今天早上读Glenn GreenWald的博客，读到“They (the Chinese) don’t want to buy a pig in a poke”，虽然从行文里猜得出意思，但我还是用鼠标左键选择，然后右键股沟搜索，来查查这个成语的出处。我到现在还搞不明白为什么IE里没有这个功能，该功能已是我学习的利器之一。
原来欧洲中世纪后期流行的商家坑人手段是挂猪头，卖猫肉：把猫肉放在袋子里当猪肉卖，因猪肉稀罕但猫多。所以“pig in a poke”是忽悠人的意思。这和我们的”挂羊头，卖狗肉”有异曲同工之妙。
引申开来，”Let the cat out of the bag”就是揭秘，还真相于天下的意思。我明白它的意思，并且也用过这个俚语，但今天是第一次搞明白出处，挺有意思的。
感谢宋以郎的链接，让我了解到Glenn Greenwald的博客。个人以为Glenn Greenwald的文笔犀利，逻辑清晰，其揭露媒体之无良、政府之腐败、权威智库之装逼的深刻，令我击掌叫绝。
2 responses to “英语成语: 挂猪头，卖猫肉–Pig in a poke”
Hi Haidong,
I used google to translate this and it probably didn’t do the greatest job in the world but I did learn a new idiom (I had no idea what that phrase meant). Thanks for turning me on to Glenn Greenwald. I have added him to my google reader. I always value coming across honest, thoughtful commentators who aren’t simply shoveling spin or propaganda.
Chuck
Thanks Chuck.
Google Translate certainly has its uses, but probably not in this case. Google, pronounced in English, sounds very similar to a Chinese word “butt crack”, and that’s what I used in this post. So I doubt Google will translate itself back into English as that word. By the way, Google’s official Chinese name, translated back into English, is something like “song from a valley”.