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A "poke" is a sack, so the image is of a concealed item being sold. Starting in the 19th century, this idiom was explained as a confidence trick where a farmer would substitute a cat for a suckling pig when bringing it to market.
[citation needed] "Buying a pig in a poke" has become a colloquial expression in many European languages, including English, for when someone buys something without examining it beforehand. [13] In some regions the "pig" in the phrase is replaced by "cat", referring to the bag's actual content, but the saying is otherwise identical.
Pig in a poke is an idiom that refers to a kind of confidence trick. A pig in a poke may also refer to: Pig in a Poke, an Australian TV series; Pig in a Poke, a fictional game show seen in the film National Lampoon's European Vacation "A Pig in a Poke", an episode of the TV series The Worst Witch; A Pig in a Poke, a 1971 novel by Yuri Koval
4 Origin of "cat out of the bag" 3 comments. 5 Orgin of sucker? ... 7 Thai version of trick? 1 comment. 8 Gold Rush. 1 comment. 9 "Poke" is a current expression in ...
It is a variation on the pig-in-a-poke scam using money instead of other goods like a pig. In the typical green goods scam, the mark, or victim, would respond to flyers circulated throughout the country by the scammers ("green goods men") which claimed to offer "genuine" counterfeit currency for sale.
Scarborough noted that there are many proverbs with parallels to European ones, including: "Too many cooks spoil the broth," with the parallel "Seven hands and eight feet," "a pig in a poke" with the parallel "a cat in a bag," and "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," with "Wherever you go, talk as the people of the place talk." [32]
Pigs have long been featured in proverbial expressions: a "pig's ear", a "pig in a poke", as well as the Biblical expressions "pearls before swine" and "ring of gold in a swine's snout". Whereas the phrase "lipstick on a pig" seems to have been coined in the 20th century, the concept of the phrase may not be particularly recent.
This category contains English-language pig idioms. Pages in category "Metaphors referring to pigs" The following 5 pages are in this category, out of 5 total.