Idioms From the Animal Kingdom

Any study of language would be incomplete without understanding and grasping the intricacies of idioms. Idioms are described as tools to express yourself better, but they are not limited to this purpose , they are common sense , knowledge and thought process transferred from one generation to the other. They are a popular testing area in almost all exams. You can see them extensively tested in Reading comprehension, word usage, cloze test, Summaries etc.

It gets difficult to remember idioms separately, so a useful way to understand them is to group them under categories. One such category could be Idioms from the Animal Kingdom. These are creative, informative, funny and quite easy and simple to remember and use.

So let us without further ado look at some examples of such Idioms-

1. Get someone’s goat-
   Isn’t that illegal, are we talking about stealing, no we are not.
   It simply means to irritate someone deeply. It is believed by some linguists that this idiom originates from horse racing.
   It was said that before horse racing events, coaches kept a goat as a stable mate for the horse for better performance in a race.
   Eg – Tom may seem stoic but Jerry knows how to get his goat.

(This is based on the Tom and Jerry characters created by William Hanna and Joseph   Barbera)

2. Cat’s got your tongue-
   This is stuff for nightmares no matter how much you profess love for the feline. Just kidding ! We know they are not to be taken in the literal sense.
   This idiom simply means a situation in which someone is finding it hard to say anything or when someone is being unnecessarily quiet.
   In 18th century England, the navy used a whip  to punish transgressors called ‘Cat-o nine -tails ‘ , the pain inflicted made the victim quiet , hence the expression .Phew !
   Eg – Iago is a chatter box but the cat gets his tongue whenever he sees an angry Jafar.
   (Iago here is the character from the Disney animated movie “Aladdin”, created by John Musker and Ron Clements. He is the scarlet Macaw who’s the companion of Jafar the evil sorcerer. The name comes from Iago from William Shakespeare’s play “Othello”.  on Iago in Othello by William Shakespeare created by John Musker.)

3. To play possum –
   Now before you start wondering whether this is a newly launched game , it is not , but most of us playact this almost all mornings. Hmmmm… sounds mysterious…
   It simply means to pretend to be asleep or dead so that someone may not annoy or attack you.
   This idiom literally originates from the animal itself, yes a possum is an animal , which fakes its own death to fool predators.
   Eg -Although Garfield is a cat, he plays possum every morning when Jon Arbukie calls him.
   (Garfield is a fictional cat in comic strip of the same name created by Jim Davis.)

4. A fish story –
   Finding Nemo, yes what a wonderful story!!! Oh! you mean that is not what we are talking about?? Yes, A fish story simply means a big lie.
   A Fish story is an American idiom that came into usage in early 1800, it was inspired by fishermen’s tendency to lie about the size of their catch.
   Eg -Many fishermen  at the inn thought that Ishmael’s account of Moby Dick was a fish story.
   ( Moby Dick is a novel written by American writer Herman Melville , Moby Dick is a giant white whale and Ishmael is the narrator in the story)

5. Straight from the horse’s mouth-
   Yep , horse whisperer , know this one,
   So let me get this straight you are not talking about a talking horse??

No indeed. This idiom means information from a dependable , reliable source .
This idiom is again from horse racing , too many of those ,it alludes to reliable sources for racing tips.
Eg – That Black Beauty is one of the finest works on animals rights is acknowledged straight from the horse’s mouth.
(Black Beauty is a novel written by English author Anna Sewell. It has the form of an autobiographical memoir as told by the titular horse named Black beauty.)

We hope you enjoyed this writeup on Idioms from the Animal Kingdom and would like to read up more on the books, comic strips, etc that we have listed as sources here. Happy Reading!!

This article has been authored by Priya Shegaonkar, faculty at TIME Mumbai.