[PW] Word Phrase Origin Stumper

[John P. Dyson]

On 3/9/07, Terry Wirick <twirick at erielibrary.org> wrote:

> The phrase is 'There is a dead cat somewhere'.  The patron thinks 
> that the phrase > means that in everything, there are always problems.

This is a modernization of Shakespeare's "There is something rotten in 
the state of Denmark." (_Hamlet_, Act I, scene 4). The perception of 
metaphorical decomp means there is something amiss not in everything 
but in a specific matter. I don't know who first paraphrased W. S.

John Dyson