of cat-heads and catenaries

[victor steinbok]

A few more bits on cats:

MWOL has for CONT:

>Origin of CAT-O'-NINE-TAILS
>
> from the resemblance of its scars to the scratches of a cat
> First Known Use: 1665

No references either for the date or for the interpretation.

Wiki has a picture of a modern CONT with only a single knot in each
"tail", and this is the way that nearly all modern CONTs are made and
have been made for well over 100 years. This does not mean, however,
that the tails always contained a single knot.

There is a suggestion that the name "cat-head" for the anchor beams
was derived from the German Kattenkopf for the knot with which the
anchor cable was traditionally attached. The knot's shape resembled a
cat's head in a way I previously described. This suggestion also ended
up in Wiki.

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