Talk:Cat o' nine tails

Comment

My understanding is that "letting the cat out of the bag" does NOT come from the cat-o-nine-tails, but rather Sicily during the Muslim occupation. Christians who desired pork were sometimes sold piglets in bags, often late at night or in hurried exchanges, since eating pork was illegal. Unscrupulous vendors would sometimes put a cat in a bag instead and sell it as if it was a piglet, with the purchaser not discovering the ruse until he arrived home. Sometimes the cat would worm out of the bag...hence, the cat would be out of the bag, leading to the modern sense of the phrase as "the jig is up".

The article Letting the cat out of the bag has these two etymologies,and yet a third etymology, saying those two are wrong. Look at the article and the talk page, too.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 02:49, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

construction

I think the opening should be edited somehow, it seems inconsistent. Maybe split sections up more evenly between the naval use and the army use?

Also, where did the info on naval cats come from? I have no idea on the weight, but naval cats, as far as I know, did not typically have a handle. They were simply made from rope and thrown away after use.

I think you have recently been reading a book which I have seen describing word for word what you have written about this absurd piglet thing!! The saying letting the cat out of the bag IS to do with the cat o nine tails. You should not quote what you read without referencing. Its called plagiarism!!

18:00, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Meiow Flog him!!

Pokemon?

Uh, I believe that the pokemon reference is NOT to the cat o' nine tales. Ninetales is from a Japanese tradition that has to do with foxes, with their tails splitting or something. Ninetales isn't even a cat!

You sure? I find it hard to not see the comparison. --Ross (talk) 07:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsune - 82.32.129.128 (talk) 15:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

It really is an error. Ninetails is a nine-tailed fox. It looks like the nine-tailed fox of Japanese folklore. It's named after the nine-tailed fox. The only resemblance is in the name, which doesn't even share the same etymology.

Picture

Picture caption referring to the size of the dollar bill seems pointless, why not just tell us the average size of the whip instead of telling us the bill's size? 114.134.0.143 (talk) 08:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Old discussion, but to be honest I've always found the picture a bit awkward as well - not because of any really serious reasons, but just because it looks like some random dude owned a cat o' nine tails, plopped it down on his carpet, and went "uhh... I guess a dollar would be a good size comparison." It's just a bit less .... professional? than I'd expect, I guess. Feels like a petty thing to say, because ultimately my suggestion is "can't we get a picture of the same cat o' nine tails on a white table with like, a ruler next to it?". LookOnMyEditsYeMighty^(talk) 03:00, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

bdsm

i'm going to include about five or six words in the "modern use" section on its' bdsm ties, since, to be honest, that's what a lot of people (westerners, at least) associate it with. as there is an absolutely ridiculous brouhaha going on at Bullwhip over a reference to it's bdsm ties by some deranged deletionist, i just wanted to state my intention first. Joeyramoney 18:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything about bdsm in the current article. It would be nice with a short section about that since the cat is a very frequently used implement in bdsm play because of its versatility. If correctly used, it can provide any sensation from soft sensual massage to pain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.114.155.19 (talk) 22:32, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Surely more to the point, if these things are indeed connected, would be to include something about the cat-o'nine-tails in the BDSM article, where I see there is no mention of it. For this article, the fact that BDSM is listed under "See also" seems quite enough to me. Alarics (talk) 23:18, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

all depends on terms used on search, it is a very minor reference back to this page but it is mentioned under wikipedia's page about Impact_play and Cat '0' nine tails is often put for sale by sex toys companies Verdad63 (talk) 15:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Jurisdiction of Inter-American Court of Human Rights

There's a counterintuitive statement in the article right now that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights doesn't have any jurisdiction in Trinidad and Tobago. The Inter-American Court is an organ of the OAS, and the article on the OAS says that Trinidad and Tobago is a member. So unless Trinidad ratified its OAS membership with a special exemption saying it doesn't recognize the Court's jurisdiction, you would think that Trinidad would fall within the Court's jurisdiction. Can anybody explain? Pirate Dan 21:27, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Trinidad had already denounced the relevant Convention and said it no longer recognised the Court. I have clarified this in the article and cited a source. Alarics (talk) 15:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

I don't think that the whole sexual use thing deserves a place in the introductory paragraph of this article. This has a lot more history as an instrument of pain than as a BDSM thing, and it doesn't seem entirely appropriate to hand over the article so soon. A mention in later sections should be sufficient. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.83.147.28 (talk) 00:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and think the tone of this article is much too jolly altogether. The terrible details of deaths from flogging are what led to its abolition as a form of punishment in the army and navy, and excessive caning of boys in schools was also disgracefully common throughout northern Europe and America until a few decades ago. We shouldn't minimise what flogging meant in real terms. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:04, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

You are rewriting history there. Caning of schoolboys has nothing to do with the cat o' nine tails, and was rarely excessive or terrible, and there is little or no evidence that it did any harm. Most schoolboys accepted it as a fair punishment. Alarics (talk) 14:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Pirates

Doesn't pirates used the same flogging device to whip the hell out of their own crew members? savvy? Pirateer011 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 06:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Generally no. Pirates very rarely flogged each other; much more rarely than naval or merchant captains did. Since pirates operated outside the law, a pirate captain who tried to beat one of his crew might well find that crewman hitting him back (this happened to Bartholomew Roberts once. Pirate Dan (talk) 14:11, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Size comparison image

It is futile to include a comparison of size to an American dollar bill, because not everyone knows the exact dimensions. Remember, Americans, there are people from other countries who frequent this website. NorthernThunder (talk) 17:43, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I guess most people have a rough appreciation of the size of a dollar bill. We know it's not the size of a house, we know it's not the size of a thumbtack. Even people who have never seen a dollar bill will guess that it's approximately wallet-sized.—Gabbe (talk) 18:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I have added to the caption the approximate size in inches and cm of a US dollar bill. Hope this helps. Alarics (talk) 18:51, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Broken References

Reference #4 (http://www.nmm.ac.uk/searchbin/searchs.pl?exhibit=it0313d&axis=1194612893&flash=&dev=, Flogging Round the Fleet) is broken and returns a 404 - need a replacement source for this citation. 121.73.73.40 (talk) 13:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Translation into Chinese Wikipedia

The 15:32, 1 January 2010 71.83.130.101 version of this article is translated into Chinese Wikipedia.--Wing (talk) 19:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Flogging

According to an RINA article, the last known witness to a naval flogging was a Rear Admiral who died in 1922. He was a Midshipman at the time of the flogging and left a description of the the whipped flesh "turning a perculier shade of blue".

I don't think that flogging was ever abolished in the British Armed Forces but has been "indefinitely suspended" for at least a century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.93.199.154 (talk) 09:51, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

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Captain's Daughter

If you ever hear the song "What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor" the line "put him in bed with the Captain's Daughter" does not refer to the captain female child, who would be at home with her mother, not on the ship, but is a slag term for the cat o' nine tails. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 40.131.162.194 (talk) 01:57, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I am genuinely surprised that this article doesn't include a reference to that particular epithet, considering how widely it is present in modern discussions of the Cat. Is there a reason for its absence from the article? Stormkith (talk) 19:31, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Overagressive Prune?

The prune by User:Drmies on 04 April 2024 removed a lot of poorly conceived material, but also left the article entirely without a 'Modern usage' section, which I think is misleading to readers. I think it would be worth someone with a bit of expertise or at least spare time salvaging the better parts of that section, which was, as far as i remember, often well sourced. I'm also a bit new to wikipedianism - would it be best for me to just put some time aside and do this myself, or should I defer to someone who could do a better job? FriendlyOwlet (talk) 23:34, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

You are welcome to have at it—as long as the material is relevant and verified by secondary sources. Drmies (talk) 01:25, 28 August 2024 (UTC)