From where comes the expression "don't let the cat out of the bag?"

shady shaker

Goes back to the days when folk sold animals at the market. Unscrupulous souls would substitute cats for the suckling pigs the purchasers thought they were buying. If they opened the bag the cat was being carried in, the game would be up. They would have "let the cat out of the bag" (Bartleby.Com). Sep 09 03, 11:40 PM

Senior Moments

It is an abbreviation of a medical term taught to trainee nurses for obvious reasons. Cat is short for catheter Sep 10 03, 4:12 AM

RickF

I always thought it was connected with floggings in the Royal Navy, where the cat (o-nine-tails) was kept in a bag until immediately prior to punishment being administered. Sep 10 03, 6:20 AM

sequoianoir

This "teams up" with "Buying a pig in a poke" A poke was a sack. What you should have been buying was a pig, but sometimes it turned out to be a cat and hence "letting the cat out of the bag" upon discovering it wasn't and making it "no longer a secret". The phrase "buying a pig in a poke" is usually used with the idea "that you ARE NOT buying a pig in a poke". Hence not buying something that you have not fully investigated and verified exactly that it is what you thought it was. RE: "floggings in the Royal Navy" & "the cat (o-nine-tails)" this is the derivative of another CAT expression. "Not enough room to swing a cat" - hence a very small place or room where it would be difficult to actually use a cat-o-nine-tails as designed/intended. Sep 10 03, 6:35 AM

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