That’s Easy for You to Say

By Gordon Hopkins So I was watching videos on YouTube the other day. I watch YouTube like most people do, I suspect. I start off by looking for a specific topic but soon find myself following a series of recommendations that take me farther and farther down a rabbit hole and away from my intended purpose.Like a lot of internet sites, YouTube uses an algorithm to suggest other videos you might be interested in, much the same way a shopping website makes suggestions based on what you've already looked at.Algorithms may be extremely sophisticated. That doesn't mean they aren't also kinda dumb. I might look up how to repair the draw band on a 1938 Underwood Typewriter. The algorithm registers the word, “band,” and offers me a video called “The Most Popular 80s Bands.” From there, I might find a video about “Hobbies for People in Their 80s,” followed by “An Unnecessary and Excruciatingly In-Depth History of Hobby Horses,” possibly followed by an episode of “Mr. Ed.”It is a sort of like following the train of thought of something that is a bit like, but not entirely like, a human brain.Anyway, all this is an unnecessary and excruciatingly in-depth explanation as to how I found myself watching a Korean woman camping at two in the morning. (I mean it was two in the morning for me. I don't know what time she actually went camping.)I can't think of anyone less likely to be interested in anything about camping. As far as I'm concerned, “Roughing It,” is a book by Mark Twain, to be read while sitting in a comfy chair in a climate-controlled room with a cup of hot cocoa.Yet, I found myself slightly fascinated with what was going on, despite the fact that I couldn't understand a word the woman was saying. She was cooking something, I have no idea what, in a big, steaming pot over a fire when a fat, orange cat sidles up to her, meowing for a hand out.It is at this point that the fat, orange cat snoozing next to me on the sofa, is suddenly at attention. Periodically throughout the video, the cat makes various cat noises, meowing, trilling, purring, to indicate his wishes, whether they be food or neck scratches or whatever.Archie, my cat, follows this video feline with rapt attention. A couple of times he even meows back at the cat on the screen.At first, I just think this is cute. Cat owners think everything their cats do is cute, which is one of the things that makes them so obnoxious. After a while, however, I think about it and become puzzled. It was almost as if Archie understood what the other cat was saying. But how is that possible? This is a Korean cat, after all. Archie is an American cat. How could they speak the same language?This is something I've wondered about. If you take a cat to another country, do any of the other cats understand this foreign feline? Do cats have to learn the language? If a cat does learn another cat language, do they speak with a funny accent?

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