He who pays the piper

Learning a language is one thing, getting to grips with a pig in a poke is another altogether. Octavia Pollock explores some of our best idioms

- Octavia Pollock

THE world and his wife are fond of touching wood to avoid a spanner in the works or, as the Americans have it, everyone and his mother knock on wood to prevent a wrench in the works. In England, we take French leave; across the Channel, they filer à l’anglaise. Idioms exist everywhere, stemming from the Bible, from farming, sailing, games, superstition, war, literature and any other sphere of human influence. You might know your onions and get off scot free or you might be taken aback and find yourself blotting your copybook. Before you’re befuddled by bits and bobs, here’s a baker’s dozen of the best.

Buy a pig in a poke

Bustling and crowded, silver jingling in purses and pick-pockets darting every which way, marketplaces are where the grifters and the gullible mix. If you failed to open the poke— or bag—to inspect your squirming piglet, you might get a nasty surprise. Be grateful if someone lets the cat out of the bag, although, if you’re on a ship and the bosun draws the cat o’ nine tails from its red cloth, watch out.

The devil to pay and no pitch hot

Being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea is no place to be, when the devil is the longest seam of a ship. To keep deck seams watertight, sailors had to caulk, or pay, them with hot tar, or pitch, or risk an encounter with Davy Jones. William Langland has an older claim on paying the Devil, however, as the phrase appears in Piers Plowman, centuries before the first man o’ war was laid down.

Steal someone’s thunder