So the scalpel is related to the animal, linguistically at least, with one slicing and the other scratching. Again, as usual, jheem, very interesting.

Ta, WW. Yes, linguistically, or at least lexically, the words for the animal and the instrument are related to an earlier root whose meaning is glossed as 'to cut'. It's also related to shelf, and without the s, to half. There's a whole bunch more words (like shield and shilling) that are in the *skel- family, too.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE465.html