David Wright Faladé’s “Amarillo Boulevard” (New Yorker, September 28, 2025; archived) is the best short story I’ve read in a while, dealing with family, race, friendship, Texas, and other large matters with no apparent effort and packing a surprising emotional punch. What leads me to post it is a phrase I had to look up, the last one in this paragraph:
Miss Sammie asked, “Do Atlanta Juneteenths be like we do around here, with the collards and the mac ’n’ cheese and the rest? You know, putting your foot in it.”
To me, to put your foot in it means (to quote the Cambridge Dictionary site) “to say something by accident that embarrasses or upsets someone,” which is clearly not the sense here. Fortunately, I found this Reddit thread:
I used to cook food at a shelter and one time a guest told me “you must have put your foot in this!” I had never heard the saying before and thought he was accusing me of adulterating the food. I tried to apologize, but he told me that it was a compliment. Apparently, it is usually used to express satisfaction with a meal/dish, “you put your foot in that” is a compliment to the chef in the southern U.S. Does anybody have any insight on this idiom? From what I can gather by the context of the situation it has to do with preparing a meal with care/dedication, similar to “you put your heart into it.” But why the foot?
whatcarpaltunnel
“You’ve stumpd your toe in this” or “You stuck your thumb in this” are the ones I’m most familiar with being from the south. These two can refer to a range of expression from being too sweet or complementing the chef(cook) on his mastery, in my experience. I’m hoping someone can chime in on the saying for a more detailed history.zsluggiest1
I was a chef throughout Louisiana for about 20 years and worked with several mid 60-65 year old black women that all said the same thing. They said it came from the days of slavery when there were very limited ingredients left over for the slaves to feed themselves. When someone would get a dish just right they would say that the cook must have “stuck their foot in it” as to say it had a flavor that was better regardless of using the exact same ingredients as everyone else. It makes a lot of sense given how much more common the phrase is in deep south black culture.
It’s pretty much unusable if you’re not part of the relevant cultural group, but I’m glad to know about it. (Yeah, yeah, the folk history of the phrase is probably not accurate, but people love to find satisfying explanations for opaque idioms.)
More plausible than the other reddit thread
I agree!
Also, we’re having mac ’n’ cheese tonight, and I expect my wife will put her foot in it.
In the British “put your foot in it”, the “it” is “shit”, right?
I thought it just meant “blundet”, but the Cambridge lexicographers are somewhat more British than I am.
What do people think of the speculation that “put your foot in your mouth” (say something tactless, embarrassing, etc.) started as a misunderstanding of “Every time he opens his mouth, he puts his foot in it”?
I was struck by the Nigerian fiancé’s slow-burn culture shock; and, of course, for his difficulty with the very weird American construal of “race.” And the narrator’s astonishment (bordering on outright incomprehension) that he thought her obviously “black” friend was obviously “white.”
I think I’ve mentioned before that I first saw a picture of Colin Powell when I lived in Ghana; I was genuinely surprised to discover subsequently that he was “Black.” It had never occurred to me.
Heh. Texas sure is a large matter! Week-long conference field trip on the Waggoner Ranch…
(Admittedly, that one is big even by Texas standards.)
Me neither; the TV had to tell me. When I look very closely, I can see the one drop…
From the article:
No comma? In the New Yorker?
I did a slight double-take at the “be” in
“Once, they saw a man be thrown through the window of a seedy bar”
which doesn’t strike me as wrong, exactly: it’s just that I would say either “a man thrown” or “a man being thrown.”
It is one of those things that strikes Americans as perfectly natural?
(It’s also possible that it’s only me who thinks otherwise. And given that “a house is being built” was regarded as a Horrid Neologism by the Victorians, the whole English passive thing is evidently a work in progress.)
“be thrown” read a teeny bit odd to me too. OTOH “saw a man get thrown” is just as good as “saw a man getting thrown”, with a different shade of meaning. Maybe the “be” triggered a false uh-oh American subjunctive incoming alarm.
It is one of those things that strikes Americans as perfectly natural?
This American, anyway.
I know these judgments are always suspect, but I believe that in American, “saw a man being thrown,” “saw a man be thrown,” and “saw a man thrown” differ in aspect.
I’m working in a rapidly growing field, and we were told recently to “keep our foot in as much of the pie as possible”.
(Admittedly by a non-native english-speaker.)
I liked (without actually *believing*) the suggestion in one reddit thread that if dipping your toe in is a small effort, putting your whole foot in must be a large effort.
There’s also ‘put your back into it’ for effort, although that can be fairly literal – I found quite a few examples about rowing.
I now wonder about the possibly double meaning of putting feet in pies, as in Sara Cone Bryant’s “The Story of Epaminondas and His Auntie”. It was a childhood favorite, though now certainly politically incorrect for racial stereotyping.
“You see these here six mince pies I done make? You see how I done set ’em on the doorstep to cool? Well, now, you hear me, Epaminondas, you be careful how you step on those pies!”
[…]. And then, — and then, — Epaminondas
was careful how he stepped on those pies.
He stepped (imitate) — right — in — the — middle — of — every — one.>
I identified with Epaminondas as a kid. The narrator seems to imagine that he did all this stuff because he was stupid. Any self-respecting child can see what’s really going on.
His mother sensibly plays along.
E. probably grew up to be Švejk.
@Jerry Friedman: I have a hard time envisioning Tolkien describing Bilbo as going right in and putting his foot in it if the literal reference was to shit. Maybe it started that way, but the expression seems to have been totally bleached even a century ago.
You would think that a folk as pastoral as Hobbits are would have plenty of cow, sheep, pig and pony manure to deal with. Probably Tolkien would have said “dung” instead of shit, since “donge” seems to be more attested than “scitte” in Old English (and Wikipedia suggests that “scitte” originally referred to “diarrhea” or at least more liquid fecal matter.)