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The Kitchen Table

Phrase of the day 1/23

jim_1 (Zone 5B)

3 years ago

Buying a pig in a poke

Meaning “buying blind” has an amusing origin. The expression comes from a ruse practiced for centuries at country fairs in England. A trickster would try to palm off on an unwary bumpkin a cat in a burlap bag, claiming it was a suckling pig. If the “mark” was brighter than the sharper expected him to be, he would insist on seeing the pig and thus “”let the cat out of the bag.” Poke, meaning “bag or sack,’ is now chiefly heard in regional dialects in the US and England, though it has a long a honorable history, and indeed is the word from which “pocket” was derived.

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Comments (3)

Annie Deighnaugh
3 years ago
I always thought the "let the cat out of the bag" referred to the cat o'nine tails the ship's captains used to whip unruly crewmen. Don't let the cat out of the bag referred to not letting on to the plan or the plot and thus unleash the whip.
Lars
3 years ago
I've always heard "pawn off" instead of "palm off" but I see that palm off is more appropriate in your situation - I had just never heard it before.
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laceyvail 6A, WV
3 years ago
Fifty years ago poke for bag was common here in WV among older folks. You don't hear it anymore though.

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