BTW, the _Dictionary of Cliches_ mentions that Charles Funk thinks that
phrase comes from a "small child's maneuvers with a limb or a bar", but then
says:
Of course, the expression could simply have come from the process
of removing an animal's pelt. In any case, the saying has existed
for more than 150 years.
So "there is more than one way to skin a cat" is a very old phrase that
appears to have actually come from skinning some sort of animal. The
problem for someone using it in a classroom setting is how to deal with
students who are sensitive to pain and harm to other living things. And the
possibility that a standard phrase might convey a meaning or have an
unintended effect given a diverse audience.
To find out that the phrase has nothing to do with skinning cats would
have helped...:-)
Ciao,
Lyo.
Lyonette Louis-Jacques | llou@midway.uchicago.edu
Foreign and International Law | When the twelve notes have
Librarian and Lecturer in Law | all appeared, the piece
University of Chicago Law School | is over - Anton Webern
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