Way With Words: Pig in a Poke

In honor of yesterday’s “Way With Words” being ‘let the cat out of the bag,’ today’s will follow a similar origin.

Think of it as part two of the same series of phrases and wisdom.

As you learned yesterday, someone who “’let the cat out of the bag,’ back in the 14th century is someone who checked to make sure they had a suckling pig in their bag, and not some lesser animal like a cat.

Those savvy individuals probably held fast to the good advice ‘don’t buy a pig in a poke.’

A poke is archaic term meaning ‘sack,’ which in this situation described the sack or bag that held the suckling pigs.

According to phrases.uk.org, various iterations of the phrase were common all over Europe, mostly in the form of ‘watch out for a cat in a bag.’

So 14th century wisdom would be, ‘let the cat out of the bag’ by avoiding ‘pig in a poke.’

A modern upgrade used in today’s vernacular would be ‘try it before you buy it.’