Looking at the results of yesterday's programming effort, I concluded that "I have made a right pig's ear of this."
I then wondered, why a pig's ear? Does anyone know why pig's ear is used to mean something messy and useless?
etymologyphrases
Looking at the results of yesterday's programming effort, I concluded that "I have made a right pig's ear of this."
I then wondered, why a pig's ear? Does anyone know why pig's ear is used to mean something messy and useless?
Best Answer
Eric Partridge gives the following in his A Dictionary of Slang and Unconvential English (Supplement):
In the main edition, "pig's ear" is given as rhyming slang for beer.
Richard A. Spears, in his book Slang and Euphemism gives:
And since he mentioned the source of the euphemism:
which caused me to look at Partridge's definition of "Pig's arse":
and then to
Given all this, it is tempting to conclude that a "pig's ass" would represent something pretty foul.