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Reader question: Please explain “best foot forward”, as in “you’ve got to put your best foot forward by doing your homework.” My comments: This is a perfect example showing how it is with idioms. An idiom is a well-worn and sometimes overused phrase involving a group of words with a meaning of its own that is different from the meanings of each separate word put together. In other words, you can’t always guess out the meaning of an idiom by taking the individual words involved at face value. “Under the weather”, for instance, means “ill”. “Putting one’s best foot forward” is another good case in point. First of all, putting one’s best foot forward doesn’t make immediate grammatical sense. As phrase.org.uk explains: ‘Put your best foot forward’ is rather an odd saying for us to use as it implies three or more feet. When I was at university studying maths, a lecturer worked out the answer to a student’s question as ‘two quarters’. He then corrected himself and said “we have a special name for that”. Likewise, ‘the best’ is the name we give for something that surpasses all others. Something that surpasses one other is specifically called ‘the better’, as in one’s wife being called ‘one’s better half’. Cows...may be able to put their best foot forward but ‘better foot forward’ makes more sense for humans. | 
