“Put your foot in it”in other languages

Same idea, different pictures

Every version is a clumsy step in the wrong place. French puts its feet in the dish, Danish steps in the spinach, and German steps into the Fettnäpfchen, the little pot of grease. Spanish uses pata, the word for an animal's leg, which makes the blunder sound even clumsier.

German dictionaries usually trace the Fettnäpfchen to old farmhouses, where a small dish of boot grease stood by the door or the stove. Knock it over and you left greasy marks on the floor, and an annoyed household.

Portuguese is a little different: putting your feet where your hands should be means botching something through carelessness, not only saying the wrong thing.