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Talk:Letting the cat out of the bag

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Throbert McGee (talk | contribs) at 21:46, 22 June 2015. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

These 2 etymologies have been roundly disproven by snopes (if snopes can be considered a reliable source as solid as is necessary, I don't really know all the guidelines for source material yet, I'm new to this...) http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/catbag.asp RyanG2203 (talk) 14:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC) RyanG2203[reply]


Letting the cat out of the bag and buying a pig in a poke come from an old scam. Scam goes a man is selling fat little piglets to unsuspecting buyers but when the seller goes to put the pig in a sack (or a poke) he switches it with a stray cat keeping the money and the pig. He then quickly moves on before the buyer notices the squirming mass in the bag is a cat. If the buyer opens the bag the cat will jump out and the scam is reviled and the seller is in trouble because "the cats out of the bag", but if the buyer waits to open to find the cat he learns not to “buy a pig in a poke.”70.211.79.53 (talk) 22:07, 28 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the possible link to "pig in a poke" -- I always assumed that "let the cat out of the bag" referred to a scam wherein the vendor swaps a large DEAD cat for a smallish butchered piglet (as the Snopes article points out, it would obviously be impossible for anyone to confuse a LIVE cat with a LIVE pig!). Throbert McGee (talk) 21:44, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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