<P> To put "lipstick on a pig" is a rhetorical expression, used to convey the message that making superficial or cosmetic changes is a futile attempt to disguise the true nature of a product or person . </P> <P> Pigs have long been featured in proverbial expressions: a "pig's ear", a "pig in a poke", as well as the Biblical expressions, "pearls before swine" and "ring of gold in a swine's snout ." Indeed, whereas the phrase "lipstick on a pig" seems to have been coined in the 20th century, the concept of the phrase may not be particularly recent . The similar expression, "You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear" seems to have been in use by the middle of the 16th century or earlier . Thomas Fuller, the British physician, noted the use of the phrase "A hog in armour is still but a hog" in 1732, here, as the Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1796) later noted "hog in armour" alludes to "an awkward or mean looking man or woman, finely dressed ." The Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon (1834--1892) recorded the variation "A hog in a silk waistcoat is still a hog" in his book of proverbs The Salt - Cellars (published 1887). </P>

What is the saying about putting lipstick on a pig
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