I have the same Qs about the phrase “No room to swing a cat”. At what point in history did people swing cats to check how much space is available and why did we stop doing that?
That phrase "there is more than one way to skin a cat" is weird as hell. Where did it come from? At what point in human history were people skinning so many cats that everyone had multiple good techniques??
-
-
-
IIRC, that one comes from the "cat-o-nine-tails" whip that was used as punishment on ships back in the day. Gotta have space to give a proper whipping. So, when: c. 17/1800's; why stopped: society stopped approving such severe physical punishment.
- 1 more reply
New conversation -
-
-
In french, you say "not enough to whip a cat" to mean "no big deal". So we also used to whip cats on a regular basis when a matter was deamed troublesome enough.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
This Tweet is unavailable.
-
-
It's from more than one way to skin a catFISH
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
no no no everyone was skinning cats the same exact way and the person that said that wanted people to do it in other ways
- 1 more reply
New conversation -
-
-
It came from a certain Asian country! Yes, that one!
- End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Years ago, I read some History related article saying: During MiddleAge, the superstitions about black cats has started masive slaughters. That can be seen in the genome of modern cats (IIRC). Maybe Englishmen were skinning them: I don't know other languages with this expression.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.