Mettre les pieds dans le plat
Meaning: To put one's foot in it; to say something awkward or blunt.
Language: French
Literally: To put one's feet in the dish
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: From the start of the 19th century, and better explained than the obvious reading suggests. The obvious version — literally planting your feet in the serving dish at dinner, a blunder nobody could miss — is almost too easy, and Pierre Guiraud's account in Les locutions françaises offers something less tidy but better supported: a pun between Franco-Provençal words for a ford and for wading or paddling through water, and plat in the older sense of a shallow, flat stretch of water. Blundering by wading straight through a shallow ford is a clumsier, muddier image than stepping in a dinner platter, and stirring up mud in shallow water is exactly what a tactless remark does to a conversation that had been running smoothly.
Equivalents in other languages
- Spanish: Meter la pata — literally: To put the paw in
- German: Ins Fettnäpfchen treten — literally: To step into the little grease pot
- Danish: At træde i spinaten — literally: To step in the spinach
More idioms — Body & Senses
- avoir des fourmis — Experiencing a tingling or prickling sensation in a limb losing circulation.
- avoir un chat dans la gorge — Having difficulty speaking due to hoarseness or a sore throat.
- avoir un bleu — Having a bruise on the skin from impact or injury.
- avoir une dent contre quelqu'un — Holding a grudge or resentment toward someone.
- avoir le trac — Feeling nervous or anxious before a performance or important event.
- avoir une grosse tête — Being arrogant, conceited, or thinking highly of oneself.
More French idioms
- Tourner autour du pot — To beat around the bush.
- Avoir la tête dans les nuages — To be a daydreamer; out of touch with reality.
- Casser du sucre sur le dos de quelqu'un — To talk behind someone's back.
- Jeter de l'huile sur le feu — To make a bad situation worse.
- Faire d'une pierre deux coups — To kill two birds with one stone.
- Faire d'une mouche un éléphant — To make a mountain out of a molehill; to exaggerate wildly.
From our tongue twisters
- Si six scies scient six cyprès, six cents scies scient six cents cyprès. — An 's' / 'si' minefield.
- Dans ta tente ta tante t'attend. — A gentle 'ta / ten / tan / t'' warm-up that sounds faster than it reads.
- Seize chaises sèches sur seize arches sèches. — A relentless collision of 'sei', 'sèch', and 's' — the tongue can't find traction.