Talking With Animals

TALKING ANIMALS

WITH

Talking With AnimalsAnimal Phrases and Meanings

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Play The Game

This magazine also works as a simple game of ‘find the odd one out’. Take a look and study each page to see if you can find the odd one out in each illustration.

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Welcome To Talking With Animals

The English language is fond of using nouns that are usually attributed to animals to describe the actions, feelings and behaviours of humans. In whatever way they appear, they all have one thing in common: a word related to an animal.

The meanings of some of the words and expressions are obvious and can easily be deduced from the actions and lifestyle of the given animal.

From ‘A bird in the hand’ to ‘Weasel words’, we love to include animals in our language. Here’s a select collection of phrases and sayings inspired by our furry and feathered friends. Here you will find out about the phrases, what they mean, an example and it’s origin.

BEE

Phrase

Bee In Your Bonnet

Meaning

Preoccupied or obsessed with an idea. If someone is very excited about something, they have a bee in their bonnet.

Example

She’s got a real bee in her bonnet about people keeping their dogs under control.

Origin

This phrase clearly alludes to the state of agitation one would be in when finding a bee inside one’s bonnet. It follows on from the earlier expression ‘to have bees in one’s head’, which had much the same meaning. This is recorded from the 16th century, for example, in Alexander Douglas’s Aeneis, 1513:

Quhat bern be thou in bed with heid full of beis?

Beekeepers have always worn protective headgear when working with bees and it is possible, although entirely speculative, that the bonnet refers to this.

1.

BULL

Phrase

Bull In A China Shop

Meaning

A person with no tact who upsets others or upsets plans; a very clumsy person.

Example

I never know what to say at a funeral. I feel like a bull in a china shop, trampling on feelings without even meaning to.

Origin

It’s on record from the beginning of the nineteenth century. It’s one of those idioms that seems to have arrived fully formed without anybody having to go to the trouble of creating it.

As a linguistic curiosity, related expressions occur in many European languages, among them Russian, Latvian, Polish, Dutch, German, French, Hebrew, Italian and Spanish — though all of them feature an elephant, not a bull.

2.

LAM

B3.

Phrase

Mutton Dressed As Lamb

Meaning

An ageing woman who is dressed or made up as if much younger.

Example

The teacher was trying to appeal to her students by wearing a short skirt and strappy top. In reality, she just looked like mutton dressed as lamb.

Origin

The term ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ is first found in print in the journal of social gossip that Mrs Frances Calvert compiled in 1811. Extracts from the journal were published in 1911 as An Irish Beauty of the Regency:

Some one the other day asked the Prince of Wales at the Ancient Music whether he did not think some girl pretty. ‘Girl!’ answered he, ‘Girls are not to my taste. I don’t like lamb; but mutton dressed like lamb!’.

FISH

4.

Phrase

Like A Fish Out Of Water

Meaning

Someone who is in a situation they are unsuited to.

Example

After living in Hong Kong for most of his life, Lee was a fish out of water in Los Angeles.

Origin

This metaphor is quite old. Chaucer used a version of it in The Canterbury Tales: Prologue:

...a monk, when he is cloisterless;Is like to a fish that is waterless.

The earliest reference to the present day wording of the phrase is in Samuel Purchas’s Pilgrimage, 1613:

“The Arabians out of the desarts are

as Fishes out of the Water.”

GOOS

E5.

Phrase

Wild Goose Chase

Meaning

A foolish and hopeless search for or pursuit of something unattainable.

Example

A search for an alternative that meets cognitive criteria; “the pursuit of love”; “life is more than the pursuance of fame”; “a quest for wealth”

Origin

This phrase is old and appears to be one of the many phrases introduced to the language by Shakespeare. The first recorded citation is from Romeo and Juliet, 1592:

Mercutio: Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five.

Our current use of the phrase alludes to an undertaking which will probably prove to be fruitless - and it’s hard to imagine anything more doomed to failure than an attempt to catch a wild goose by chasing after it.

TURK

EY6.

Phrase

Going Cold Turkey

Meaning

The abrupt and complete cessation of taking a drug to which one is addicted.

Example

I had to stop smoking, so I went cold turkey. It’s awful!

Origin

The term ‘cold turkey’ is now predominantly used as the name of the drug withdrawal process. Also, by extension, it is used to refer to any abrupt termination of something we are accustomed to.

The earliest reference to ‘cold turkey’ in relation to drug withdrawal that I can find is from the Canadian newspaper The Daily Colonist, October 1921:

“Perhaps the most pitiful figures who have appeared before Dr. Carleton Simon are those who voluntarily surrender themselves. When they go before him, they [drug addicts] are given what is called the ‘cold turkey’ treatment.”

WOLF

7.

Phrase

Wolf In Sheeps Clothing

Meaning

Someone who hides malicious intent under the guise of kindliness. A dangerous person pretending to be harmless.

Example

Carla thought the handsome stranger was gentle and kind, but Susan suspected he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Origin

The cautionary advice that one cannot necessarily trust someone who appears kind and friendly has been with us for many centuries. The version of Aesop’s Fables that is best known to us today is George Fyler Townsend’s 1867 translation:

Once upon a time a Wolf resolved to disguise his appearance in order to secure food more easily. Encased in the skin of a sheep, he pastured with the flock deceiving the shepherd by his costume. The shepherd returning to the fold during the night to obtain meat for the next day, mistakenly caught up the Wolf instead of a sheep, and it killed him instantly.

CAT

Phrase

Curiousity Killed The Cat

Meaning

Used as a warning for anyone who is acting excessively curious, as their prying behavior may lead them to harm or even death.

Example

My boss warned me that curiousity killed the cat after I kept pestering him to tell me why he fired his last employee.

Origin

This is a common proverb that simply highlights a cat’s curious side. This idiom has been found in writings near the beginning of the 20th century, such as the 1909 short story Schools and Schools, by O. Henry. Included in the story is a line that reads:

“Curiosity can do more things than kill a cat...”

8.

Illustrations By

Alexandra Baker

Welcome To Talking With Animals

From ‘A bird in the hand’ to ‘Weasel words’, we love to include animals in our language. Here’s a select collection of phrases and sayings inspired by our furry and feathered friends . . .