Pigs don't sweat much, so they wallow in the mud to cool off their bodies. The fact of the matter… Don’t miss the next Ask Mr. History question! TIL The expression 'sweating like a pig' is nonsense because pigs don't have sweat glands. But if pigs can’t sweat, why do we have the expression “sweat like a pig?” The term is actually derived from the iron smelting process in which hot iron poured on sand cools and solidifies with the pieces resembling a sow and piglets. Then, they came up with bleeding like a stuck pig. People who didn't understand the concept, have miscontrued it to where it now means just the opposite of what was intended. Pigs don’t sweat at all. The phrase "Sweating like a Pig" means sweating profusely. Where does the expression “Sweating like a pig” come from? It refers to pig iron. [William Edward Burghardt] Du Bois, U.S. historian and civil rights leader, founder of what became the NAACP. Sweating like a bitch on heat. I can't answer where this idiom originated, looked, can't find. There are many other pig-related idioms in English, including "when pigs fly," "eating like a hog," "a pig in a poke," to "pig out" and "making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m sweating like a pig!”? To mold iron it needs to be heated to extreme temperatures in order to liquify it. After the pigs are poured into the sand, they cool, causing the surrounding air to reach its dew point and turn into moisture on the pigs, like they are sweating. Less is more. Sweating like a one-legged man at an arrse kicking contest. The phrase "sweating like a pig" comes from traditional iron smelting. So how did the English language expression "sweating like a pig" develop? In an emergency rather than haul up an anchor the sailors would cut the anchor cable then run with the wind. Too little or no sweating means the fire is too cold or too far from the pig. CUT AND RUN. Thanks, Sandy Stinson ??? Victor Fleming, film director (The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind). The expression dates to the days of industrial steel production and refers to pig iron, which was shaped in molds that had the pieces branching off to look like piglets suckling on a sow. In traditional iron smelting, liquid iron is poured into a mold shaped like one long line with many smaller lines branching off of it at right angles. A poke is a sack or bag. Learn the ropes. Of course, that got me to thinking about evolution. A real hillbilly wouldn't know the difference anyway, nor would he care. The expression “sweating like a pig” has nothing to do with the farm animal since they don’t really sweat. I'm not real sure if what follows is a list of colloquialisms or idioms. Sweating like a … Typical dew points are between -4.5 to 15.5 C. in most environments the ambient temperature is above the dew point and no “sweating” will occur on the pig iron (or on anything else in the area). Smelting is the process of producing a … Legend in one's own lifetime. Where does the phrase “sweating like a pig” come from? The problem, though, is if you were indeed sweating like a pig, you'd be super dry, with not one bead of sweat on your head. Let not the sun go down on your wrath. Left in the lurch. You know – how come They have only a few sweat glands — compared with more than 2 million in humans — and the sweat glands that pigs do have don't work very well. Posted by 9 months ago. W.E.B. I always prefer the phrase, "Sweating like a whore in church". See also: like, pig, sweat. Leopard cannot change its spots - A . HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. This looks similar to piglets feeding from their mother, so these pieces became known as pigs. Sweat like a pig - Idioms by The Free Dictionary. When they work, they sweat, so "sweating like a cob" means sweating like a workhorse. This one is along similar lines to the pig in a butcher saying. Lead balloon - Go over like a . As the pig is cooked it will begin to “sweat”. posted by The Horse Wrangler on May 15, 2000: : : : : Can anyone explain the above and where it derived from? Where did the saying "sweating like a pig" come from when pigs dont sweat? When smelting the iron, blacksmiths would use molds that looked like piglets suckling their mother, which is where it got its name. This could be referred to as “ He is working in the garage, sweating like a pig”. To receive notification whenever any new item is published on HistoryNet, just scroll down the column on the right and sign up for our RSS feed. Sweating like a pig is an old expression. This old saying does not come from the writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870). Sweating like a pig! The pig's squealing because it's stuck, not bleeding because it's been stabbed. The phrase 'A pig in a poke' was first heard in Tudor England, using the French word 'poque', which is a bag. Imagine what a pig would do if it found itself stuck in a confined space, like between two fence posts. The original expression "sweat like a pig" allegedly comes from smelting pig iron (which sweats as it cools). ". The phrase "sweating like a pig" actually has nothing to do with the animal that you might find on a farm. The thought occurs to me that contrary to the saying, I have never seen a pig sweat quite as profusely as me before. While opinion varies, a slight sweat is commonly considered ideal. "I'm sweating like a pig" usually means that you are pretty gross and covered in perspiration. All of a sudden the popular saying becomes problematic.… Saying/ word: Favver. It's actually a reference to pig iron, which is form of iron smelting: When pig iron is originally created from iron ore, the smelter needs to heat the ore to extreme temperatures, and then move the liquid metal into the mold. So where DOES the expression come from? Allan MacLeod Cormack, physicist, developed the CAT scan. The term "Sweating like a Pig" denotes perspiring profusely. Meaning: Look like/resemble. Although those phrases aren’t factually incoherent like the sweating like a pig phrase, it is clear that our society, and especially my generation, does not think enough about the words we use. Domestic carnivores are notorious for being emphatically sick in inappropriate places, and I would guess the phrase has its origin in being ostentatiously, unrepentantly and noisily sick. The popular saying has come about as people imagine that a cow in a slaughterhouse would be … William Shirer, CBS broadcaster and author (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich). TIL The expression 'sweating like a pig' is nonsense because pigs don't have sweat glands. Pigs have some sweat glands, but apparently they don't work very well to keep them cool, many say they don't work at all. (Also, minor point of fact, dogs can sweat a little bit through the pads on their feet.) Where does the phrase “sweating like a pig” come from? Where did that come from? Instead, it refers to iron "sows" and "piglets" made when smelting pig iron. Posted by Bob on May 16, 2000. Pig iron was made at least as long ago as the Zhou Dynasty in China, in the eighth century BC – hundreds of years before the process for making pig iron was discovered in the West. Language and words are a beautiful thing, and understanding what we are saying is highly important to show how we are educated individuals. Once produced, pig iron was not cool enough to move without burning anything it touched until it reached a point at which water vapor condensed on its surface, producing “sweat.” I think folks just misinterpreted the meaning of the word stuck and misheard squealing. Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. This sounds illogical, as pigs (the animal) have ineffective sweat glands, but the term is derived from the iron smelting process… But, anyway, that is where the saying comes from. But where do these phrases originate? You see, pigs don't sweat. When I was growing up in southeast Kansas, I spent a fair bit of time working on farms. To keep cool, pigs have to cover themselves in water and mud. Once produced, pig iron was not cool enough to move without burning anything it touched until it reached a point at which water vapor condensed on its surface, producing “sweat.” Hence, “sweating like a pig.” As for the barnyard animal, it doesn’t sweat much—not when there’s some nice mud to keep it cool. I did not mean to imply that city folk were ignorant, because you have a lot of stuff us farm boys don't understand. In Reply to: Sweating like a pig! For example, Hubby is in the garage, supposedly doing something of substance, but he is drinking beer and playing cards with his buddies. 10.Saying/ word: Clobber. I suspect that the origin of this phrase may have to do with cooking a whole pig on a spit over a fire. Pig iron is a an intermediate product of the iron industry, also known as crude iron. Let not poor Nelly starve. 11.Saying/ word: Ah cud eat three spuds more than a pig then go back fert pig. Meyer Amschel Rothschild, banker and founder of the Rothschild dynasty in Europe. Maybe they are both, or maybe it just doesn't really matter. They have no sweat glands. Too much sweating means the fire is too high and too close to the pig. Sweating like Stan Collymore in a car park. It comes from the old belief that a crocodile wept (insincerely!) One of my older colleagues, originally from Penndylvania, used to say that phrase all the time. But more and more in my life, sweating is less about making my body be or do something I think it should. Meaning: Clothes. The expression dates to the days of industrial steel production and refers to pig iron, which was shaped in molds that had the pieces branching off to look like piglets suckling on a sow. Close. SQUEALING like a stuck pig. Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. D. WHAT THE DICKENS! Instead, it refers to iron "sows" and "piglets" made when smelting pig iron. : : : : Well it's like this. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by Historynet LLC, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. This form of the saying still gets used, certainly in Yorkshire. You say, "Sweating like a pig", which meant, NO. Sweating like a paedophile in a teddybear suit with a hole between the legs so the kids can get the sweets out. The two officers were sweating like pigs in the studio lights. I can't recall the source of this and therefore my apologies to the author but this was what I recently found out about the saying. It is much older than him! Let a thousand flowers bloom. "This sounds illogical, as pigs have ineffective sweat glands, but the term is allegedly derived from the iron smelting process. Pig iron, by the way, is so named because it's shaped in molds that branch off like piglets suckling on a sow. The animal type of pig actually can't sweat very well. To put it quite bluntly, my husband sweats like a pig. 18.4K views If someone is referred to as sweating like a pig it means he is doing absolutely nothing. If pigs don’t actually sweat, the idiomatic phrase “sweating like a pig” no longer makes any sense — until you find out that the phrase has nothing to do with pigs at all, but rather, the iron smelting process. Horses sweat, Hens do not, Pigs sweat but neither Cows, Rabbits, Dogs, Cats or Frogs sweat. Erich Kastner, German poet, novelist and children's author (Emil and the Detectives). The ‘pig’ in ‘sweating like a pig’ is most likely short for ‘pig iron’. The saying is "bleeding like a stuck hog", and most city people don't understand it, because when we kill a hog, we stick the jugular vein to bleed it out good. Archived. Based on the definitions of those two terms it seems they can be either. It has a French origin as 'poque' and, like several other French words, its diminutive is formed by adding 'ette' or 'et' - hence 'pocket' began life with the meaning 'small bag'. Let bygones be bygones. 52. When the pig is sweating, it's cool enough to be moved. 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