Telling Porky Pies

While reading the comments section on a YouTube video, one comment spoke of someone telling porky pies.  To those who aren’t familiar with the expression, telling porky pies means someone is lying.

The Mirror newspaper reported on September 21, 2015 that British Prime Minister David Cameron wasn’t being entirely truthful when he claimed he was unaware of Lord Ashcroft’s controversial “non-dom” tax status in the months leading up to the 2010 general election.  However, Lord Ashcroft told the Daily Mail that he and David Cameron discussed the matter in detail in 2009.  The article was titled, “Is David Cameron Telling Porky Pies When It Comes To Misleading Voters Over Non-Dom Tax?”

Thirty years earlier, in 1985, Volume 29 of “Canadian Electronic Engineering” found a way to insert the expression into an article.  Regardless of what the article was about, a definite statement was made about the origins of the saying.

Gallium arsenide as a chip material has reached political levels.  At least it has in the UK, where recently an honorable member was taken to task by the technical media for telling “porky pies” in the House.   That’s rhyming slang for telling terminological inexactitudes.

In the British sit-com, “Only Fools and Horses” which ran from 1981 to 1984, written and created by John Sullivan, the expression was included in a number of episodes including, but not limited to, Episode 2 of Season 4.

RODNEY:
You don’t believe all them stories do you?

DEL:
What?  Do you reckon they’re porkies?

According to the Rocking Rhyming Slang website as well as Londontopia, telling porky pies or telling porkies is one of the most well-known slang expressions throughout London and the UK.  On the Londontopia website, the authors claim that rhyming slang originated in the East End of London in the 1840s.  As we all know, language is a living and breathing entity, and Cockney rhyming slang has continued to expand since its inception.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE 1:  The term pork pie dates back to 1732.

That being said, pork pies were a British delicacy in England back in the day.  Hand-raised pork pies were first made in 1831 in Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE 2:  Joseph Hansom built the Belvoir Street Baptist Chapel in Leicester in 1845 which has been referred to as the Pork Pie Chapel because of its shape which resembles a Melton Mowbray pork pie!

The Melton Mowbray pork pies were mass produced (for the day) in the oldest surviving bakery, Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe, from 1851 onwards.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE 3:  Melton Mowbray Pork Pies are protected by European Union law.  For those who doubt this fact, click HERE to download the PDF confirming this fact.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE 4:  The area is equally famous for its Stilton cheese.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE 5:  If you’re looking for a recipe that closely resembles these pork pies, click HERE and download this freebie.

The shape of the Melton Mowbray pork pies was the influence and reason pork-pie hats were called pork-pie hats which originated in 1855.  The pork-pie hat was a popular woman’s hat (sometimes worn at an angle on the forehead) with a flat crown and a brim that made it look like a Melton Mowbray pork pie.

Brits will tell you that the expression telling porky pies has been around as long as there have been Melton Mowbray pork pies.

As a side note, Idiomation also learned along the way that porky pies and mince pies in Cockney rhyming slang aren’t the same thing at all.  One is all about lies, while the other is all about eyes.