Expanding Lexicon

Expanding Lexicon

Episode 4- Let the cat out of the bag

4/3/19

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Welcome to Expanding Lexicon the story behind the things we say. Today’s episode is about an Idiom.

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What is today’s topic? “Letting the cat out of the bag” This idiom is used today to describe the act of revealing a surprise or secret (Spears), the phrase can also refer to someone acting like a blabbermouth and exposing information (Blitz). Example Mom let the cat out of the bag when she told us Lucy was pregnant. (Ammer)  The saying is very visual picture a cat trapped inside a bag. When the bag is opened the cat rushes out and is never going back in again,  just like if you let a secret spill out of your mouth you can never take it back (Blitz).

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The literal meaning and origin of the phrase “let the cat out of the bag” has several possible origin stories. Each somewhat implausible or lost to history and each in turn defended and criticized by different articles and authors.

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Origin story number 1- As early as 1530 piglets were bagged for sale in markets these live piglets were apparently switched for cats when the buyer was not looking.  There is an existing idiom that goes “When a pig is offered, open the poke.” Meaning check that what youre leaving with is what you paid for (Blitz). Otherwise on returning home the buyer would discover that he had bought a worthless cat instead of the piglet he had paid for only when he had let the cat out of the bag (Soniak).

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The problems with this origin story are twofold. One piglets would be much larger then even a big cat and two piglets oink and cat’s meow, hiss, and claw. Since you would be purchasing a live animal it would be hard to miss the switch making this origin tale a little suspect (Blitz). While there is no direct link to this as the origin “Versions of the phrase exist in both Dutch - 'Een kat in de zak kopen' and in German - 'Die Katze im Sack kaufen'. These both translate loosely as 'to buy a cat in a bag', that is, to buy false goods (Martin).”

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               Origin story number 2- In this story the ‘cat’ refers to a cat o’nine tails a type of whip used in the British royal navy as a form of punishment aboard ships (Soniak). The whip is named after a cat because of the distinctive scratches it would leave on sailors backs often reminiscent of those made by cat claws (martin).  The leather whip would have been stored in a bag to keep it from being exposed to the drying sea air.

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An article from the USS Constitution Museum in Charlestown, Massachusetts states, “he would take the cat out of the bag in front of the assembled crew and there would be no secret about what would happen next (Blitz).” Further evidence for this as the origin of “letting the cat out of the bag”  go on to prove that the cat o’nine tails existed as early as 1695 (soniak) nearly a century before the idiom was in popular use. Disbelievers in the cat o’nine tails origin for the idiom argue that the nautical punishment fails to expose a secret which is the current use of the idiom (Martin).

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Origin story number 3- In Spanish saying dar gato por liebre, or “giving a cat instead of a hare” is more a more believable version of the pig in a poke. Wherein a cat would be substituted for a rabbit. Instead of live animals both the rabbit and cat would have been killed and skinned before the substitution.

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Leaving the rabbit without its distinguishable ears and the cat without its tail the two would be of a similar size and shape this would be a much more believable substitution (Soniak). The problem with this origin tale is the question of if there was enough nefarious cat/ rabbit swapping going around to mandate a lasting idiom in the lexicon of the day (Soniak).

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While we can’t definitively place the literal origin for letting the cat out of the bag we know for sure that the first documented use of the phase with the meaning of revealing a secret was in a 1760 book review in an issue of The London Magazine (Soniak).  In it the reviewer complains “We could have wished that the author had not let the cat out of the bag.” In short it was unfortunate that the author had spoiled the surprise most likely before the book’s publication (Blitz).

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We don’t know where it came from but the use and meaning of the idiom letting the cat out of the bag remains almost unchanged since the mid-17th century. In fact a March 2019 new article revealing how a government official accidentally exposed some NASA need to know information was titled “An Alabama Representative Just Let the Cat out of the Bag with the SLS Rocket (Berger).”  Livestock fraud, nautical punishment or the old swich-a-roo you be the judge.

                         

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                           Thank you for listening to today’s episode. Don’t keep this podcast a secret from your friends any longer.  Feel free to let the cat out of the bag about expanding lexicon

 

 

Works Cited

Ammer, Christine. "let the cat out of the bag." The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Houghton Mifflin, 2nd edition, 2013. Credo Reference

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Berger, Eric. “An Alabama Representative Just Let the Cat out of the Bag with the SLS Rocket.” Ars Technica, 27 Mar. 2019, arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/an-alabama-representative-just-let-the-cat-out-of-the-bag-with-the-sls-rocket/.

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Blitz, Matt. “Where Did the Expression ‘Let the Cat Out of the Bag’ Come From?” Today I Found Out, Feed Your Brain, 31 Jan. 2014, www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/01/expression-let-cat-bag-come/.

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Martin, Gary. “'Let the Cat out of the Bag' - the Meaning and Origin of This Phrase.” Phrase Finder, www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/let-the-cat-out-of-the-bag.html.

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Soniak, Matt. “What's the Origin of ‘Let the Cat out of the Bag’?” Mental Floss, 12 July 2012, mentalfloss.com/article/31180/whats-origin-let-cat-out-bag.

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Spears, Richard A. NTC’s American Idioms Dictionary : The Most Practical Reference for the Everyday Expressions of Contemporary American English. Vol. 3rd ed, NTC Contemporary, 2000. EBSCOhost