ATLANTA — The phrase "lipstick on a pig" has been quite prominent in the public forum lately, thanks to the 2008 presidential campaign. But it raises many questions, which, as a public service, we will attempt to answer in a completely nonpartisan way.
Q: Do pigs even have lips?
A: Not really, said Dr. Robert Dove, associate professor of animal science at the University of Georgia's College of Agriculture. "They have a structure like lips, but they're not referred to as lips," he good-naturedly explained.
Q: What about porcine princesses like Miss Piggy and Petunia Pig? Don't they wear lipstick?
A: Nope. You may be thinking of them as lipstick-wearing pigs, but look again. No lipstick.
Q: Do cosmetics companies test lipstick on pigs the way they test cosmetics on some animals?
A: "To our knowledge, pigs are not used for cosmetic testing," said Kathy Guillermo, director of laboratory investigations for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Q: When was the phrase "lipstick on a pig" first used?
A: The first recorded use was a 1985 quote by a San Francisco radio personality that renovating the aging stadium Candlestick Park would be like putting lipstick on a pig. That's according to Ben Zimmer, an Oxford English Dictionary consultant who runs a Web site called Visual Thesaurus. A similar aphorism, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear," dates back to 1579, Zimmer wrote.
Q: How did it become a part of the language?
A: The pig-lipstick line was a favorite of two Texas politicians, Ann Richards and Jim Hightower, who used it frequently in the 1990s, according to Zimmer. (Though Richards usually said "hog" instead of "pig.")
Q: Have there been folksy sayings about applying lipstick to other animals?
A: Chickens, frogs and donkeys have all been mentioned frequently as unlikely candidates for lipstick.
Q: Does that settle all this?
A: We can only hope.
Phil Kloer writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: pkloer AT ajc.com