catfish/cat

[Baker, John]

Gerald,

        Although your excerpts make a good case that "cat" by itself can refer to catfish, it's not clear from them that "more than one way to skin a cat" refers to catfish.  Was there something more in your article?

        I came across a couple of quotes that sounded interesting.  From the Galveston Daily News or the Dallas Daily News (or perhaps both; they apparently were under common ownership), a March 8, 1913, editorial:  "Maybe, if one could go deep enough, one would see that the grievance is, not that there is no competition, but that there is too much, wherefore the desirability of having the anti-trust law drive some oil companies out of the state that the others may not be forced to lead so strenuous a life. There are nine ways to skin a cat and at least two uses to be made of an anti-trust law."

        From a 1909 Missouri court opinion (quoting a party's brief):  "He did every acrobatic feat that a man or horse can do, except skin the cat. A blind motorman a block away could have seen the anxiety of this fool horse to enjoy the delightful sensation of a head-on collision."  Batsch v. United Rys. Co. of St. Louis, 143 Mo.App. 58, 122 S.W. 371 (Mo.App. Nov 02, 1909).

        The 1909 cite sounds like there was some well-known acrobatic feat called skinning the cat; could that be the source of the phrase?

John Baker