have grown up with Grose's novel and implemented it into his own work.