“There is more than one way to skin a cat?” For the life of me I can only think of the one, standard, way… Where does this phrase come from?
Well, you can start at the head, you can start at the feet. You can kill the cat first, or not. I might just be of a crueler disposition, but I can think of several ways to skin a cat, just off the top of my head.
But it does seem a trifle bloodthirsty for such an everyday phrase.
“All of this and some of that’s
the only way to skin the cat.”
-Jethro Tull, “Thick as a Brick.”
I have nothing to add, except maybe start with the head as opposed to start with the tail. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why somebody would want to skin a cat.
Sure, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
For one, you could use an electric sander…
My father (a veritable fount of sayings both old and odd, due to his remarkable memory, rural upbringing, and odd sense of humor) has been known to comment: “There are more ways to kill a cat than skinning him with a butter knife.” Other variations end with “choking him with cream/butter”. The latter seems more common, upon brief research.
He usually utters it when we’ve just tried (unsuccessfully) to do something in what hindsight reveals to be the most ridiculously impractical manner. This parallels the meaning of the “more than one way to skin a cat” phrase. According to World Wide Words, the two phrases are related, with the “cream” version being the older.
Other people suggest various independent origins for the phrase, ranging from a gymnastic trick to preparing catfish (I’m not especially impressed by the latter source, BTW). These smack of folk etymology, though.
It may be that some other phrase was conflated with the “cream” version (clearly, my father’s phrase conflates the two versions of the saying), but I don’t know what it could have been. Nor have I been able to determine the origin of the “cream” version, although it dates back at least to 1855, when Charles Kingsley used it in Westward Ho!
Or you could pull down on his mouth and peel him like a banana.
From an old P.G. Wodehouse story (ca. 1920’s) I get the impression that the use of cat fur wasn’t necessarily so horrifying to readers of that generation. The story has a character who wants to start a “cat ranch” out west. To feed the cats, he was going to have a “rat ranch” next door.
The cats would live by eating the rats; the rats would eat the cats after they were slaughtered and skinned.
Ironically, I think P.G. was reasonably fond of cats and mentions them much more sympathetically in other stories.
I ran across the phrase (with an interesting twist) about four years ago while reading one of Davy Crockett’s speeches to congress (Yes, he was a real person), but he uses the phrase “More than one way to skin a polecat.”
For those not aware of it, a polecat is another word for a skunk. The skunk was a relatively popular skin before the civil war. And I think most can see there are obvious problems with skinning a skunk.
I have found the “polecat” version of the quote two or three times since then reading pre-1880 newspapers. I have since wondered if possibly that could be the original quote and the “pole” part was lost to a society that was unfamiliar with polecats.
I should mention that when Crockett used the phrase, he was was not speaking literally, he was refering to getting the best of (skinning) a crook (a polecat).
A somewhat abridged version from “The Ailurophobe’s Handbook”. The original runs about 20 lines listing every device imaginable to man:
“Oh I have tried with sickle, hammer, scissors, saw and baseball bat,
and let me tell you this my friend, there’s just one way to skin a cat!”
But seriously, the only footage I’ve ever seen of commercial cat skinning involved making a nick in the skin above one ankle and pushing an air compressor hose under the skin. This caused the skin to baloon making it easy to strip once the it was cut along the stomach.
So there really is more than one way to skin a cat. 
In comparative anatomy class we skin cats starting with an incision along the back. Then we slip our fingers and hands between the skin and body, separating the skin from the muscle. We eventually get them peeled down to their feet, tail, and head, then cut the skin off from there.
:eek: 
All of you – leave my sweet puddy tats alone!
There’s definitely more than one way to skin an ailurophobe. Wanna hold still for a moment?
Presenting Dr John Wamsley, conservationist and pathological hater of feral cats. Up until the time he listed Earth Sancturies, he’d often pose wearing one of his selection of cat-pelt hats. Just can’t seem to find a link to a photo. Maybe some of the other Aussies will be able to address my inadequacy.
http://www.esl.com.au/jw.htm
I think you could paraphrase his approach as, it doesn’t matter where you start to skin the cat, provided you’ve used the 12 guage properly.
ailurophobe skinning- that’s a good activity for Comparative Anatomy class.
You do know that this was a joke. The particular “opportunity” was sort of the “Make Money Fast!” legend of its day, though I don’t think too many actually fell for it.
According to Peter Passell/Leonard Ross (precursors of Cecil), the best way to skin a cat is to use dermestid beetles. Of course, you don’t have much left when you’re done.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
There are 37 ways.