Regarding Mary's "cat out of the bag"... I was just reading in Reader's
Digest (yeah, I know..) that "Pig in a Poke" had to do with selling pigs
in bags in medieval times -- and the practice of devious sellers not
allowing people to open the bags to see the pig, because it was really a
cat -- therefore "letting the cat out of the bag"....
> I believe this is also the origin of the phrase "not enough room to
> swing a cat", which refers to the necessity of punishing sailors on
> an open deck, and not to being cruel to felines.
>
> > I think Rich is recalling "let the cat out of the bag", which may have a
> > nautical origin (referring to bringing the cat o' nine tails out of the
> > bag in order to flog a hapless sailor -- yow!). (I think I've read this
> > story several places, but I just confirmed it with a quick NEXIS search
> > that produced a Boston Globe article of 8/3/91 citing The Facts On File
> > Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins.)
> > -- Mary
> >
> > Mary Whisner, Head of Reference
> > Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington
> > whisner@u.washington.edu
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 10 Jun 1997, Fred Shapiro wrote:
> >
> > > While browsing through the law-lib archives, I saw that Rich Leiter posted
> > > a message on June 3 asking about the origin of the expression "more
> > > than one way to skin a cat." Rich thought the "cat" in the expression was
> > > actually a nautical or military term having nothing to do with animals.
> > > In fact, the "cat" in the expression does refer to a cat. If you look in
> > > any of the major proverb dictionaries you will see that this expression is
> > > merely a variant of old proverbs about "There are more ways to skin a cat
> > > (dog) than ...", going back to the 17th century.
> > >
> > > Fred Shapiro
> > > Associate Librarian for Public Services
> > > Lillian Goldman Library
> > > Yale Law School
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
> -----------------------
> John P. Joergensen
> Reference Librarian
> Rutgers University
> Law School - Camden
> jjoerg@crab.rutgers.edu
> Phone: (609) 225-6460
> -----------------------
>
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