[ti:Wild Cat] [ar:Warren Scheer] [al:Words and Their Wtories] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]Go to 51voa.com for more... [00:10.24]Now, the VOA Special English program, [00:15.25]Words and Their Stories. [00:18.39]Today, we tell about the word wildcat. [00:23.25]Humans have always depended on animals. [00:28.85]From the beginning of human history, [00:31.80]wild animals provided food, [00:34.74]clothing and sometimes medicine. [00:38.83]We may not depend as much on wild animals now. [00:44.08]But we hear about them every day. [00:48.08]Americans use the names of animals in many ways. [00:54.04]Many companies use animals [00:58.63]to make us want to buy their goods. [01:01.38]Automobile companies, for example, [01:05.17]love to show fast horses [01:08.43]when they are trying to sell their cars. [01:10.43]They also name their cars for other fast powerful animals. [01:17.87]Automobile manufacturers and gasoline companies [01:23.32]especially like to use big cats to sell their products. [01:28.48]They like lions, tigers and wildcats. [01:34.46]When Americans say wildcat, [01:38.12]they usually mean a lynx, an ocelot or a bobcat. [01:42.47]All these cats attack quickly and fiercely. [01:46.42]So wildcats represent something fast and fierce. [01:51.47]What better way is there to sell a car [01:55.47]than to say it is as fast as a wildcat. [01:59.44]Or, what better way is there to sell gasoline [02:03.49]than to say that using it is like putting a tiger in your tank. [02:09.29]An early American use of the word wildcat was quite different. [02:14.84]It was used to describe members of Congress [02:18.93]who declared war on Britain in eighteen twelve. [02:22.13]A magazine of that year said the wildcat congressmen went home. [02:27.63]It said they were unable to face the responsibility [02:31.38]of having involved their country in an unnecessary war. [02:36.04]Wildcat also has been used as a name for money. [02:41.14]It was used this way in the eighteen hundreds. [02:45.89]At that time, some states permitted banks to make their own money. [02:51.90]One bank in the state of Michigan [02:55.21]offered paper money with a picture of a wildcat on it. [02:59.45]Some banks, however, did not have enough gold [03:04.11]to support all the paper money they offered. [03:07.06]So the money had little or no value. [03:10.36]It was called a wildcat bill or a wildcat bank note. [03:16.90]The banks who offered this money were called wildcat banks. [03:22.07]A newspaper of the time said those were the days of wildcat money. [03:29.45]It said a man might be rich in the morning and poor by night. [03:34.81]Wildcat was used in another way in the eighteen hundreds. [03:40.71]It was used for an oil well or gold mine [03:44.65]that had almost no oil or gold in it. [03:48.25]Dishonest developers would buy such property. [03:52.70]Then they would sell it and leave town with the money. [03:57.06]The buyers were left with worthless holes in the ground. [04:00.92]Today, wildcat oil wells are in areas that are not known to have oil. [04:08.32]Yet another kind of wildcat is the wildcat strike. [04:13.41]That is a strike called without official approval by a union. [04:19.07]During World War Two, an American publication [04:23.57]accused wildcat strikers of slowing government production. [04:28.21](MUSIC) [04:34.13]This VOA Special English program, [04:39.12]Words and Their Wtories, [04:41.67]was written by Jeri Watson. [04:43.72]I'm Warren Scheer. [04:45.62]Go to 51voa.com for more...