More Than One Way: On Ritual, Morality, and the Darkness Beyond Knowing

*There's more than one way to skin a cat.* That's a dreadfully horrific saying, isn't it? But while the expression is unnecessarily violent, by the time you finish this essay, you'll understand why I think the sentiment behind it is incredibly important.

## Prologue: An Odd Expression

[The earliest version of the phrase appears in 1678](https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2021/08/skin-a-cat.html) in John Ray's collection of English proverbs, the equally horrible-and-bizarre "there are more ways to kill a dog than hanging." By the early 1700s, the British were saying ["there are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream,"](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/there-is-more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat.html) a delightfully absurd image if you think about it, as if choking a cat with dairy were the default method anyone would consider. The modern American version [first appeared in print around 1840](https://grammarist.com/phrase/more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat/) in Seba Smith's "The Money Diggers," where he wrote

"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."

Smith wrote as though everyone already knew the phrase. [Mark Twain used it in 1889](https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa-mor1.html) in *A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court*:

"She was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat"

Meaning she knew multiple strategies to get what she wanted. Some optimistically claim the "cat" is actually short for catfish, which must be skinned before cooking since they lack scales. But the [phrase's evolution from dogs to cats, from hanging to choking to skinning](https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2021/08/skin-a-cat.html), suggests this is regional reinterpretation of a much older proverbial pattern.

[Before cats entered the picture at all](https://proverbs_en_uk.en-academic.com/3573/there_are_more_ways_of_killing_a_dog_than_by_hanging), the English said:

"There are more ways to the wood than one."

A gentler metaphor about reaching a destination via different paths. That isn't what stuck, though. Somewhere along the way, we traded walking peacefully to the forest for the visceral, violent image of removing an animal's pelt.

The violence makes it memorable. Makes us wince. The discomfort is why the saying has endured.

We are forced to reckon with the fact that solutions to problems, even when they achieve the same end, can look radically, disturbingly different from one another.

I invoke this phrase now, despite its grimness, because I am trying to articulate what has been gnawing at me. How we live in a world demanding singular answers. One right way, one true path, one correct interpretation. But this expression su