As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, my wife and I have watched a lot of British police procedurals, so we’re familiar with the slang phrase stitch up, defined by Green (sense 3) as “(UK Und./police) of the police, to incriminate a person in order to ensure a conviction by planting evidence, faking confessions etc.; also in non-police use” (first citation 1970 [UK] G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 127: Your confederate has just about stitched you up). My wife asked me what the underlying metaphor was: stitching someone into a bag? Green doesn’t say explicitly (though under the general heading stitch up v. he has the bracketed [sewing up a garment neatly and conclusively]), but I found a discussion at the Stack Exchange English Language & Usage site; the question is specifically about “stitched up like a kipper,” so the answer that seems most useful starts with the kipper:
I’m not convinced it’s a “mixture of similes”. I can’t find any relevant references to like a kipper prior to about 1970, and I think when it did come in about then, it started as South London slang.
So I’m inclined to credit the explanation given here, that it’s a reference to the the extra wide tie called the ‘kipper’ that became popular around then. Thus called partly because the original designer was Michael Fish, and partly because of the tie’s shape.
On the metaphorical allusion to kippers the foodstuff, I’d note that they’re pretty unrecognisable as “fish” once they’ve been split and smoked. They’ve been well and truly done over.
Also note that to have a stitch on someone was (now obsolete) British slang for to bear a grudge. Which is probably where the later slang stitch someone up came from (it means to “frame” someone – falsely make it appear they’re guilty).
OP’s more general definition (to trick someone) is increasingly common lately, but I think with or without “kipper”, most usages still relate to being (usually falsely) made to appear guilty.
Does that seem plausible to others? And is anyone familiar with the ‘bear a grudge’ usage?
I don’t believe the kipper tie has anything to do with Michael Fish. In early-20th century Palestine, דָּג מָלוּחַ dag maluach ‘salted fish’ was used as a jokey term for ‘necktie’, supposedly influenced by Russian селёдка. I’m sure the similarity has struck various people independently.
“Stitch up”, in the sense “falsely incriminate” is entirely familiar to me, and, I imagine, to all Brits. I’ve never come across it the sense “trick.”
“Stitch up” is used quite often in the Australian TV series Deadloch—especially in series 2—meaning especially one of the first two of these definitions given in Wiktionary:
In Modern Hebrew, litpor/litfor tik ‘to sew a (legal) case’ means ‘to incriminate unjustly, especially through false evidence’, which I think of as implying something custom-sewn to fit. It’s come up infinitely over the past decade in right-wing circles, where BN’s trial is presented as persecution.
Evidently this “stitching up” of which the Saeson speak is but a confused echo of the fate of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwawl
[Pwyll, despite his actual name meaning “intelligence”, has to be helped out of the hole he’s dug for himself by Rhiannon. Just saying …]