What is the derivation of this phrase?

Nobody stranger

http://www.word-detective.com/072999.html

As regards your question, however, I'm afraid that you and your hyper-matriculated pal are
going to have to buy your own dinners. No one knows for certain where the "skate" in
"cheapskate" (meaning a very stingy person) came from, although we do know that
"cheapskate" first appeared in English around 1896. Authorities are also fairly certain that this
kind of "skate" is not related to the "skate" fish, which resembles a ray and takes its name from
the Old Norse word "skata." The other common kind of "skate" (as in roller-skate or ice-skate)
is also not related to "cheapskate," and comes from an Old French word ("eschasse") meaning
"stilts." Go figure.

The most plausible theory about the "skate" in "cheapskate" traces it to the Scots word "skate,"
a term of contempt which apparently also crops up in a slightly different form in the archaic
term "blatherskite," meaning a person who blathers, or babbles nonsense. If this theory is true,
"cheapskate" would thus translate as essentially "stingy creep," which makes sense.

Unfortunately, that's about all we know about this particular "skate." So I guess we'll never
know whether your friend would have taken you to a good restaurant, or whether he'd have
turned out to be (drum roll, please) a cheapskate.

just to add to the possible blatherskite nexus, a variant of this is bletherskate.

http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

When I was a young child I used to say "cheapscape," it made more sense to my young mind for some reason...and, actually, I think it still does. You're stingy so you always try to finagle out of paying, escape from paying...see? You cheapscape! Maybe, in a way, it takes a child's mind to distill the true essence of words, of language...by the time we're adults we're just too cluttered up with information and stimuli to make a pure and innocent linguistic connection.

> finagle out of paying

There's is a great Brit slang term for this: blagging.
Last year I stayed with a friend in Notting Hill - his appartment is directly next to a night club called 'The Blag', a good laugh too!

Funny how a child's mind works. Cheapscape sounds good to me too! (Second childhood here!)
Now, I may be skating in thin ice and going in a previously covered direction but I remember hearing my parents talking about a dinner where they were served quail on toast. I wondered how they could get an entire whale on a piece of toast.
And naturally my child's mind though Baked Alaska was a dish made of Alaska salmon!
Anyone else have similar tale to tell?

... usually refers to thieving. A robbery is called a blag, or at least that's the usual usage I hear around here.

And I have seen "lag" used to mean (noun) convict. I wonder if the words are related.

Since we're talking crime here, can anyone tell me why, in Canada, charges are "laid" against someone accused of wrongdoing, while here in the US, charges are "filed"? The usage niggles at my brain every time I listen to Canadian radio news.

Charges are laid against potential wrongdoers everywhere in the English-speaking world except the US. although I have seen the expression used in US court proceedings as well. Sparteye, with her impressive legal research skills, can probably enlighten us further!

Baked Alaska was a dish made of Alaska salmon!
Anyone else have similar tale to tell?

When my older son was three years of age, my then wife asked him what he wanted for breakfast. He replied, "Pygmies." We had to do quite a bit of head scratching before we realised that he had heard me responding to the same question a day earlier by saying, instead of sausage, "pig meat." That was long ago, long before I saw the movie, "Babe." Eat a pig now? Oh, the horror!!!

I just read your profile, Abogogo, and I now realise that YOU'RE the joker who's been causing all those earthquakes and volcanoes around the Pacific Rim. Cut that out!!!

Just a wandering thought......perhaps cheapskate stems from skating around a financial obligation, thus being considered cheap.