Not a Word About the Pig

"Not a word about the pig," meaning "keep mum" about something appears in Douglas William Jerrold's Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures (1873) (which appeared first in Punch). Working backwards: in 1868 it is found in some American theatrical management memoirs. In Percival Leigh's "The Comic Latin Grammar: A New and Facetious Introduction to the Latin Tongue (1840), he includes the phrase in the form "Ubi ad magistri veneris, cave verbum in porco--When you are come to the master's (house), not a word about the pig." This is presumably an invented Latin saying, based on an original in English. But where did that come from? Paddy Corey, a one-act farce by Tyrone Power, has "But mum--Father Dan, not a word about the pig" in 1833. Wine and Walnuts by William Henry Pyne (1824) uses the phrase three times on one page. The context of all these examples have nothing whatever to do with pigs, it should be noted.

What are they all alluding to?

For an answer, see "Quote ... Unquote" newsletter, Vol. 16 No. 4, October 2007, p 2-3.