# Sweating Like a Pig

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-like-a-pig/222017>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 31, 2003, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-like-a-pig/222017 "2003-12-31T21:57:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-like-a-pig/222017/21 "2004-01-04T00:57:59Z")

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Could be, **Larry Mudd** , but I doubt you’d have found many pollyannas among the ol’ oakies I spent my childhood around. They knew _exactly_ what a pig was good for. I’ve seen a few pigs killed. There was a lot of squealing as it was put into the chute, but nothing once the sledgshammer smacked it in the head. And surely none after the throat was sliced. I _never_ once saw a pig killed by stabation.  
And yep, I’ve been to a working slaughterhouse.  
Stuck pig, in Bakersfield in the '50s refered to a person in a tight spot, and complaining about it  
“When I told Larry he was gonna pay for them hens his dogs killed, he squealed like a stuck pig”.  
😉

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**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-like-a-pig/222017/22 "2004-01-04T03:45:49Z")

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I don’t think modern slaughterhouse methods have much to do with the expression, though. Compare this [sixteenth century translation](http://www.bartleby.com/215/0414.html) from Seneca:

> [@](#):
>
> Then, too, a filthy whining ghost,  
> Lapt in some foul sheet, or a leather pilch,  
> Comes screaming like a pig half stick’d,  
> And cries, _Vindicta!_—Revenge, Revenge!

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**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-like-a-pig/222017/23 "2004-01-04T04:07:26Z")

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I’ve always heard “bleeding like a stuck pig,” but “sweating like a **horse**.”

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**Author:** ![Verick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ea666f/32.png) [@Verick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Verick)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-like-a-pig/222017/24 "2004-01-05T12:50:51Z")

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Bleeding like a stuck pig, when pigs are slaughtered they are hung up by their back legs, and a long knife or similar device is inserted under the chin, usually all the way to the heart in order to allow the animal to bleed out as much as possible. Why? Because in order to ‘skin’ the animal, it was wrapped in sack-cloth and boiled, causing the hair and hide to become easy to scrape off. So the blood had to be drained before, or it would ruin the meat when boiled. They had to be stuck, because you couldn’t gut them before the scalding, or it would also ruin the meat. I know this because my grandfather used to slaughter his own pigs. Sorry if that sounds a bit graphic to anyone, but to the best of my knowledge that’s how the phrase came about. We still have the knife my grandfather used, he made it himself out of an old cross-cut saw blade, and hand carved the handle from hickory, it’s a bit over two feet long.

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