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In recent days, American political discourse has not
been dominated by the Republican elephant, nor by the
Democratic donkey, but instead by the humblest of barnyard
livestock -- the pig, as in You can put lipstick on a
pig. It's still a pig.
Does anyone actually put lipstick on a pig? The swine I see at the county 4-H fair are dolled up for judging, but when I checked with the county extension agent, he said that lipstick is not a factor. The pigs often get their hair trimmed in spots to improve muscular definition. As far as makeup goes, dark pigs may get a light coat of mineral oil to enhance their luster, while pale porkers might be dusted with white flour for a more even color.
So it appears that the phrase lipstick on a pig
does not come from agriculture. It's one of those
self-evident phrases that shows up in politics from time to
time, and it's not the only porcine political
reference.
Back in 1981, David Stockman, a Michigan congressman,
was appointed head of the White House Office of Management
and Budget. His mission was to cut federal spending, but he
didn't get far. As he explained later, various
congressional interests and lobbyists acted like hogs
feeding at the trough.
And seldom does a day pass now without a reference to
political pork,
as in pork-barrel spending.
The pork barrel
is easy enough to explain; in the
days before refrigeration, pork was packed with brine into
wooden barrels.
How did pork barrels come to symbolize earmarks
or legislation designed to benefit certain interests in
exchange for campaign contributions
? The short answer
is that no one is sure; the long answer is that there are
many etymological theories, none all that persuasive.
I had my own adventure with pigs and politics about three decades ago. My wife and I owned a newspaper in Grand County, Colo., and we covered the town of Hot Sulphur Springs. There was a municipal election. We interviewed the candidates for town board, among them a woman who owned a small cafe.
She refused to answer any of our reporter's questions
about the town's issues and prospects, and so in my
endorsement editorial, I said Hot Sulphur Springs voters
should look elsewhere, as voting for her would be like
buying a pig in a poke.
I thought I was just using a common cautionary
expression, but she said that I had called her a pig, and
thereby implied that her cafe was unsanitary when in fact
it was quite clean. She threatened litigation, but quieted
after one prominent local resident called her an idiot for
not knowing that a poke in this context was a bag (my
mamma used to send me to the store for a poke of
potatoes
) and that you should always look inside the
bag before making the deal.
Pigs, of course, are part of our vernacular in many
fields besides politics. The Bible tells us not to cast
ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under
their feet, and turn again and rend you.
When pigs fly
is another way of saying
never
or in your dreams,
and to go
whole-hog
is to pull out all the stops.
My mother occasionally says that someone is as
independent as a hog on ice.
She means the person is
too bull-headed to get anything done, just a pig trying to
move on a slick service will flail away without getting
anywhere.
That may be a nicer porcine reference than what my dad
said once when I was supposed to be helping him on some
household project, and I could never come up with the tool
he sent me to fetch. Eddie, you're about as useful as
teats on a boar,
he exclaimed.
Pigs -- boars, sows, hogs, swine -- may not be part of our daily life any more, since few Americans live on farms, but porkers certainly remain part of our daily vocabulary. starting with the childhood story of the three little pigs.
And there's another common, if seldom printed, porcine
expression: Happy as a pig in shit.
Considering what
we get from some political campaigns this year, that may be
the easiest route to bliss.
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