EVERYBODY is familiar with the use of the word "pig" in daily English. So we get "pig sick", or we put "lipstick on a pig", we "cast pearls before swine" and castigate something as "hogwash".

But someone going out looking at pigs with a view to buying a couple for the first time, is almost certain to run into a whole new language that experienced pig keepers use to describe their animals and what they do. This isn't meant to exclude or intimidate people new to pigs, nor is it intended to make pig keeping into an obscure or arcane activity. It's simply that over the many years that pigs have been domesticated, a whole vocabulary of pig terms has grown up, each of which means something very specific and which is the most efficient way of describing an animal or its condition, as the words carry with them a whole range of valuable but unspoken information.

First, we might as well understand the Latin names for the species: Sus scrofa - the wild boar - and Sus scrofa domesticus - our farmyard pigs - but I've never come across anyone who uses those descriptions outside a reference book. Get out in the field, though, and we immediately run across several ways even to describe pigs as a type of animal. So swine is from the Old English word to describe all the members of the Suidae family, stretching from the smallest runt in the litter up to the most majestic wild boar. It has links with the Germanic and Latin words for the same thing, unlike hog, which appears to have its roots in the Celtic languages and tends to refer to a full-grown domestic animal. Finally, we're left with pig, which seems to have entered Middle English from the Scandinavian - pigge (piggy ?) - originally the term for a young hog but it's become the generic term we use today for all our domestic swine, so it's what I'll continue to call them here.

Then, of course, we have the obvious terms for the different sexes: boars and sows, but it's important to realise that a boar is specifically an entire (i.e. uncastrated) adult, male pig - in short, a male pig that is capable of breeding. On the other hand, an adult female pig can only be called a sow once she has produced her first litter of piglets, before that a female pig would be called a gilt. I did hear very recently that some of the old pig keepers would only regard a gilt as a sow, after her second litter by which time her breeding capacity would have been proven. The charming old term, for a castrated male pig this time, is a barrow, although to be honest I've never heard it used. I suppose these days castration is not as routine as it once was, so the term is probably on its way out. Still, worth knowing for the pub quiz though.

The breeding of pigs has a whole set of words to understand. Most obviously, the expression standing heat means just what it says: the sow or gilt is on heat (or in season) and prepared to stand square for mating with the boar. This is more usually used when talking about cattle - the effect is the same - but it may be used for pigs too. A more usual term for a sow that's in season and ready to be mated is hogging, presumably because she's prepared to accept the hog at that time, and an older, rather more colourful term, that's still sometimes used for the same thing is brimming - although I have no idea where this one comes from.

Once a sow or gilt is pregnant, she is said to be in pig, which I always feel is one of the most descriptive of pig expressions and should leave no-one in any doubt about the precise nature of her delicate condition. After the necessary three months, three weeks and three days have been accomplished, the piglets (obviously) will be born in a process known to pig keepers as farrowing.

After they have been born (or farrowed), the piglets will need a secure sheltered area, where there is no possibility of them being crushed by the sow and where there is also a heat lamp to keep their body temperature up. This protected area that the piglets can get into, but the sow can't, is know as a creep. As the piglets grow, they will start to be offered special piglet nuts in the creep area. This feed is also sometimes known as creep. I have always understood that this term came from shepherds in the north country, who would open the small, ready built, tunnels through dry stone walls, allowing only the lambs to creep through them and gain the maximum benefit from fresh clean grazing ahead of their mothers.

Once the piglets are no longer feeding from their mother, that is to say that they've been weaned, then they become weaners - naturally - this tends to refer to piglets from about six or eight weeks old onwards. The other term used for piglets from weaning until they reach the right butchers weight is a grower. Very often feed merchants and mills will sell a growers ration to cover most of this period. For the last few weeks before reaching butcher weight you could feed a finisher ration, but more about that later. Yet another description for a young pig is store pig which implies this is an animal that isn't being fattened when it's sold to you, but you would then take it on either to an appropriate butchers weight or to maturity as a breeding animal. Finally another old word, for a piglet after weaning this time, is shoat or shote, again it's one I've never heard used but there's no harm being prepared.

As your stock approaches its ultimate butcher's weight, it will enter the last stage of fattening and you'll be looking to achieve the right sort of finish to them. Finish is one of those things which you may understand in principle, but which you will only really appreciate once you've achieved stock that really have it.

It's not just about overall weight, it's also to do with having the right proportions of meat, bone and fat, plus that bloom of health that a well finished pig ready for the butcher should have. Of course, while you're finishing your growers, you'll probably have been feeding them a finisher's ration.

It fascinates me how one word can be used to describe so many different things depending on its context.

You'll have realised that I've been dancing around the weight at which a pig is ready for the butcher.

That's because there are really three different categories of pigs ready for the butcher. They are: porkers raised for pork and weighing in the region of 140lb (63.6kg); baconers raised for bacon and weighing around 220lb (100kg); and cutters which could go for either pork or bacon as they weigh about 180lb (81.8kg). All the weights I've just given are of course liveweight, which is exactly what it sounds like - the total weight of the live pig. The other type of weight is deadweight, which is the dressed weight of the carcase after slaughter.

That was a short run through some of the obvious words in the language. I don't claim to have interpreted the complete pig keeper's vocabulary in this article. I'm sure that there will be plenty more expressions out there and some districts may have their own dialect words which I've never come across.

But hopefully this brief explanation of some of the more common terms will prove helpful - and at least be enough to get you started communicating with a native speaker!