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French proverbs - help me please!

I am working on a project for my French classes and cannot find the meaning of those proverbs:
- Etre debout avant que les chats soient chaussés.
- Payer en chats et en rats.
- Avoir une mine de chat fâché.
- Laisser aller le chat au fromage
Aller comme un chat maigre.
- Bailler le chat par les pattes.
- Jeter le chat aux jambes de quelqu'un
- Avoir été au trépassement d'un chat.

I guess those are mainly Canadian expressions. I understand (more or less) the literal meaning but I need to know what sense is behind them. Could someone explain them to me? I'll appreciate a lot.
 skypirate posted over a year ago
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Learning French Answers

LadyNottingham said:
I found only these - I must say that your teacher suggested Quebecois expressions. There are others in France which are quite popular too.

- Laisser aller le chat au fromage : old expression meaning a girl ended up having sex out of wedlock. (We have this one in France too.)

- Payer en chats et en rats : to pay with things of little or no value.

- Jeter le chat aux jambes de quelqu'un : to reject one's fault onto someone else ; to embarrass someone.

- Bailler le chat par les pattes : to introduce something the most difficult way.

I don't know for the others as they are Quebecois and we Frenchpeople of France do not use them (except for the first one I explained and yet, it's quite old, as now, people don't care any longer if a girl is a virgin or not !).

Hope you will find this useful anyway.
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posted over a year ago 
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thank you a lot! :) it is very useful to me. as for the rest, I will simly tell the literal meaning and say that I don't know what they actually mean. or I'll make up sth ;) I only wonder if my teacher knows their meaning..that would be funny though - to give me a homework she cannot do.anyway, thanks a lot! :).
skypirate posted over a year ago
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Always better say you don't know rather than make up something - you may just end up ridiculous. While if you say you don't know, well, you're in school to learn after all. What about asking French-speaking Canadian people as most of these expressions are from there. You may also find typical French expressions about cats that we use here in France. We have a good deal of those and I can help you with them, should you need !
LadyNottingham posted over a year ago
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You're right, there's no point in making up the meanings. I've already asked two of my French-Canadian friends about the sayings and the only one they knew was the one with "paing in cats and rats". Help with the other expressions would be great too. I'll send you a private message, ok?
skypirate posted over a year ago
HumphreyAlpha said:
I'm not familiar with these phrases. I'll see what I can uncover, but don't get your hopes up
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posted over a year ago 
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I see... I looked for them on the net and haven't found a thing. Well,my french teacher is weird.
skypirate posted over a year ago
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