Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 209
Idioms that make our
animal friends ‘go wild’
W
hen I find myself facing
a column deadline in an
unusually short week,
as mine is this week, I usually
take the easiest route available —
and, of late, that has had me mining the wealth of idioms floating
around in the weird word world.
As I remind you each time I
cop out this way, an idiom is “a
group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (for example: raining
cats and dogs).” And, as with said
cats and dogs, animals are quite
often the unwitting subjects of idiom character assassination.
But they really don’t care what
we think of ’em, as long as we
feed ’em, right?
So, here we go again.
And, I hope you don’t mind being “used as guinea pigs.” You
see, if this goes well, I might
take it on the road. If it doesn’t, I
might feel “as awkward as a cow
on roller skates.”
So how about those cows, anyway? I mean, there are “sacred
cows” and “cash cows” — with
the former, it’s something you are
supposed to leave alone, and the
latter is something you want to
“milk as long as you can.” But,
“holy cow,” you might “have a
cow” if someone makes you wait
“until the cows come home.”
Oh, I’m just getting warmed up.
There are “eager beavers,” you
know, which is usually a good
thing. And an eager beaver is almost always “as busy as a beaver.” But, though industrious, this
beaver might suffer from self-
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
esteem issues if it is “as bucktoothed as a beaver” — as is quite
often the case.
Monkeys, on the other hand,
are not so industrious. More often than not, they just “monkey
around” with things or work at
“monkey business.” And if one
of them sees another at this pursuit, well, it’s “monkey see, monkey do.” Worse yet, in doing this,
they sometimes “make a monkey out of you,” which can cause
you to “go ape,” especially if this
bad reputation sticks with you
and you can’t “get the monkey off
your back.”
Similarly, mice are known to
be less than productive, which is
probably why they are always “as
poor as church mice.” And it is
well known that “when the cat’s
away, the mice will play.” But
what happens when the cat isn’t
away? Well, then the mice get
the short end of “playing cat and
mouse.”
Now, these little fuzzies usually get by being “quiet as a
mouse.” But when they do speak
out, it’s best not to listen to them,
because you know what happens
to “the best-laid plans of mice
and men.”
Rats are held in even less esteem,
but they’ve earned this, my friends.
They will always “rat on you” or
“rat you out” when given the opportunity. I mean, just don’t trust
’em. And you should definitely
“smell a rat” when one of them invites you out to the “rat race.”
And what about those ungulates, hey? By scientific definition, they are always on their
toes, but they still can’t escape idiom abuse. On the positive side, it
is usually an “awww” thing when
one is “as gentle as a lamb” or “as
meek as a lamb.” But this can really shorten a lifespan, maybe
like to “two shakes of a lamb’s
tail,” when they go “like lambs to
the slaughter.”
On the other hand, you never want to be “the black sheep of
the family.” And you always want
to “separate the sheep from the
goats” because, otherwise, you
might “get someone’s goat,” which
is not a friendly thing to do.
And, finally, wolves get the
worst rap of all. I mean, the least
offensive thing they do is to “wolf
down” things. Sometimes they
“fleece” other animals, which can
result in a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” They are also known to “cry
wolf,” which you might think
would result from “a lone wolf”
being, you know, lonely. But it’s
a whole other deal, calculated to
desensitize you so you forget to
“keep the wolf from the door” or
fail to “keep the wolves at bay.”
And though it is well known
that “a growing youth has a wolf
in his belly” PR being what it has
been over the centuries, the fairy
tales usually have things the other way around. And that’s “something to howl about.”
Comment at jwalker@thesignal.com or at http://Twitter.
com/DontSeriously.
