Spot the frippet: pin.

See a pin and pick it up

as the old rhymne goes,

And all the day you'll have good luck.


See a pin and let it stay
Bad luck will haunt you all the day...

...probably, I always thought, because you're quite likely to go and tread on it.

Pins are easy to spot. If you haven't got a safety pin holding some part of your outfit together:



then you might be wearing a pinafore over your dress.



Which might even be pin tucked:



(the pin tucks in this picture are round the bottom of the bride's skirt - they're the small sewn-in pleats).

Or if you're at work then you might be able to spot a pinstriped suit; or, if you're at college in the USA, that odd thing the fraternity pin:



In England this is the beginning of the primrose season, and the way the central spiky bit pokes out of the middle of the flower makes them pin-eyed.


Photo by Chris Dixon.

Or if you're in Ireland you may see someone being put to the pin on his collar, which means being forced to make a huge effort.

But the pin I saw the other day, which thrilled me completely, was a pintail:


photo by JM Garg.

A real pin-up of a drake, he was, too.

Spot the frippet: pin. This word has hardly changed at all for a millennium. The Old English form was pinn, and the word is related to the Old High German pfinn and the Old Norse pinni, which means nail.