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hog?

papeya

Senior Member
italian
"So, lads, will we go the whole hog and put it up a tree?"
"Yes, dear, and you get to sit on top in a pair of wings and silver G-string."

Can anybody explain what's the first speaker intention as far as the hog (pig?) is concerned?
Can it be a reference to the Lord of flyes or it is my literature-addicted imagination?
Papeya

p.s. moreover, what's a G-string exactly?
"to go whole hog" means "to do a thing thoroughly, to not cut corners, to do a thing right."

A G-string is a small panty, like strippers wear. Though it's hardly any smaller than what is called 'a thong.'


PS: Presumably the phrase refers to non-kosher, non-halal dietary practices.
I suspect that "to go the whole hog" originally meant to eat a whole pig at one meal, and therefore to make a feast of a thing.

The reference to sitting on top of the tree probably suggests putting a decoration on top of a tree at christmas time. This is usually either a fairy or an angel, with wings, unlike the person spoken about, who is presumably no angel!
Yes, thanks, they were talking of Christmas, the sentence is idomatic and the G-string is a thong. Thanks for helps!
The OED suggests the use of the phrase stems from William Cowper's poem "The Love of the World Reproved: or, Hypocrisy Detected" which begins:

Thus says the prophet of the Turk,
Good Musselman, abstain from pork

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Shores/7484/lib/poetry/cowper.htm

In any event the phrase gained commonality by use in politics, though here again the basic idea is that of an imparticular appetite:

We all know that of late he has shown a disposition to become ‘a whole hog man’, but if he can swallow this, he can swallow anything. (Virginia Herald, 1829)
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