t is in Tyndale’s Bible that we first find the name “Passover” for the holiday Jews call Pesach; it was he who coined the word “scapegoat”; and many biblical verses that are now idiomatic in English are his own translation – notably, “my brother’s keeper,” “the powers that be,” “the salt of the earth,” among many others.

The French also have the expression la bouche en cul de poule, which literally means “to have a chicken’s ass for a mouth,” but idiomatically indicates that someone has put on a honeyed or fawning look, puckering his lips or not, in the hopes of getting what he wants.