RESEARCH INTO MY PROVERB

When it came to researching my proverb, I wanted to first off find out a bit more about it. I had a general idea of what it meant and so on, but I wanted to delve into it's origin etc so that I could maybe gather a bit more inspiration. 

It turned out that there are numerous versions of the proverb 'there is more than one way to skin a cat'. 

A similar version was used in Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho in 1855 where he exclaimed "there are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream". The earliest version of this was found as far back as 1678 in an actual collection of English proverbs by John Ray - "there are more ways to kill a dog than hanging".

From then on, the proverb turned into the form that it is in today.

This is a money digging world of ours; and, as it is said, 'there are more ways than one to skin a cat'
- Way down East; or, Portraitures of Yankee Life by Seba Smith, circa 1854

'She was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat'
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain in 1889

taken from the Open Content Dictionary

Each website I come across seems to have a different opinion on the proverb. They all agree on the meaning, however, the 'skin a cat' part is questioned a lot.

These are the three main outcomes I have come across from all the websites I have visited

1. Why would you skin a cat? HOW do you skin a cat? After this there tends to be a debate around how you would go about doing this

2. Skinning a cat actually refers to a boy's gymnastic move

3. The proverb is talking about catfish, not cats. Supposedly, the skin of catfish is difficult to remove, with some ways more efficient than others

After finding out what a catfish looks like, I wish I hadn't.