Let the Cat Out of The Bag

Let the Cat Out of the Bag

There are two suggested origins of this phrase. The first one relates to the dastardly fraud of substituting a cat for a piglet at markets. Thus, if you 'let the cat out of the bag' the duplicity was exposed and the person avoided buying a 'pig in a poke.' (A poke in this context is a sack, and the sage advice being offered here is don't buy a pig until you have seen it, as it may not be a pig at all!)

The second theory is that the cat is not a real animal, but the punishment implement known as the cat o' nine tails. Aboard ship the punishment prescribed for most serious crimes was flogging. This was usually administered by the Boson's Mate using a whip called a cat o' nine tails. The 'nine tails' segment of the name is derived from three strands of cord that the rope lashes were made from; with each of the cords in turn being constructed from three strands of string. No doubt the 'cat' part of the name is linked to its claws which inflict parallel wounds in the form of scratches made by the knotted ends of the lash that marked the victim's back. At around 2 ½ feet long, the cat was regarded as a fearful implement, its nine thongs designed to lacerate the skin and cause intense pain.

The cat was kept in a canvas bag dyed red, which was brought up on deck for the floggings. It was considered very bad news indeed when the cat was let out of the bag!

I don't think the expression exists in Norwegian, but there is a very similar one "to buy the cat in the sack", meaning that you have made a very poor purchase. The explanation offered by Wikipedia is identical to your first explanation above.

A boson is a sub-atomic particle, unlikely to wield a cat of any sort.

Fermions, on the other hand, crank out different kinds of cats all the time. This is commonly referred to as the Pauli principle as any bosun will tell you.

Presumably the expression "there isn't room to swing a cat in here" also refers to the cat-o-nine-tails. For years I imagined someone swinging a poor moggy by its hind legs.

Horse dealers in Jutland used to have a money cat, that was a large purse connected to a belt, so that the money was secure, when the owner had the belt and purse fastened around his body under his coat. The name of course because it looked like a fat cat with a long tail. A whip could be called a cat for the same reason. And then later comes the nine tailed cat. In Danish the warning against buyin a cat in bag means thatt one shoul keep the eyes open
l

I think flopsy meant boatswain usually pronounced bos'n or bosun.

There's evidence to suggest that "let the cat out of the bag" arose from both the cat-o-nine tails and the pig in a poke - and the one that's being used depends on the context of the phrase.

Nautical terms can be fun. Some that come to mind are "the boy's pussy", "kissing the gunner's daughter", "the captain's daughter", and "cuntline". Please note that none of those phrases deal with animals or girls - although I suppose that if a girl sneaked aboard a ship and she was considered too young for the captain's daughter she might experience the boy's pussy while kissing the gunner's daughter.

Goodgulf

Have to say that the first suggested origin never made much sense to me. Who buys an animal in a sack without first taking a peek at it?

Not to mention that from my experience of cats, if you put one in a sack and carried it around (not that I've done that specific thing, you understand) it'd probably make a lot of very un-piglike noise.

It was a little complicated at time, the buyer would see the piglets out of the sack and then the seller would use slight of hand to put the cat in. It was not a matter of not seeing the animals, it was a matter of a very sneaky trade after the buyer thought every thing was kosher.