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Reader question: Please explain this headline (Telegraph.co.uk, March 6, 2018): London’s £127 million Picasso fever - and the Englishman who bought a baker’s dozen. And what does “baker’s dozen” mean exactly? My comments: Baker’s dozen means 13. A review of the story online confirms this, via this paragraph: During the boom of the late Eighties, the new buyers driving the Picasso market were Japanese, now they are often Chinese. However, last week, Chinese bidders were mostly outgunned on the top Picasso lots by a quiet Englishman in a grey suit named Harry Smith, who bid without flinching until he won 13 Picassos (including that 1939 portrait of Walter) for £112.5 million. It states that this “quite Englishman”, named Harry Smith, bought 13 Picassos. The whole headline means this: In a feverish auction, Picasso paintings fetched a staggering £127 million in total, with an Englishman forking out for 13 of them. Anyways, baker’s dozen means 13 – not twelve, the number a dozen usually represents. How come? It’s a long story. Sometime in the long past in England, laws were stiff and strict against cheating bakers who sold breads that were underweight. You know, they sell you two pounds of bread but when you come home and weigh the bread it’s only one pound and 14 or 15 ounces, meaning one or two ounces short. Apparently this practice became prevalent to a degree that the government took action to eliminate the practice – by introducing harsh penalties including, say, flogging or whipping in public. | 
