Comment by rprospero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rprospero | Hacker News Reader

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You may have the etymology incorrect. The wiki lists two possible origins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letting_the_cat_out_of_the_bag

Note that "letting the cat out of the bag" is used in cases where the truth comes out, not when someone is about to be punished. Consider the following two sentences.

After the jury returned a guilty verdict, the judge let the cat out of the bag that the defendant would serve fifteen years.

At the conference, the Microsoft employee let the cat out of the bag that that Windows 9 wouldn't run on x86.

I would argue that the second feels far more natural than the first. That's because it's about uncovering the truth, like the fact that the pig in your poke is really just a cat, and not about punishment, like pulling out the cat o' nine tails.

Oh come on - I don't care how thick the bag is, no-one would mistake a cat for a pig. That is obviously not where the sayings come from.

It's a little more complicated than that. The pig, in this case, is usually a piglet, which is roughly the same size and shape as a cat, and the trick is to show the customer/mark a real piglet being put in a bag, and then use sleight of hand to switch bags and hand him one with the cat in it, with the strong admonition not to open the bag before getting home lest the "pig" get out.

While you'd never mistake a housecat for a full boar, mistaking a dead cat in a sack for a dead piglet wouldn't be that difficult. Especially if you'd been showed the pig before and the cat was only substituted in at the last minute to provide weight and legs.

Additionally, I'd point to the "pig in a poke wiki" page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig-in-a-poke

The page shows that variants of this idiom are present in hundreds of languages, often with the statement that a person bought a cat instead of a pig or, occasionally, as rabbit. In fact, more culture refer to buying a cat in a sack than a pig.

The wiki page mentions your cat in the bag theory as well. However, if you follow the references, you'll considered that it is seen as dubious and that the pig in a poke explanation is considered far more likely.

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