A Fine Kettle of Fish and 150 Other Animal Expressions - Hardcover

A Fine Kettle of Fish offers the derivation and definition of phrases political ('dark horse,' 'lame duck'), spatial ('beeline,' 'kitty-corner'), temporal ('til the cows come home,' 'two shakes of a lamb's tail'), epidemiological ('a pig in a poke,' 'neither fish nor fowl'), culinary ('hush puppies,' 'hot dog') and just plain silly ('ham actor,' 'hogwash'). But this is more than a book of word origins. It's also an exploration of natural history and animal lore, of how facts and fantasies about animals shape our language. Readers will also discover how people express contradictory attitudes thwards animals-and people- in the phrases we use. Some phrases projects human feelings onto them (cats are "curious," wasps are "angry), compare children to animals (mischievous kids are "little monkeys"), and reveal a bit of cruelty to them ("more than one way to skin a cat"). This book provides many animal expressions in a compact book in friendly and fun way. So read this book, and have more fun than a barrel of you-know-whats.