A Visit to the Language Zoo

Many children’s magazines feature picture puzzles in which the young readers are asked to identify a number of hidden animals. In a cloud may lurk a cow, in the leaves of a tree may be concealed a fish, and on the side of a house may be soaring an eagle. The English language is like those children’s pictures. Take a gander at what follows, and you will discover almost three hundred creatures from the animal world hidden in the sentences, a veritable menagerie of zoological metaphors. (Did you catch one of them in the last sentence?)

Human beings, proclaims one dictionary, are distinguished from the other animals “by a notable development of brain with a resultant capacity for speech and abstract thinking.” Perhaps so, but how truly different is our species from our fellow organisms with whom we share the planet?

I mean holy cow, holy cats, and holy mackerel — a little bird told me that the human race is filled with congressional hawks and doves who fight like cats and dogs ‘til the cows come home, Wall Street bulls and bears who make a beeline for the goose that lays the golden egg, cold fish and hotdoggers, early birds and night owls, lone wolves and social butterflies, young lions and old crows, and lame ducks, sitting ducks, and dead ducks.

Some people are horny studs on the prowl for other party animals, strutting peacocks who preen and fish for compliments, clotheshorses who put on the dog with their turtlenecks and hush puppies, young bucks and роnytailed foxy chicks in puppy love who want to get hitched, or cool cats and kittenish lovebirds who avoid stag parties to bill and coo and pet and paw each other in their love nests.

Other people have a whale of an appetite that compels them to eat like pigs (not birds), drink like fish, stuff themselves to the gills, hog the lion’s share, and wolf their elephantine portions until they become plump as partridges. Still others are batty, squirrelly, bug-eyed, cod-eyed cuckoos who are mad as march hares and look like something the cat dragged in; crazy as coots, loons, a bedbugs; and who come at us like bats out of hell with their monkeyshines and drive us buggy with their horsing around.

As we continue to separate the sheep from the goats and to pigeonhole the “human” race, we encounter catnapping, slothful sluggards; harebrained jackasses who, like fish out of water, doggedly think at a snail’s pace; dumb bunnies and dumb clucks who run around like chickens with their heads cut off; birdbrained dodos who are easily gulled, buffaloed, and outfoxed; asinine silly gooses who lay an egg whenever, like monkey-see-monkey-do, they parrot and ape every turkey they see; clumsy oxen who are bulls in china shops; and top dogs on their high horses, big fish in small ponds, and cocky bullies high up in the pecking order who rule the roost and never work for chicken feed.

Leapin’ lizards, we can scarcely get through a day without meeting crestfallen, pussyfooting chickens who stick their heads in the sand; henpecked underdogs who get goose pimples and butterflies and turn tail; scared rabbits who play possum and cry crocodile tears before they go belly up; spineless jellyfish who clam up with a frog in the throat whenever the cat gets their tongue; mousy worms who quail and flounder and then, quiet as mice, slink off and then return to the fold with their tails between their legs; and shrimpy pipsqueaks who fawn like toadies until you want to croak.

Let’s face it. It’s a dog-eat-dog world we live in. But doggone it, without beating a dead horse, I do not wish to duck or leapfrog over this subject. It’s time to fish or cut bait, to take the bull by the horns, kill two birds with one stone, and, before everything goes to the dogs and we’ve got a tiger by the tail, to give you a bird’s-eye view of the animals hiding in our language.

Dog my cats! It’s a bear of a task to avoid meeting catty, shrewish, bitchy vixens with bees in their bonnets whose pet peeve and sacred cow is that all men are swine and chauvinist pigs and in their doghouse. Other brutes who get your goat and ruffle your feathers are antsy, backbiting, crabby, pigheaded old buzzards, coots, and goats who are no spring chickens, who are stubborn as mules, and who grouse, bug, badger, dog, and hound you like squawking, droning, waspish gadflies that stir up a hornets’ nest and make a mountain out of a molehill.

And speaking of beastly characters that stick in your craw, watch out for the parasites, bloodsuckers, sponges, and leeches who worm their way into your consciousness and make you their scapegoats; the rat finks and stool pigeons who ferret out your deepest secrets and then squeal on you, let the cat out of the bag, and fly the coop without so much as a “Tough turkey. See you later, alliga­tor”; the snakes-in-the-grass who come out of the wood­work, open a can of worms, and then, before you smell a rat, throw you a red herring; the serpentine quacks who make you their gullible guinea pig and cat’s-paw; the lowdown curs and dirty dogs who sling the bull, give you a bum steer, and send you on a wild goose chase barking up the wrong tree on a wing and a prayer; the card sharks who hawk their fishy games, monkey with your nest egg, put the sting on you, and then fleece you; the vultures who hang like albatrosses around your neck, who live high on the hog, who feather their own nests and then – the straw that breaks the camel’s back – crow about it looking like the cat that swallowed the canary; the black sheep who play cat and mouse and then cook your goose and make a monkey out of you with their shaggy dog stories before they hightail it out of there; and the lousy varmints, pole­cats, skunks, and eels who sell you a white elephant or a pig in a poke and, when the worm turns and you discover the fly in the ointment, weasel their way out of the deal. It’s a real jungle out there, just one unbridled rat race; in fact, it’s for the birds.

But let’s talk turkey and horse sense. Don’t we go a tad ape and hog wild over the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eager beavers who always go whole hog to hit the bull’s-eye; the eagle-eyed tigers who are always loaded for bear; and the ducky, loosey-goosey rare birds who are wise as owls and happy as larks and clams? Lucky dogs like these are the cat’s pajamas and the cat’s meow, worthy of being lionized. From the time they’re knee-high to a grasshopper, they’re in the catbird seat and the world is their oyster.

So before you buzz off, I hope you'll agree that this exhibit of animal metaphors has been no fluke, no hogwash, no humbug. I really give a hoot about the animals hiding in our English language, so, for my swan song. I want you to know that, straight from the horse's mouth, this has been no dog-and-pony show and no cock-and-bull story.

It really is a zoo out there.

Task 4. This time, spot “food” idioms. Are they commonly used in English?

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1081