Arcing up: cats or electricity?

Solution 1:

Being Australian, I'm probably not impartial, but I'm informed!

'Arcing up' being derived from a welder's arc seems entirely plausible. I'm not offering anything authoritative or empirical here, just adding to the balance of probabilities. I lean towards an explanation that has anything to do with cats. Here's why: we Australians seem to find mistreating - or at least annoying - cats to be amusing. Sad but true. Probably some deep psychological expression of our "Tall Poppy Syndrome". Anyway, I offer several enshrined Aussie idioms as evidence:

1) Let the cat out of the bag,

2) Not enough room to swing a cat,

3) Who's f$#%ing this cat?,

4) Barking up the wrong tree (alright, a long shot I know but it's pro dog),

5) Cat's whiskers/miaow/pyjamas (a condoned tall poppy),

6) There's more than one way to skin a cat,

7) Like herding cats (I defy anyone to find an animal that would hate this more),

8) Look what the cat dragged in

Ridiculing superiors on the sly is common in Australia, a kind of cultural passive aggressiveness. Calling someone's loss of temper 'arcing up' or a 'hissy fit' may indicate this.

Finally, 'arcing up' being a welder's arc just isn't funny. Calling an electrician "a sparky" is. The most popular Aussie idioms are the funny ones.

All of the above is merely my own conjecture. Discussion welcome!