Is this true? The first recorded use of the phrase “when pigs fly” in print is in a 1616 play by Ben Jonson called “The Devil is an Ass,” in which a character says, “When pigs fly, good-night!!”ResponseResponse AResponse BYes, that’s true! The phrase “when pigs fly” indeed appears in Ben Jonson’s 1616 play The Devil is an Ass and was said during the second act in a conversation between Fitzdottrel and Pug. The phrase was first used to express skepticism or disbelief, suggesting that something is as unlikely to happen as the fanciful idea of pigs flying. This usage is often cited as one of the earliest instances of the phrase in print.The claim that the phrase “when pigs fly” was first recorded in Ben Jonson’s 1616 play “The Devil is an Ass” is not accurate. There is no evidence from the available texts and summaries of “The Devil is an Ass” that includes the phrase “when pigs fly” or any similar expression.Response A

The correct response is: Response B — probably false. There’s no solid evidence that the exact modern phrase “when pigs fly” appears in Ben Jonson’s 1616 play The Devil is an Ass; the attribution is a common misremembering or paraphrase.

Explanation

  • Authoritative lexicographic sources (notably the Oxford English Dictionary) are the best place to check earliest printed attestations of idioms. The OED records early figurative uses involving flying pigs or improbable events, but the precise modern formula “when pigs fly” is not reliably traced to Jonson 1616.
  • Older plays and pamphlets sometimes contain jocular imagery of animals flying or impossible events; later retellings or summaries can compress those images into the succinct modern idiom. That leads to many online claims that Jonson used the exact phrase, but those claims are not backed by a citation to a line in the 1616 text.
  • In short: Jonson may have used similar ironic or fanciful language, but the assertion that the phrase “when pigs fly” in that exact wording is first recorded in The Devil is an Ass is not supported by the primary text as far as current lexicographical evidence shows.

How you can verify this yourself

  1. Check the OED entry for “when pigs fly” (or the lemma under “pigs” + idiomatic usages) — it lists dated citations and earliest printed examples.
  2. Search the 1616 text of The Devil is an Ass in a trusted digital collection (Early English Books Online, EEBO; Google Books for later editions; or a scholarly edition of Jonson’s works) for the words “pig”, “pigs”, “fly”, “flying”, and context around them.
  3. If you find a purported quote online, compare it to a scanned image or scholarly transcription of the 1616 edition to confirm wording and context.

If you like, I can:

  • Look up the OED citations for this idiom (if you want me to summarize what the OED lists), or
  • Walk you through searching EEBO/Google Books and show how to confirm whether the exact phrase appears in Jonson’s play.
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