At lunch last week, I made the comment that a friend who was starting a new job soon might be considered to be "a pig in a poke" by his new employer if he wasn't up to snuff. That statement received a table full of blank looks in response, leading me to ask if there was no one in attendance who was familiar with the expression. That query lead to more blank stares, as well as comments about my (allegedly advanced) age.
So I had to explain that pigs (actually piglets) were once sold in canvas bags, referred to as "pokes". If you were lazy in your purchase and didn't take the precaution of confirming the contents of the poke, you ran the risk of getting home only to discover that you'd paid top dollar for a cat, rat or squirrel (all of which tend to make a piglet-sized commotion inside that sealed bag but none of which are worth much to you). Hence, "buying a pig in a poke" means that you've ended up with something vastly inferior (in value) to what you thought you were getting. Here's the Wikipedia entry for it, lest anyone think that I'm just making this up.
Why do I know things like this? No idea. I just do.
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