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  • 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.

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

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