Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings

Subject: Origins: Skin the Cat & other sayings
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 02:23 PM

When we were taking off sweaters or t-shirts or other things that went over our heads, my grandmother would say "skin the cat" (which we often pronounced "skinny cat.")

Anybody else familiar with this phrase, or is it just something from my family?


Anybody else have family sayings they wonder about? Please tell us what region you were in when you learned the phrase.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origins: Skin the Cat
From: Melissa
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 02:28 PM

we "skinned the cat" as a dismount from hanging upside down on the monkeybar.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: GUEST,Val
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 03:55 PM

"There's more than one way to skin a cat" was a phrase I often heard. (multiple solutions to any problem)

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:19 PM

There's more than one way to skin a cat--if you're into cat skinning.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:23 PM

My mother always said 'skin a rabbit' or 'skin a bunny' when she ripped our jumpers up over our ears... I didn't realise what it meant until I saw someone actually skinning a rabbit. The whole skin gets pulled off as if it were a jumper - leaving behind the red flesh, which is what our ears felt like when our heads were outgrowing the jumper at a greater rate than the stretch of the wool would allow.

LTS

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:24 PM

I heard all three usages (take off over your head, more than one way and 'turn inside out' from a horizontal bar...body thru the elbows) as a child, late '50's early '60's, in Winfield, Kansas.

I also heard it as 'not enough room to skin (or cuss) a cat without getting hair in your mouth.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: GUEST,Melissa
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:26 PM

I've heard small spaces referred to as "not enough room to swing a dead cat""

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Amos
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:38 PM

One I have never heard anywhere is "not enough room to kick the balls on a brass monkey". Anyone? ;>)


A

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: joncst
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:46 PM

i think not enough room to swing a cat is naval and is to do with room to use a cato-nine-tails below decks. guess dead got added as saying went from naval use into the vernacular. my wife (nottingham) always says skin a rabbit, when undressing kids, she thinks her family (also north notts) used it regularly.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:48 PM

No mystery about this, but one that may be worth sharing...
The Old Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham is reputedly the oldest inn in the UK. During the days of variety theatre, it was one of the pubs of choice for artists. My daughter was visiting us (and my father in hospital), and said she'd like to go there, to which my mother commented "Well, you know what your Grandad used to say about the Trip" We didn't...
"You don't want to go there - it's full of whores and comic singers".
Oddly enough, it's still full of character to this day.
KYBTTS

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:53 PM

Must have been their day off when I visited it then.. mind you, I did have a giant Yorkshire pudding served in what could only be described as a ceramic cloth cap....

LTS

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:55 PM

Yuk, I am glad to say I don't remember ever hearing ANY references of violence to cats when I was growing up!

"Couldn't hit the broadside of a barn" comes to mind, as well as "blind as a bat," and "colder than the dickens," which I am sure was an edited version as my mother would have "gone on the warpath" if dad had said the real version, colder than a well-digger's ass" in front of us kids.

I wonder does "dickens" refer to the oft-freezing characters in his novels?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 07:32 PM

I think probably more of a euphmisim for 'devil' or 'hell' kat.

My dad said, colder than a well diggers wallet, or colder than a witches teat.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 08:45 PM

"More than one way to skin a cat"- Seba Smith, 1854, in the book "'Way Down East, Portraitures of Yankee Life." More ways than one to get what you want. Found in English proverbs, John Rae's collection, 1678.

"To skin the cat" is a gymnastic exercise; we had to do it in physical training- Hanging from a parallel bar, flip anr rotate the feet and body back between the arms. Perhaps this comes from skinning an animal, turning the skin inside out.

Found these at www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-mor1.htm

Couldn't find any quotes from John Rae in my Oxford English Dictionary, so outside of the Seba Smith quote, I can't give verification.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 08:54 PM

Busier than a one-armed paper-hanger.

So poor they didn't have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Rowan
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 09:23 PM

It was always "More than one way to skin a cat", and "Not enough room to swing a cat", without the "dead" qualifier, in Melbourne in the 50s.

And "Busier than a one-armed paper-hanger" was always "Busier than a one-armed paper-hanger with the crabs" then, too.

"Tighter than a fish's arse", "Colder than a witch's tit" were also common (in most senses of the word) and "Get a wriggle on" and "Time to unwrap your rung" both meant "Hurry up!"

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 09:47 PM

Some of these are found everywhere English is spoken- busier than ..., colder than a witch's tit, busier than a one-armed ...., so poor they didn't have a pot to piss in, broadside of a barn, blind as a bat, etc.

Time to unwrap your rung is new to me- What is the origin?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Azizi
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 09:56 PM

Although the subject is "family sayings", I want to note that with regard to the lyrics "Juba this and Juba that/ Juba skinned a yellow cat" in the dance song "Juba", professor/author Thomas W. Talley wrote that "skinning the cat" was a dance step.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Louie Roy
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 10:09 PM

Busier than a cat covering shit on a tin roof And when you were admitting you were wrong and the other person was right Your Ass is the blackest

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 10:26 PM

Dearest...AZISI -

"Skinning the Cat" is also a term applied to duo and single gymnastics...and a multiple of school-yard-games dating back to at least 1900 and without reference...probably before.

However, it is my understanding, the SUBJECT of this thread is "Other Family Sayings" and Origins.

Return to back of the class.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Louie Roy
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 10:43 PM

A couple of others It's raining like a cow pissing ona flat rock and the old cars we ad to drive they were so rough the'd shake the balls off of a brass monkey

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Rowan
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 11:39 PM

Q:
"Unwrap your rung!" meaning "Hurry up!" or "Get a move on!" I first heard as a phrase used by a family friend (Eileen Vaughan, née Cattanach and the mother of my first serious girlfriend) in Heidelberg (Melbourne) in the 50s. Eileen (now deceased) was brought up in the alpine parts of the NSW southern highlands in the 20s and 30s, so probably learned the saying in that context.

It was also used by Lorna Rosser (my first mother-in-law, who was a bit younger) in Moorooduc (Mornington Peninsula, south of Frankston, Victoria) in the 60s and 70s. Lorna was brought up (as I recall; we don't get on well) in Melbourne.

I can't give any earlier info on the saying, and I recall it being used by others, subsequently.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 12:58 AM

Something worthless according to my father was 'not worth the full of your arse of roasted snow.'

Someone ungainly was 'as awkward as a pig going to hoke.'

Seamus

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 06:56 AM

When he thougbt something was neat, an old buddy of mine used to say, "Well now, thats jest slicker'n hot chicken fat on a stuck doorknob".

I am not sure where it came from, but when asked how I'm doing, I usually reply that I am "just as fine as frog's hair". Think about it.

Mick

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Newport Boy
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 09:05 AM

I think I've posted this before, but repetition never did any harm.

My father-in-law always said of any action that was ineffective:

"As much use as shouting 'shit' up a dark alley."

This came from Newport (S Wales) early 1920's.

Phil

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Louie Roy
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 10:40 AM

What boggles my mind is why we have a BS thread in the musical section

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Flash Company
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 11:17 AM

We were always told 'There are more ways to kill a cat than choking it with butter!'
Anyone reckoned to be mean was 'Tighter than a duck's arse (and that's watertight!)
Complain that you had nowhere to sit and risk being told 'Stick your thumb in your bum and sit on your elbow!'
A frosty morning was 'Cold enough for a walking stick!'
And one farm labourer I knew would raise his 'lid of tea' and say:-
Here's to health, wealth and Freedom,
Them as never drinks tea, Buggerem, ne'er heed 'em!

FC

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 01:03 PM

More of a universal saying, but "crossing the pond," i. e., the Atlantic, has been around a long time. The OED has a quote from 1641 from a passenger, speaking of "taking flight across the great pond."

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Marje
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 04:32 PM

"Skin a rabbit!" was what my Mum (Scottish, 1950s) used to say when pulling a jumper etc over my head. I think it unlikely she'd ever skinned a rabbit herself but had proabably seen it done.

Marje

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 06:31 PM

When someone he didn't admire got something right, my grandfather would say, "Even a blind sow can stumble across an acorn once in a while."

And his version of recommending that a spade be called a spade was, "If a cat had kittens in the oven, would you call them biscuits?"

The blind sow I have heard elsewhere; the kittens thing I have not.

CC

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Melissa
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 06:38 PM

I've heard the 'kittens in the oven' one before and now that you've reminded me, I hope I start saying it!

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Rowan
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 07:12 PM

The only way to remove a jumper is by pulling it over your head so I assume "skin the rabbit" applies when you pull it by the waistband and turn the jumper inside out while doing so rather than just pulling it off by the neck.

Another family saying, when working hard at something, "going full tilt at it" is (in my family) "flat out like a lizard drinking!"

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 07:29 PM

Growing up on a San Joaquin Valley ranch in California, I heard a lot of expressions out of Dust Bowl transplants from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, etc. You know; the sort that threatens to "lay one upside yore head." They favored a sort of deadpan, ironic humor with expressions like "lower than a snake's belly in a wagon track" or "don't that take the rag off the bush, though." The latter came from the days before roads, when people marked the way for followers by leaving a bit of cloth tied to a bush or tree limb. If someone took the "rag off the bush," people could die. My personal favorite was from an old west Texas field hand who, when asked a direct question, would respond with things such as, "weeelll, jes like the fly - I speck so." Last, I only recall "more than one way to skin a cat" as a response to someone trying to solve a problem.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: JennieG
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 02:32 AM

Louie Roy - it's not music but it is folklore.

I have a wonderful book called "Lily on the dustbin" by Nancy Keesing, and it is what she called 'familyspeak' - the sayings that get handed on within families, as distinct from sayings in a workplace or social situation. While I can't lay my hand on it right now I think it was published about 20 years ago. Before it was published I heard Nancy interviewed on talk-back radio, and some of the sayings that callers had when they rang up were priceless.

I like 'as flash as a rat with a gold tooth'.

If my brothers or I asked my mother where something was, we were told 'it's up in Annie's room behind the clock'.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: GUEST,Ukraine Guest
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 06:26 PM

In Steaven King's "Gerald's Game" I found two expressions:
1. skinning the cat on the monkey-bar
2. to skin the cat over the (bed) headboard would do more than break her wrists.
From the context it's clear enough that it's about some movement similar to a somersault...

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:41 PM

as flash as a rat with a gold tooth

One of my favourites, JennieG!

Which reminded me of "as cunning as a dunny rat"

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Escapee
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:31 AM

What are you doing? " Sewing buttons on ice cream. "
Or "Holler" for shout. Maybe from Southern Ohio.
Where's So-and So? " He just went by in a rowboat." Another possible
Southern Ohioism. At least I heard it from a Southern Ohioan.
SKP

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Mo the caller
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 06:17 AM

My mother said "skin a rabit", I think refering to pulling a jumper off someone else (a child), and when you are having a jumper removed your arms are above your head like rabits ears. We were in London.

One that may be exclusive to us "mind the boggles!" ....the mind boggles. And in my husbands family "bring presents have us to?"... originally said on reading an invitation that said "your presence is required", now any time the word is mentioned.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Flash Company
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 10:31 AM

Arthur Askey had a song called 'Up in Annie's Room',including.....

'That's where Nelson lost his eye,
Up in Annie's Room'

FC

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 01:00 AM

These just keep bubbling up from some sub-basement of the mind --

Now it's the one where somebody is being a pain and you want them to go away and do something that will take up a lot of their time, so you tell them, "Go pound sand down a rat-hole," or "Go teach your granny to pound sand down a rat-hole." Often abbreviated to just "Oh, go pound sand."

Don't know if this was a common saying or just one person's eccentric invention. My Dad had a boss who, when some project was finished, said everything was "Lashed up, lined out and whoop-tee-doo." Maybe the first part originated with a load being put on a wagon or truck (lashed up) and all the items called for in a shipment checked off on a packing list--'lined out.'

I also heard, growing up in a racially mixed neighborhood, a word Black people used as an equivalent to "cool." It was "reet." That was late 1940's, early 1950's--actually I don't think we were even saying "cool" yet. Never heard it since. Anybody else? "Man, those new shoes are really reet!" Hmmm.

CC

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Genie
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 02:55 AM

My maternal great aunt was a trove of old "Arkansas witticisms." E.g.,

"He was as nervous as a fart in a frying pan."

"He'd eat a mile of his sh_t to get to kiss his _ss."

He was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers."

He was so poor he didn't have a pot to p_ss in."

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Genie
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 02:59 AM

Jim Hightower says, "There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadilloes."

He also says "Sometimes you've got to swim upstream. Even a dead carp can go with the flow."

But some things are "as rare as hen's teeth."

Why do we say "Fit as a fiddle?" How fit are fiddles, after all?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Genie
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 03:03 AM

Come to think of it, why do we (or why did Hubert Humphrey) say something is "right as rain?" How right is rain, anyway?

G

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 09:41 AM

Some great family sayings here! In our family things mislaid were always, "Up in Nanny's room behind the clock!" I mind the time when I visited my Nan and, while she was busy doing something, nipped up to her bedroom and actually looked behind her clock! Nothing there, of course...but a mite disappointing!

Then there was Dad's saying, "Thank your mother for the rabbits!" on saying goodbye to a guest at the front door.

Although fairly well known, I like two Australian comments that my friends there use..."Flat out like a lizard drinking" when working hard and, "On the wallaby" when you take your motor home and disappear for a few days!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Flash Company
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 10:33 AM

Genie... So poor he didn't have a pot to piss in was in use on our side of the Atlantic too, my old Gran used to say it.
Also, of someone nervous, ' He's jumping about like a fart in a bottle!'which is fairly close to your version.
This next is not exactly a family saying, but a tale often told. Dad was at a wedding, and trying, as only an awkward adult can, to make conversation with a small boy:-
Dad... And what is your name, young man?
Small Boy..... They call me Waspberry Arse!

There is really nowhere to go after an exchange like that!

FC

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Gulliver
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 02:29 PM

I heard the nick-name Skin-the-goat used around Dublin (probably named after Skin-the-goat Fitzharris of Invincibles' fame).

When we kids looked for something it was always "Up in Nelly's room!"
And where was Nelly's room? "At the back of the Pipes" (that's at the back of Guinness's brewery)

If we were restless, my granny (from Dundalk) would tell us to "stop foosterin'--you're like a hen on a hot griddle!"

A bad-looking woman had "a face like an accident on its way to a crash", or "a plateful of mortal sins".

A smart or devious person was "cute as a shithouse rat".

Don

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Rowan
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 06:58 PM

More sayings from the Melbourne of my youth.

"Like shit off a shovel" was a description of someone moving fast, both literally and metaphorically.

"What's that?" often elicited the response "A wigwam for a goose's bridle."

"He's jumping about like a fart in a bottle!" I became aware of much later, in the 60s.

"More moves than a barrel of monkees" was a synonym for "roving hands" that I came across when I started taking an interest in girls; both were used of particular blokes by girls.

Genie's "as rare as hen's teeth" and "Fit as a fiddle" were also common, although the former was usually "Scarce as hens' teeth" and "Fit as a trout" was also common.

["Hens' Teeth" was the name of the first all-women rock group in Oz, and it was closely followed by "The Ovarian Sisters"]

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Gurney
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 12:06 AM

One of my dad's many terms was "Out padgehowling", which meant out of doors at night for no good reason, or out drinking, or looking for trouble.

I think he made it up. We once had a cat named Patch(Padge) who was a vocal defender of 'his' territory.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayings
From: Bert
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 12:29 AM

Hey Flash, I heard it as "There's more ways to kill a cat than drowning it in milk". I guess that both predate the skinnning a cat version.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'Skin the Cat' and other family sayin
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 12:45 AM

Another of my father's was: He didn't have a pot to piss in, or a window to throw it out of."

If something or someone was not close, they 'were not within a beagle's gowl."

A rude, stupid person was "as ignorant as a cartload of Millfield arseholes". (Millfield was an area of Belfast).

If a person was loud or a bigmouth, he "has a quare gub for hidin' champ". (Champ - mashed potatoes and scallions). Or 'I wish I had his gub full of threepenny bits".

Seamus