Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Idioms 192. The idiom today is to let the
cat out of the bag. Okay. Yeah. This is a very common idiom.
Let's look at the note here. If someone lets the cat out of the bag, he or she
mistakenly reveals a secret. So they let a secret slip out , they were supposed to
keep the secret and they, they reveaed it. They let it out. Let's continue. This
phrase is actually believed to have come from a common scam in former times.
Remember a scam it's when you're cheating people. You're deceiving them. You know
then you're making them believe they're buying one thing and sometimes they're
not really getting the right quality or one way or another you're cheating them
out of money. So let's continue. At one time, vendors sold pigs in bags. I know
isn't that strange ? And some would switch the more valuable
pigs, Switch of course means change. Switch the more valuable pigs with the
less valuable cats. Once it was discovered, the cat was out of the bag. So
by that time the secret was out. It was revealed. The cat was out of the bag. All
right. So you knew you got scammed. You knew , you got cheated. This is similar to
another modern-day idiom ' the jig is up.' Yeah. Actually I did another video on
the jig is up. A long time ago if you're interested you
could go back and check that one out. Okay good.
Oh let's continue here. We have two examples. Example number one. I told my
daughter not to say what we bought Daddy for his birthday, but unfortunately she
let the cat out of the bag. Yeah we often see this in movies or stories. Where the
mother and the daughter buy a gift together, and you know the mother always
says well don't tell Daddy and sometimes they let the cat out of the bag right
away. As soon as daddy gets home so we see this a lot. All right let's look at the
second example. Don't Tell Barbara that
secret. She has a habit of letting the cat out of the bag. Yeah. So maybe she has
a big mouth. Okay. Anyway, so this is perfectly just the way we would use it.
Anyway I hope it's clear. I hope you got it. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.