A book perhaps. It might have had a good reputation, but it wasn't really what you were expecting.

You could be accused of buying a pig in a poke.

I have read several books in the past. I have thought to myself "how could they write such piffle?"

Piffle is an American word denoting trash or nonsense.

A pig in a poke is buying something without having seen it or being sure what it is.

A poke was a bag. Pocket was a little bag.

The phrase goes back to at least 1386.

The trouble was a buyer would think he was buying a pig and then the seller would put a cat, or a puppy, in the bag, telling the buyer not to open the bag because the pig might run away.

Similar stories exist today, but they don't call it a pig in a poke. More like beating the tax man.

The expression letting the cat out of the bag could be similar.

A hog, a swine, a boar, a porker or a sucking pig orf even a porker come all from pig,

Pig goes back to at least 1225, but it was then spelt as pigge or as pygge, or as any number of spellings.

Chaucer in Reeve's Tale And Chaucer in Reeve's Tale said: "They walwe as doone two pigges in a poke".

Jews and Moslems and some other people do not eat pigs.

Shakespeare had several goes at pigs. In a Comedy of Errors he said: "The pigge, quoth I, is burn'd".

In A Merchant of Venice he said: "Some men there are love, not a gaping pigge".

In 1927 under Dialect Notes there appears: "Pig, a woman - sottish, surly, sho has sunk to the lowest level of prostitution.

The bum who keeps a pig rents her out to others."

In addition to a pig in a poke you could have a pig's ear, or make a pig's ear out of a molehill, you could hold open the poke to prove the pig is inside, pig iron, pig dog, pig's face, pig bed and so on with columns of words with pig in them, such as if a pig had wings it could fly.

Then you have pig fish, pig mouse, pig pea, pig fern, pig's breakfast, pig's meat, pigs and whistles, pig's cart, pig shop, pig it, pig bed, piggy, pig-headed, pig cote, pigdom pig-footed bandicoot and piggery and a host of other words with pigs in them, some not so complimentary.

Piggesnye, a term of endearment for one's sweetheart, literally a darling little pig's eye, was originated by Chaucer, who is also credited with inspiring the tradition of sending love notes on Saint Valentine's Day.

Visit www.lauriebarber,com or email me at lbword@midcoast.com.au.