Mid-morning.
Saturday morning with Saturday political cartoons, one brought forth a smile
with Trump sitting presidential with a sign, "The Buck Stops Here"
and bags of money on the desk; an aide says, "I don't think that is what
the sign means." Humor is a way to skin the cat, boy, as the saying goes.
- Amorella
0943 hours. I don't get it, Amorella. Besides,
where did this "skin the cat" phrase originate?
** **
More than one way to
skin a cat
Q From Mike Reilly: Anything
interesting in the origin of There’s more than one way to skin a cat?
A To a lexicographer, all phrases are
interesting, it’s just that some of them are more interesting than others ...
There are many versions of this proverb, which suggests
there are always several ways to do something. Charles Kingsley used one old
British form in Westward Ho! in 1855: “there are more ways of killing a
cat than choking it with cream”. Other versions include “there are more ways of
killing a cat than by choking it with butter”, and “there are more ways of
killing a dog than choking him with pudding”. The earliest version appears as
far back as 1678, in the second edition of John Ray’s collection of English
proverbs, in which he gives it as “there are more ways to kill a dog than
hanging”.
Mark Twain used your version in A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court in 1889: “she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way
to skin a cat”, that is, more than one way to get what she wanted. An earlier
appearance is in ’Way down East; or, Portraitures of Yankee Life by Seba
Smith of about 1854: “This is a money digging world of ours; and, as it is
said, ‘there are more ways than one to skin a cat,’ so are there more ways than
one of digging for money”. From the way he writes, the author clearly knew this
to be a well-known existing proverbial saying.
Writers have pointed to its use in the southern states of
the US in reference to the catfish, often abbreviated to cat, a fish
that is indeed usually skinned in preparing it for eating. However, it looks
very much from the multiple versions of the saying, their wide distribution and
their age, that this is just a local application of the proverb.
The version more than one way to skin a cat seems to
have nothing directly to do with the American English term to skin a cat,
which is to perform a gymnastic exercise that involves passing the feet and
legs between the arms while hanging by the hands from a horizontal bar. That
name may have been suggested by the action of turning an animal’s skin inside
out as part of the process of removing it from the body.
Selected from - worldwidewords DOT org/qa/qa-mor1.htm
** **
0955 hours. My sense of the phrase is as
depicted in Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
Mine
also, young man; with me being the she. - Amorella
0959 hours. That's funny. "'She
was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat,', that is, more
than one way to get what she wanted." What this shows
me Amorella, is that you have an agenda; or rather, I have an undisclosed
unconscious agenda. Do I?
Most everyone has at least one undisclosed
unconscious agenda, don't you think? - Amorella
1029 hours. I don't know. I haven't thought about that. If so, though,
why is this so? Is it part of the basic human condition, I mean, it would
appear so.
Afternoon. You did your
exercises and had a good hot bath with bubbles for your arthritis. Tomorrow
afternoon you are going to Kim and Paul's for dinner and staying over. Gayle
will be there as she cannot attend the more formal 'Christmas dinner' on
Monday. In the tub you spent time considering any hidden agendas and came to
the conclusion you didn't have any, and as such, you assume I do not have any
either. - Amorella
1409 hours. I have written everything down since the eighties. I assume
whatever secret agenda I had would have been leaked out by now. I can't think
of anything Amorella has not said along the way either. Some mystery now and
then, but no agendas other than Amorella has helped me 'know myself better' for
which I am thankful. - rho
1416 hours. I don't think the human condition intends for people to have hidden agendas.
You have returned to
Kroger's on Mason-Montgomery Road once again, and here you sit. - Amorella
1458 hours. We had ham, cheese, and turkey on flatbread for lunch. I
couldn't finish mine. Most excellent. Carol is making two veggies for Monday
but doesn't feel she had enough ingredients, so here we are. Surprisingly it is
not as crowded today. I drove thinking that I could drop her off, park
elsewhere, and she could call me when ready -- that always works. When home I
can work on the chapter two drafting. I will say, most people coming in and
leaving the grocery look somewhat frazzled/tired already. Why do we end up
doing things like this anyway? Do people put too much personal
expectation/obligation on readying for a holiday? Here are a couple fellows
that look fairly happy/pleased -- it is mostly the women who feel the stress.
That's what I observe here. An hour from now anyone could make other
observations. Maybe everyone will appear happy and joyful. Ah, 'we put on faces
to meet the faces that we meet' -- T.S. Eliot, I think. I forget the poem. . .
. I can't imagine Jesus understood how this was all going to come out along the
way.
What would be the point if everyone knew how
things were going to turn out? - Amorella
1636 hours. Good point.
You are at the community center where Carol
has begun her walking. - Amorella
1637 hours. I'm glad I brought the computer. After groceries were put
away we headed to Graeter's before they closed. Carol decided to do a walk so
here we are. Most everything has closed down for the duration. There are more
people here that I would have expected. I assume the center is open to five or
six.
In stories it appears that characters in the
plot tend to have hidden agendas. - Amorella
1646 hours. Yes, to add depth to the story I suppose. Citizen Kane comes
to mind first. "Rosebud" is a hidden name until his dying word. All
his accumulated wealth had to do with his lost sled named "Rosebud"
as a child. I had not thought of this in context with today's posting. In fact,
I was trying to conjure up something more sinister for a character of two to
have in mind. I am not very good at this sort of thing. First, I would have to
think a character out entirely and work the story backwards in my head. I am
not a good writer for novels I can see that. Any reviews I have ever had said
the characters were not well developed -- two-dimension, no life, etc. This writing business is all rather silly when I think
on it. The pleasure I have is watching words come on the screen where I can
read them as I type them. I might have been a good monk copying text for a
lifetime. I would have liked that.
You see, there is an agenda
"you might have been a good monk," being a monk would have been your aspiration,
your goal/objective for life. - Amorella
1714 hours. I can't imagine myself (as I am in this life) being anything
other than a monk -- assuming I would have enjoyed language like I do, and, that
I was much better in Latin than I have been in this life.
Strange that you don't think of yourself as
any of the multitude of characters in Grandma's Stories. - Amorella
1719 hours. Those were fleeting glimpses of lives over the centuries.
The only ones to come to mind at the moment are David and the little ghost
Grandma held in her hand like a gosling. My mind is still blank otherwise.
Post. - Amorella
You had a light snack supper then popcorn
for dessert as you watched NBC News and a "Doc Martin". Carol went
upstairs after working on laundry so you watched the first episode of the
second season of "The Man in the High Castle", cleaned out the cat
stations as you do every night, took you
meds and are ready for bed. - Amorella
2222 hours. It is rare when a television
show is as intense as The Man in the High Castle. I remember watching
the first show last year first, then Carol got hooked as we watched it
together. I will wait to see if she watches it with me or if she doesn't want
to I will watch the episodes alone.
The
show is intense because of the whole theatre involved. Heartanmind are involved
but the soul stays distant; in the same room, so to speak, but distant. It's
the juxtapositing between soul and heartanmind that is troubling and
disturbing. Measuring the distance of heart and soul and mind is not directly in
distance but it will do for a two-dimensional analogy. - Amorella
2231 hours. Okay. I have a sense of
this. I am going to explore a setup for this particular setting - TMITHC - soul
-- heartanmind separation. How to show this visualize on paper or even
three-dimensionally.
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