| 词源 |
more than one way to skin a cat. There are more ways of kill- ing a cat than choking it with cream was the older form of this British expression. This implied that the method under discus- sion was rather foolish, since cats like cream and wouldn’t likely choke to death on it. But the saying evolved until it took on its present meaning—that there are more ways than one of ac- complishing an undertaking. The expression shouldn’t be con- fused with the American saying skinning the cat, which de- scribes the maneuver where a child, hanging from a tree branch, draws up his legs through his arms and over the branch and pulls himself into a sitting position atop the branch. |