I tend to think (and over-think) a lot about words and phrases. And yet, there are everyday sayings that come to my ears or from my mouth that I’ve never stopped to analyze before. (This is similar to my interaction with celebrity names that I learned as a child. It wasn’t until I was 20 years old that I said, “Wait a minute, her name is Sigourney?”)
Well today, my friends, I’m not letting one of these idioms pass me by without giving it some careful consideration. That phrase is: “Let the cat out of the bag.” To me, there’s a slightly negative connotation to that, as if the speaker might not be at liberty to divulge whatever secret s/he is spilling. Even if you disagree with that part of what I’m saying, I hope we can all agree on my main point: We should be focusing our attention instead on who put the cat in the bag in the first place. How does that guy not even get a mention? At best, it’s terrifying a domesticated animal. At best! Then we get into whether or not the bag had any holes in it for the cat to breathe during its time of imprisonment. I think the authorities would be very interested in that point, don’t you? Even if the bag didn’t explicitly say, “This bag is not a toy,” we as a people are smart enough to know that by now.
So next time someone says that they “let the cat out of the bag,” I’m going to interrupt him and say, “You, sir, are a hero.” To anyone who thinks otherwise…that’s bullshit.