“Sell someone a bill of goods”in other languages

Same idea, different pictures

Most of these are swindles at market. Spanish gives cat instead of hare, dar gato por liebre, a charge once made against shady inns. Dutch sells turnips as lemons, knollen voor citroenen verkopen. Croatian sells fog, prodavati maglu: nothing at all.

Spanish also sells you the motorbike, vender la moto, said of anyone talking you into believing something. English began with a “bill of goods”, a plain list of merchandise, before it came to mean a con.