Name: English Tutor Nick P Idioms (192) Let the Cat Out of the Bag
Uploaded: 2019-06-17T13:46:35.000Z
Duration: 2 min 28 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Idioms 192. The idiom today is to let the

Adverbs of degree

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

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.