Have Some Jaguar

[00:00] All right team, I think it's time to move over to our undegoogle ball.
[00:06] Oh, we doing undegoogle balls?
[00:19] That was the play of super excited told us we had to.
[00:23] So we said we signed up for it in the end.
[00:30] It's going to be better and more true than Google can give you.
[00:34] Who needs who needs something answered this week?
[00:38] Well, I think the whole team does.
[00:40] So we were together for the all-star break and we came up with one
[00:47] and nobody knew the answer.
[00:49] I feel like we should have known the answer, but we didn't.
[00:53] Why is there more than one way to skin a cat?
[00:57] Why is there?
[01:00] I mean, I feel like you got to ask God that question.
[01:02] Well, so it's very odd because skinning a cat seems like not an ideal thing.
[01:12] Anyway, and then why would you have multiple ways to do it?
[01:19] Sure.
[01:20] Why is that a phrase that we just use common?
[01:23] Yeah.
[01:23] Yeah.
[01:23] Why is that in the common parlance?
[01:26] Yeah, there's multiple ways to do things.
[01:29] It seems dark for day to day conversation.
[01:33] Yeah.
[01:33] And we just throw that out there as though that's a thing.
[01:37] Now, the only thing that I that occurred to me was that when we talked
[01:46] about cats in a burlap sack and we've talked about a lot of things.
[01:53] Cat related.
[01:54] Cat related things.
[01:56] Or any cats and dogs.
[01:58] I remember.
[01:59] Cat and eye tails.
[02:00] Yeah.
[02:00] Cat and eye tails.
[02:01] I remember Niko said that they used cat innards for violin strings.
[02:08] And that was unsolicited.
[02:10] I know.
[02:11] He just shouted that from the back room because he just loves cat innards,
[02:14] I think.
[02:15] Or violin strings.
[02:16] Or violin strings.
[02:17] One of the other.
[02:17] One of the two.
[02:18] And I wondered if maybe it came from that.
[02:21] So that's the only thing I could start us with that maybe we skin cats for violins.
[02:30] But why would we need to skin them once we're done?
[02:34] I don't know.
[02:35] I could understand if we used cat tendons or something like that
[02:39] for strings.
[02:40] So you can just skin them to get access to those guys.
[02:43] But with innards, you could just disembowel them.
[02:46] Why do you need cat hair?
[02:50] Cat hide?
[02:52] Because that's when you skin something you have.
[02:54] Sure.
[02:54] Cat hide.
[02:55] Sure.
[02:56] So.
[02:56] Or you want to get the meat cleanly.
[02:59] Sure.
[03:01] Was there a time when we were eating cats?
[03:03] Well, so Jason, I think you and I are probably on the same path here.
[03:07] And that's like big game hunting.
[03:09] Oh, okay.
[03:10] Yeah.
[03:10] So it's not like, you know, the neighborhood kitty cat.
[03:16] It's like a jaguar.
[03:21] And so at that point, yes, you want the hide and you want the meat.
[03:28] Right.
[03:29] So both of the above.
[03:31] So I mean, my first thought was Hemingway and.
[03:35] Oh, sure.
[03:38] Big, big, big game hunting.
[03:39] Big game hunting Hemingway.
[03:41] Just mostly because of the short and tragic life of Francis
[03:45] Macomber, which is a great story.
[03:48] So if you're killing a big game cat and you hang it and you're
[03:54] skinning it for the rug, you know, for your leopard rug or whatever,
[04:02] and then you're going to eat some of it.
[04:03] Do you eat some leopard or some lion?
[04:07] I feel like if you would have gone to the trouble of skin it,
[04:10] you would probably set a little bit aside.
[04:12] Fair enough.
[04:12] Like if you have a nibble, have a notch.
[04:15] I don't know if it's good eating at all.
[04:17] I don't know if it is either.
[04:18] I mean, it's I don't either.
[04:19] I don't hear about like, you don't have like a fine tiny
[04:22] experience where they're like, you know, have some jaguar.
[04:26] You know, yeah, but you definitely want the pelt.
[04:30] You definitely want the pelt and so is there more than one way?
[04:34] Well, this is my question.
[04:35] This is my question.
[04:37] Isn't there just one way to skin everything?
[04:42] No, I mean, not if this thing has any creams whatsoever.
[04:49] How are you skinning the cat outside of just cutting the hide off?
[04:55] Well, but you could cut the hide off in different ways.
[04:57] Yeah, you're definitely skinning the cat,
[04:59] but like your your approach to the skinning itself is different.
[05:04] That's right.
[05:05] Yeah, but how would the wouldn't it affect the pelt if you did it?
[05:10] I don't know.
[05:11] I mean, absolutely.
[05:13] Right, but like it so if you wanted to say so maybe better in other applications.
[05:18] Yeah, so let's say you wanted to make your you know,
[05:22] leopard skin rug or whatever with head attached you would skin it one way.
[05:27] If you instead wanted to mount the head on the wall,
[05:30] you might skin it a different way or perhaps if you'd shot it in a certain place
[05:34] like yes get it this one way.
[05:37] To get the maximum amount of of you know, pelt, right?
[05:42] Yeah, or do I have like just I just don't have a big knife
[05:45] or do I have different things?
[05:48] I think it's probably mostly just a big knife.
[05:50] That's how you when you're out on safari.
[05:52] I mean it ain't brain surgery.
[05:54] You got a you got a big-ass knife.
[05:56] Okay.
[05:58] Use my cut from a different direction.
[06:01] Yeah, I mean that's the whole thing.
[06:02] It's like you do come from like, you know, so for instance,
[06:07] like if you're dressing an animal like you're going to cut it a certain way
[06:10] because you got to gut it, right?
[06:12] But if you're not gutting the animal,
[06:14] you might want to go about it completely differently, right?
[06:17] Like I don't know like I don't feel dress animals.
[06:20] I'm not a huge hunter.
[06:23] I was a vegetarian for like 20 years.
[06:25] So yeah, not really a marasmé, but if you do need to gut an animal presumably
[06:30] you just go like straight down right and because you got to empty the carcass.
[06:35] But if you're not interested in a meat or anything inside it,
[06:39] then you can do all sorts of like you can do anything else, right?
[06:44] Yeah, I think they're like they're quick ways to do it and more methodical ways as well.
[06:51] Interesting.
[06:52] Like well, at least I know for like this is I know this from what was that Roger Moore movie?
[07:01] You have when he goes and finds a lady that has rabbits
[07:04] and she's like do you want it for pets or for meat?
[07:07] And so she shows how to like skin a rabbit
[07:11] and you can like basically make one cut and then just pull the right hide off or whatever
[07:17] which would be something you would want to do if you needed quick.
[07:23] Right and you wanted to cure the meat or something like that.
[07:26] But if you're doing it for like yeah exactly pelt or leather or something like that,
[07:33] you would do it in a different way.
[07:35] Maybe I don't know when do we think this phrase came about?
[07:39] So I misquoted it's a short happy life of Francis Macomba, right Coalson?
[07:43] Yes, it is.
[07:45] So I was going him away from like, you know, early 20th century,
[07:51] but I like I suspect that big cat hunting has been around much longer than that.
[07:55] I just am ahead.
[07:57] Yeah, but an author putting that into words is I like that I feel good about it.
[08:02] But not much longer, right?
[08:04] Like, I mean, it would have started like what colonial era?
[08:09] Well, it would have started for white people in the colonial era, but not for not white people.
[08:16] Yeah, this is true.
[08:18] People have been killing animals as long as people have been around.
[08:22] We do like to eat stuff.
[08:24] Yeah, I mean, that's kind of how we survived.
[08:27] That is a thing.
[08:28] And also people like to skin things for the warmth.
[08:33] Yeah, kill it.
[08:35] Also, you know, big cats tend to kill kids.
[08:39] So you don't want that and kill sheep and goats and stuff like all the stuff you like.
[08:45] It's good to get rid of them.
[08:48] It's good to get rid of those things.
[08:50] So, I mean, basically since the dawn of time, but I don't know, dawn of human time, at least.
[08:59] We've been killing big cats.
[09:00] So, climbing the elder or younger?
[09:02] I mean, I'm wondering if this is like Roman.
[09:05] They definitely had cats because they were using cats to kill humans.
[09:09] That's what I'm saying.
[09:10] To happen to be worshipping the Jesus.
[09:13] Yeah, I'm going to go with the Romans.
[09:17] Yeah, that's a good, I think that's pretty strong.
[09:20] Joey, what do you, do you have a thought outside of Hemingway or the Romans?
[09:25] I mean, you know, this particular topic is something I'm blessed.
[09:32] Super close to your heart, right?
[09:34] I mean, I don't know.
[09:35] I had, yeah, I'm a vegetarian and had cats as pets, so, you know.
[09:42] But what I appreciate about Harper's Point very early on was we're not skinning domestic kittens, I guess.
[09:49] Yeah, and I had, every time I heard that phrase, though, I always thought like house cats.
[09:55] I never thought, sure, that's what you envision right away.
[09:58] That's because the phrase isn't there's more than one way to skin a tiger.
[10:02] Yeah, it's certainly not that right.
[10:04] So, I'm with you, Joey.
[10:05] I always felt the same way.
[10:06] I was like, why are we skidding?
[10:09] You know, now there may be bad news when it comes to the reveal about whether it's domestic.
[10:14] Yeah, but I mean, I guess, yeah, I mean, the phrase itself, I don't know.
[10:24] I mean, what it stands for, yeah, that's been around forever, you know, since pre-historical
[10:30] times.
[10:31] But the phrase itself, you know, I don't, yeah, this could be something that the Romans
[10:40] were saying.
[10:41] I mean, I would think newer Shakespeare.
[10:45] Yeah, but I would think maybe they are just because, like, language has changed so much
[10:52] over the years, and it's hard to, it's even hard to even track that stuff.
[10:56] It's not like, it's not like you can just look up the phrase and say.
[11:01] Well, I mean, this is definitely like an idiom, right?
[11:04] Like if you said, if you were talking to somebody from any other culture, I'd say,
[11:09] well, you know, they're like, well, I'm really having problems with this.
[11:13] How do I do it?
[11:14] You say, you know, there's more than one way to skin a cat, like, nobody's going to know
[11:18] what that means.
[11:19] Yeah.
[11:20] I mean, maybe.
[11:21] Yeah, I guess.
[11:22] I don't know.
[11:23] Horse racing, I'm guessing horse racing.
[11:28] It was originally just more than one way to skin a horse.
[11:32] Yeah, I'm going colonial era.
[11:37] Who is the guy?
[11:40] Livingstone.
[11:41] I'm going.
[11:42] Oh, nice.
[11:43] Jonathan Livingstone Siegel.
[11:45] Yeah.
[11:46] OK, OK.
[11:48] I haven't gone with Livingstone before.
[11:51] And, Joey, you go in Shakespeare, or you?
[11:54] Yeah, Shakespeare.
[11:55] All right.
[11:56] More than one way to do things, that's all we know.
[12:01] The earliest written appearance, and this is according to Gemini.
[12:06] The earliest is 1840, a story by C. The Smith.
[12:11] There are more ways to kill a dog than hanging.
[12:14] Oh, God.
[12:16] The origin doesn't likely have anything to do with cats.
[12:19] Some theories, skinning catfish.
[12:22] Yeah.
[12:23] Why would you do that?
[12:25] I guess just to eat?
[12:27] Yep.
[12:28] Chad G.D.T. agrees that it's from the 1854 book by C. The Smith, Way Down East, or Portraiture's
[12:35] of Yankee Life, but it probably did come down idiomatically long before that.
[12:44] But someone would have put pen to paper on it, right?
[12:48] Like, it actually can't be that much earlier.
[12:51] 1840, American humorist, C. The Smith.
[12:55] Yeah.
[12:56] Yeah, is that what you said?
[12:58] Yep.
[12:59] The Money Diggers?
[13:00] So, yeah, I guess different book, but yeah, same author.
[13:04] OK.
[13:05] I don't think that's funny, though.
[13:07] As it is said, there's more ways than one to skin a cat, or are there more ways than
[13:13] one for digging of money?
[13:17] So according to the grammar, I guess you mentioned this, the 1678 John Ray's collection, more
[13:25] ways to kill a dog than hanging.
[13:28] There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream.
[13:32] Yeah.
[13:33] That seems to be-
[13:35] Why are people hanging dogs?
[13:36] Yeah, I don't know.
[13:38] It seems like it's in introduction to the United States was via Mark Twain.
[13:43] Ah!
[13:44] Twain.
[13:45] A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court, 1889.
[13:49] She was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat.
[13:53] Oh, see, that's good.
[13:54] He's so good.
[13:55] He's a clever, clever man.
[13:57] That just describes a person right away.
[13:59] I love it.
[14:00] I'm all in.
[14:02] Apparently, to skin a cat is used to describe a gymnastics move by children on the playground
[14:07] when they pass their feet and legs between their arms while hanging by the hands from
[14:14] a set of horizontal bars, reminiscent of turning an animal skin inside out as part
[14:20] of the removal process.
[14:22] Lee.
[14:23] Okay.
[14:24] All right, so- There was no way this wasn't going to be disgusting.
[14:30] So nothing?
[14:32] Well, no.
[14:33] So basically, it wasn't big cats, and it is domestic cats, essentially.
[14:37] Well, it seems like it's nothing.
[14:40] Yeah.
[14:41] Well, no, but it comes from hanging a dog, maybe.
[14:45] Maybe, but a dog is not a cat.
[14:50] Hot take.
[14:53] Seba Smith.
[14:54] Oh, is Seba Smith definitely a pen and paper?
[14:58] And then Mark Twain.
[15:00] Yeah.
[15:02] But there's no why- There is no why for this at all.
[15:09] Is there more than one way to skin a cat?
[15:11] I made a lot of guesses about how that might be a thing, and I don't know if there is more
[15:17] than one way to skin a cat.
[15:19] There was- I did see a- There are actually only two ways to skin
[15:23] a cat.
[15:24] While it's alive or while it's dead.
[15:26] Oh, no.
[15:29] Yeah, I saw some stuff that I kind of glossed over about which people were doing which things
[15:36] that they were doing at which times in the life of the cat.
[15:42] So this is just a dumb saying, is what you're telling me.
[15:45] A dumb- I could have told you that before.
[15:47] A dumb saying that it's at some point in the UK, folks were going using domesticated
[15:56] cat fur.
[15:59] So it seems the Pine Martin, which is of the Weasel family, and has the nickname Tree Cat
[16:05] was sort of a desired fur.
[16:11] And a cheap substitute was domestic cats.
[16:16] And an example of this is in Gogol's The Overcoat, in which an impoverished clerk needs
[16:23] a new overcoat, he scrapes together the necessary sale.
[16:27] And when Martin Furbe proves too expensive, he selects a cat fur as a substitute.
[16:34] The Graham Wrist has a little graph, which is pretty cool.
[16:40] It seems like it was in the lexicon before 1840s, and had a little spike after that.
[16:49] And then it got really popular in- In the 70s, basically.
[16:56] Yeah, 60s, yeah.
[16:59] And then is most popular in the early 2000s, so shout out, early 2000s.
[17:05] So Vice, as an article, title from 2015, titled, How Many Ways Are There to Skin a Cat?
[17:12] We asked some cat skinners.
[17:15] And I have not gotten very far down this article yet, but-
[17:23] The journalist that pitched that idea was definitely hungover that day, and they were
[17:28] like, all right, who's got ideas?
[17:29] What have we got here?
[17:31] Which editor said, yeah, yeah, yeah, go for that.
[17:33] Talk to some cat skinners.
[17:39] The quote of record here is probably, there are nearly as many ways to skin a cat as
[17:44] there are lazy students who don't really care, and want to leave lab early.
[17:52] Oi.
[17:55] Cool.
[17:56] All right, team.
[17:57] Well, I feel like we- Grossed out Joey, and that's worth something.
[18:02] Yeah.
[18:03] We had a talk about a thing.