Satan in a Sunday hat

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

Is anyone here familiar with the expression "Satan in a Sunday hat"
before its usage in HBO’s "True Blood"?  A colleague used it yesterday
and couldn't remember where she picked it up, though she had the
feeling that she had been familiar with it for a while.

Here's how Urban Dictionary (entry dated 7 January 2010) defines it.

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http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Satan%20In%20A%20Sunday%20Hat

When something that is really bad is disguised as something
pretty/handsome/beautiful.

First reference was made in a Season 2 episode of HBO's "True Blood"
when Tara's intuitive cousin, Lafayette, referred to her mysterious
then-lover, Eggs, as "Satan in a beautiful Sunday hat"

[Example] "To victims of Ted Bundy would now probably refer to him as
Satan in a Sunday Hat despite the fact that he had the eyes of crazed
sonofabitch."

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Season 2 of "True Blood" aired in the summer of 2009.  The next season
the same character asks of another, "Does the term 'Satan in a Sunday
hat' mean anything to you?"

-- Bonnie

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org