Yet another theory - this one involving Welsh Troubadours (eh?) - from Babolat - a French company that still makes gut-strung tennis racquets:
'...in the Middle Ages Welsh Troubadours played an instrument that sounded like a cat meowing. The English called this instrument a cat and its string was called cat gut. When natural gut strings made their way into tennis racquets the 'cat gut' name stuck. So even though natural gut tennis string is at times referred to as catgut, cats never were a source for racquet strings.' Andrew On 2 Apr 2009, at 13:24, Anthony Hind wrote: > Or that French people knowing the English pronunciation "cat-gut", > jokingly played on this changing "Kaet" to "chat" to mock the sound > often produced by bad musicians. > Regards > Anthony -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
