TO KILL OR SKIN A CAT

"There's more than one way to kill a cat (than to choke it with cream)" recommends a change to stronger tactics. It has now been largely superseded by "more than one way to skin a cat" which might have a more literal meaning since cat fur, along with coney, was relatively cheap. The 13th Century Nun's Rule "You shall not possess any beast, my dear sisters, except only a cat" may sound cosy, but is also thought to mean that nuns could use cat fur in their garments while expensive furs were reserved for higher church officials. It's worth remembering that the Russian Blue was once highly prized for its fur. Cat fur is still used for garments and cat pelts are sold in Germany while cats are farmed for their fur (used to make ornaments, often bought by unwitting American and British cat lovers) in China. However, the saying to "skin a cat" most likely comes from to skin a catfish.

While the skinning of either cats for fur or catfish for food are the most likely derivations, another colloquial meaning of "skin" is to beat. The unfortunate feline may have suffered in that way - an early case of "the office boy kicked the cat" which refers to a person venting his wrath on the next person lower down the hierarchy. The bottom of the hierarchy is the office boy and the only person he can take it out on is the company rat.

The use of cat fur for garments gave us "what can you have of a cat but her skin?" indicates that cats are useless for any purpose but one. Though cat fur was useful for trimming cloaks and coats, the flesh was discarded. Cat flesh can be - and has been - used as a substitute for rabbit hence the British nickname "roof-rabbit" sometimes applied to cats. Roof-rabbits were eaten in some English cities during the second World War when real rabbit was scarce and when the urban stray cat population was thriving on increasing rats and mice; some butchers even fattened cats up on scraps and later sold the cat as "rabbit" to unwitting customers (just as horse was sold as beef). There is, by the way, no evidence that a 1940s population of Munchkin-type cats either hunted down rabbit burrows or were wiped out as roof-rabbits.

To confuse the matter further, the pine marten was also known as "cat" (or "tree cat") in parts of Britain and at least some of the sayings about fur and flesh not worth the eating may refer to the marten, not the domestic cat. Martens are related to ermine (stoat) and their fur has long been used for collars and for trimming robes. "What can you have of a cat but her skin" may refer also to leopards, lynxes and the other wild cat species hunted purely for their patterned fur.

And what of "catgut", that tough cord which holds two interlocking rows of metal belt lacing staples on the opposite ends of leather belting together. It is not actually made from "cat gut", not even the guts of fallen-from-grace cats who have had the cream and the canary, but is a tough cord made from the intestines of sheep. "Cat gut" resulted from mistranslation of the German "kitgut", meaning a small fiddle,

While considering the usefulness of cats for fur or food there is also "Who ate the cat?" A gentleman who had foods stolen from his larder regularly, had a cat cooked and placed there as a decoy. It was taken like the other foods, and became a standing joke against these larder pilferers - presumably causing nausea among whichever of his friends or servants was stealing food and stopping them from stealing more food since they didn't always know what they were eating!

The Spanish expression "pasar gato por liebre" (to pass off a cat as a hare) and the Portuguese expression "comprar gato por lebre" (to buy a cat as a hare) are derived from the practice of unscrupulous individuals passing off cat meat as rabbit or hare; the sayings are equivalent to the English saying "to pull the wool over someone's eyes".