there is no room to swing a cat

I have always assumed that if you could grab a cat by the tail and swing it in a full circle, there was room to swing a cat. In reality, I'm pretty sure you would end up with a terribly bloody hand and arm.

Just guessing, of course.

I just like your explanation!

The way I always heard this quote was something like, "The room was so crowded that you couldn't swing a dead cat by the tail without hitting someone." Where that came from and what it means I have no idea, but it leaves a memorable image.

Hear the one about the blind that dropped into the local K-Mart?

Just inside the door, he grabbed his seeing eye dog by the tail and started swinging him in a circle. So, this little management guy in white shirt and tie runs up and says "Sir. Sir. What are you doing? You can't do that in this store". The blind guy says "Oh, just looking around".

You made me make a sound like a pained yak with that one roger.

"You couldn't/can't swing a dead cat without hitting a _______ in here."

Have you tried swinging a mouse ?

The expression comes from the British Navy and the cat was an animal but a flail-like whip used to punish sailors in the British Navy isn't clear. Many reports claim that the cat in question is the 'cat o'nine tails'. As so often though, they don't supply evidence, just certainty. As a candidate for folk etymology goes the 'cat o' nine tails' story has it all - plausibility, a strong
storyline and a nautical origin.
That's enough to convince many people - the actual evidence shows the theory to be highly dubious. The phrase itself dates from at least the 17th century. Richard Kephale's Medela Pestilentiae, 1665:

Peng I do too. Oft find Rog's responses delightful

Saab's got it, a cat o' nine tails, used to punish sailors in Napoleonic times.
It's a whip or scourge.

I think a stout rope, used to make a "cat", would commonly be made from three
spun strands, each composed of three small strands.
Hence, when you unravel the whipping end (that is, the business end because you would need a "whipping" or two on the handle (isn't English an awkward language?)) then you would have a whip of nine strands or tails.

Just a guess.

The cat o' nine tails was in sue long before Napoleon was born--and it was not used exclusively by the Royal Navy. The British army flogged its members, too. That explanation sounds like a candidate from CANOE . . . the Committee to Ascribe Nautical Origins to Everything.

The British Army had a similar multiple whip, though much lighter in construction, made of a drumstick with attached strings. The flogger was usually a drummer rather than a strong bosun's mate. Flogging with the cat o' nine tails fell into disuse around 1870.

The Guards were the last units in the British Army to remove flogging from the list of punishments for various offences in the 1960's . It had not been used for over a century .

Don't care. I liked my answer better.

So did I.

Me too

I didnt like anyone's, even mine .