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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
— Snopes' rationale for asserting that this is unrelated to the "pig in a poke" idiom seems to have missed something. Aside from their rationale being a bit weird (involving how unlikely it is to work), it ignores the fact that "cat in a sack" is literally the equivalent saying across much of Europe. There are loads of outside sources on this fact, and the Pig in a Poke Wikipedia page makes this very clear, with Germany, France, Latvia, Poland, and a dozen others using the "cat" variety instead of "pig." Given this, it seems plausible that "letting the cat out of the bag" could derive from the saying "cat in a bag," as the action that exposes the hoax. However, one point to note is that cats are very common subjects of idioms the world over. It wouldn't be an absurd notion for them to have both been created independently. Jtrnp ( talk)
This article is rated Stub-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||
|
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
— Snopes' rationale for asserting that this is unrelated to the "pig in a poke" idiom seems to have missed something. Aside from their rationale being a bit weird (involving how unlikely it is to work), it ignores the fact that "cat in a sack" is literally the equivalent saying across much of Europe. There are loads of outside sources on this fact, and the Pig in a Poke Wikipedia page makes this very clear, with Germany, France, Latvia, Poland, and a dozen others using the "cat" variety instead of "pig." Given this, it seems plausible that "letting the cat out of the bag" could derive from the saying "cat in a bag," as the action that exposes the hoax. However, one point to note is that cats are very common subjects of idioms the world over. It wouldn't be an absurd notion for them to have both been created independently. Jtrnp ( talk)