Holy Cow!

by Boze Hadleigh

  In English, partly because of its funny sound and the “stupid” image (bolstered by extinction), dumb as a dodo became an emphatic equivalent for stupid, later shortening to just dodo. The most famous illustration of a dodo is Tenniel’s in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

  Snipe and Shrike

  A snipe is a not very pleasant wading bird with a long straight bill that it uses to attack other birds and even loudspeakers. It’s very sensitive to sound, including a rival’s mating call, which impels it to dive through the air, its wing feathers vibrating in anger. Hence, it’s the origin of to snipe at someone (as in a verbal attack) and sniper.

  A snipe eel is a slender eel with a long, thin beak-like snout, while a snipefish has a long, slender snout with its mouth at the tip. Again, aquatic creatures are frequently compared to and named after more familiar land or avian animals.

  A shrike is a predatory songbird with a hooked bill it uses to impale victims, often onto thorns. The Shrike, a 1955 movie, concerned a wife, improbably played by screen sweetheart June Allyson, who had her husband committed; her actions were likened to the destructive bird’s.

  To Go Belly-Up

  Children with pet goldfish—an animal one can’t pet (the Spanish for a pet is mascota)—learn some hard life lessons from their fishbowl or aquarium denizens. There’s the shock of finding a fish missing, with the realization that a bigger, stronger fish has devoured a companion. Also the sadness and objectification of death, when one sees a goldfish floating belly-up, due to the gas that fills its stomach as it decays, causing the body to flip over, with the weightier backboned half below and the lighter gas-filled belly above.

  Ergo, to go belly-up, which besides meaning to die came to symbolize bankruptcy. It also evolved into a verb with separate meanings, as in a saloon that went belly-up and had to be sold or to belly-up to the bar for a drink.

  Drinking Like a Fish

  Because many fish swim open-mouthed, some people got the idea they were constantly drinking water. Hence, to drink like a fish came to refer to alcoholic humans. Fish sometimes drink water accidentally, when they eat (so do some alcoholics).

  What has a group of fish to do with school? Nothing, though a group of fish is called a school or a shoal of fish. Both derive from the Dutch root schole, meaning a crowd or troop. How educational.

  Fishy Expressions

  Fish usually smell fishy. Not a judgment. In a non-culinary context, fishy is a judgment, a negative one. Interesting that fish is the sole flesh whose natural taste and/or smell chefs and cooks often disguise or neutralize, for example, via sauces, a given preparation, or just sprinkling on lemon juice.

  To fish in troubled or muddy waters is to take advantage of a troubled or confused situation. To feed the fishes has two meanings: to be seasick, to drown.

  It’s a rare person who doesn’t sometimes fish for information or compliments—possibly a cold fish. Such people may only care what they think and have other or bigger fish to fry. Or figure there are plenty of other fish in the ocean.

  Fish or cut bait is an order to make up your mind and do it—stop wasting time or let someone else have a turn.

  “That has nothing to do with the price of fish” means that something is irrelevant.

  A fish story is one told by a fisherman, usually exaggerated, often fishy. A fish tale may be an exaggerated or woeful story, as in: “You don’t believe her fish tale, do you?”

  A whale isn’t a fish, but a mammal—yet how often does one see its hair? The phrase “a whale of a good time” simply reflects the whale’s size; the Blue Whale is the largest creature that ever lived, including the dinosaurs.

  Little Fish, Big Fish

  Sometimes people have to decide whether they want to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond. Some who choose the latter find that they feel like a fish out of water. Some people are content to be small fry. Some who become a big fish in a big pond find they’re living life in a goldfish bowl. And some people are happy within themselves and need something else like a fish needs a bicycle—or as feminist Gloria Steinem put it, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”

  Ever wondered why little fish in large aquariums aren’t scared stiff whenever big fish, like sharks, approach? Basically because as long as the big fish are well fed, they won’t bother with the small fry. Also, little fish are agile snacks—not a meal—and may not be worth a big fish’s time and bother. It’s unknown how, but fish can tell when a predator fish becomes hungry, and as soon as they get the signal, they can disappear, especially in an aquarium, where they have reef structure, etc., to dive into or behind. Plus, in the confines of a space smaller than the sea, a little fish can typically outmaneuver a big fish. So there.

  Fish Terms

  There are far more creatures in the sea than just fish, but fish being the standard for humans—the one caught and eaten most often—their name is used in those of invertebrates that also dwell underwater. For instance, shellfish, jellyfish, and starfish. The Olde English word fisc was originally used for any animal living in water.

  Even underwater there are creatures named lice—the fish louse is a parasitic crustacean that attaches itself to piscine gills or skin.

  A fish eagle is a rare eagle that lives primarily on fish. A fish hawk is an osprey, a big fish-eating bird of prey whose name comes from Latin words meaning bone (os) and to break—the bird has a powerful beak.

  What are edible fish fingers in the United Kingdom are usually called fish sticks in the United States.

  Originally a fishwife was a woman who sold fish. To sell them, she had to hawk them, or yell out her sales pitch. In time, fishwife came to mean an ill-mannered or low-class female prone to shouting. (Who nowadays might wear fishnet stockings?)

  An old trout is, per the dictionary, an annoying or bad-tempered old woman. To play someone like a trout is similar to playing the fish one hopes to catch, alternating slack, heavy, and light pressure in order to land it. E.g., “The blonde starlet played the elderly millionaire like a trout.”

  A silverfish is a grayish bristletail insect, so named because of its color and undulating, fishlike movement. Its scientific name, Lepisma saccharina, indicates its preferred diet of sugars and starches.

  When an automobile fishtails, its rear moves uncontrollably sideways.

  A fisheye lens has a wide angle, up to 180 degrees, the scale (no pun) reduced toward the edges. To give someone the fisheye is an American expression for looking at them in an unfriendly or suspicious manner.

  Unrelated to any sea creature are fish and fishplate, which are metal or wooden pieces used to strengthen or fix joints, masts, rails, and masonry—their common name is from a French word meaning to fix and going back of course to Latin.

  Fish in Latin is piscis, plural pisces, the name of the large constellation Fish or Fishes, representing two fish tied together by their tails. Pisces is the twelfth and final sign of the zodiac.

  A Pretty Kettle of Fish

  A pretty kettle of fish is a predicament with no easy solution. When Queen Mary found out her son Edward VIII had to choose between marrying two-time American divorcee Wallis Simpson and giving up the throne, she declared, “This is a pretty kettle of fish!”

  Picnics in 18th-century Scotland began with the annual salmon run and were held on river banks. The fish were cooked in big kettles and were eaten with the fingers. Not a pretty sight, and the adjective preceding kettle of fish was intended ironically, as with a now almost obsolete American phrase, a pretty picnic.

  The phrase a different kettle of fish is akin to a horse of another color.

  Natural Coloring

  A very few animals gave their names to colors. Including coral, which are the external skeletons of colonial marine creatures that form reefs. The color is a pinkish red, though coral comes in various shades. Coral also means the edible unfertilized roe of a lobster or scallop that reddens when cooked.

  Salmon is also a co
lor, pinkish orange. A salmonberry is a North American bramble with an edible pink raspberry-like fruit. The name of gravlax, the Scandinavian dish of dry-cured salmon marinated in herbs, comes from grav, trench, and lax, salmon, as the fish used to be buried in salt in a hole in the ground.

  Salmonella is not named after the fish, but after Dr. Daniel Salmon—maybe his paternal ancestors were named after the fish—who was a veterinary surgeon (1850–1914).

  Caviar, Clams, and Oysters

  Caviar is, but of course, the pickled roe of sturgeon or other big fish, and very expensive, unless it comes from, say, lumpfish. The phrase caviar for the general means something of quality that is wasted on the uncultivated. It doesn’t imply that military generals have no taste (this writer’s maternal grandfather was a general; no idea if he liked caviar). It’s yet another expression whose tail got chopped off: general public. . . . Shakespeare used it in Hamlet (1603): “The play, I remember, pleased not the million; ’twas caviare to the general.” When caviar was introduced to England in the late 1500s it took time for the public—those who could afford it—to get used to it.

  Another abbreviated expression, a rude way of saying be quiet, was originally shut your clam-trap. Not the final but the penultimate word got dropped—shut your trap. Someone who does is said to clam up or to close up like a clam. As for happy as a clam, it’s been suggested that an open clam gives the appearance of smiling. The expression was originally happy as a clam at high water.

  Clam is one of many slang words for a dollar. It too was shortened, from clamshell—several Native American tribes, especially in California, used clamshells as currency.

  If the world is one’s oyster, one has abundant opportunities and a bright future. In The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602) Shakespeare wrote, “Why, then, the world is mine oyster, which I with sword will open.” Anticipating of course a pearl. To be as close as an oyster is to be secretive, imparting little or no information.

  Holy Mackerel. . .

  Of numerous exclamations beginning with holy, “holy mackerel” was among the most widespread. The fish, among the cheapest, was one of the most popular. In 19th-century North America Protestants sometimes nicknamed Catholic immigrants mackerel-snappers, both because the fish was more common among poor people and their mandated eating of fish on Fridays. Later, the nickname shortened to mackerels.

  Holy mackerel was first recorded in 1803, but the exclamation was in use since the 1600s because in some places mackerel was allowed to be sold on Sundays—the “holy day” (related to holiday)—since its quality deteriorated fast. So mackerel was a “holy fish.” The expression’s acme of popularity was the late 1920s via radio’s long-running #1 hit show Amos ’n’ Andy, a comedy with two white men impersonating two black men. (The #2 show made more sense: Jewish actor-writer-producer Gertrude Berg starred as Molly Goldberg in The Goldbergs.)

  Dead as a mackerel seems to have developed out of the 16th-century phrase mute as a fish, meaning silent. Alliteration and specificity changed the phrase to mute as a mackerel. Another contemporary expression was dead as a herring, which reportedly came under the influence of mute as a mackerel and emerged dead as a mackerel—and has stayed that way.

  A mackerel shark is a porbeagle, a big, energetic shark encountered in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. Its unlikely name is probably from the Cornish porth, harbor or cove, and bugel, shepherd.

  A mackerel sky is the same as a buttermilk sky, covered with altocumulus clouds that give a patterned, scalelike appearance.

  To throw a sprat to catch a mackerel signifies investing a minor sum in hopes of making a major profit.

  Red Herring

  Herring was one of the fish most frequently extracted from British coastal waters in the 18th and 19th centuries. Pre-refrigeration, it was very practical when preserved via a salting and smoking process that made it a deep brownish-red. The reason red herring came to mean a false clue—as in murder mystery novels and Hitchcock movies—was its use as a false scent starting in the early 1800s, when many a fox’s life was spared by individual Brits who didn’t hold with the then-custom of blood sports. On hunt days these pioneering animal activists and/or opponents of the class system would drag the pungent-smelling preserved fish across the path of the hunt and away from the fox, thereby deceiving the aristocrats’ dogs, who followed the stronger scent—a red herring.

  A now almost obsolete expression is “neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring.” In King Henry IV, Part I (1598) Shakespeare had Falstaff say of an otter, “Why, she’s neither fish nor flesh, a man knows not where to have her.” The complete expression meant something was neither this nor that and thus satisfied nobody. It reflected the strict dietary laws of the Catholic Church centuries ago. Monks were forbidden to eat fish, most people weren’t allowed to eat flesh—meat—and the poor were forbidden red herring. (Well, there are plenty more fish in the sea.)

  Hook, Line, and Sinker

  Being extremely gullible is to swallow something hook, line, and sinker, in the same way that a hungry, gullible fish swallows not just a baited hook but the lead weight—a sinker—and some of the line.

  FYI and anyone else’s, not long ago, a young Australian proved, reportedly for the first time, that fish do feel pain when they’re caught.

  Like Sardines

  Fact: there is no such fish as a sardine. Sardine is a generic marketing term. What it comprises varies from country to country—in Norway sprat and immature herring, in Portugal and France young pilchards, in the US sprats, small herring, brisling, and pilchards (by law, not anchovies). Before World War I sardines were typically used for fish meal. During the Great Depression they became very popular as an inexpensive and nutritious snack or meal. Sales since WWII haven’t matched the pre-war numbers.

  The US sardine industry has always been based in Maine and California.

  The word sardine was first recorded in the 15th century, from the Italian island of Sardinia, around which many little fish were caught.

  As an experiment, ask to buy fresh sardines at a fish market—see the reactions and whether anybody explains that they only come, packed, in cans.

  Lobster. . .

  The rich used to look down their noses at lobster as food for the poor. Readily available on the American east coast, the sea product was inexpensive before it became in demand by the cognoscenti (remember when chicken wings were practically given away?). It began changing with the famed Delmonico’s restaurant and its cayenne-flavored Lobster à la Wenberg, introduced to the New York eatery by ship owner Ben Wenberg. After he and Lorenz Delmonico had a bitter falling out, the restaurant substituted Lobster à la Delmonico, but it didn’t catch on. Diners demanded the return of the original dish, so the stubborn Delmonico reluctantly reinstated it, but switched two of the letters (plus one), renaming it Lobster Newburg.

  Interestingly, lobster comes from Latin locusta, meaning locust or crustacean.

  A lobster moth is brown and is so named because its caterpillar has an upturned tail resembling a lobster’s.

  A lobster pot is a basket-like trap in which to catch lobsters. Betty White has stated, “It’s one thing to eat a lobster, another to boil it while alive. Inhumane and gourmet really shouldn’t be compatible words.”

  Octopus

  When humans first saw octopi they probably thought how much grasping eight arms could do. The innocent octopus has since symbolized grasping and greed. In Central America, for instance, the United Fruit Company, which had its own army, was known as el pulpo, the octopus (at the American company’s behest President Eisenhower okayed an invasion of Guatemala in 1954).

  An octopus is soft-bodied, with no interior shell but tough beak-like jaws. Technically its plural, being a Greek name, is octopodes, though the Latin-patterned octopi is traditionally used. However, most people who say it at all say octopuses.

  Octopussy was the title of a James Bond movie based on an Ian Fleming short story and an octoroon is someone who
’s one-eighth black (the term is now archaic).

  Crab. . .

  In 1300s coastal England crabbed meant grouchy, as from a painful nip via a crab’s claws. Crabby developed separately in the late 1700s from Olde English crabba, via a Germanic root meaning to scratch or claw.

  Crabs, or crab lice, would make anyone crabby (see Lice, further on), as would walking crabwise, or sideways.

  A crab apple is small and sour, and a crab spider has long front legs that move sidewise.

  Crab grass is a hard-to-get-rid-of creeping warm-weather plant also known as summer grass, fall grass, and finger grass. It originated in Oriental tropics and by the 1600s was a thriving marine grass in salt marshes of the US South. Its name was crop grass, but as with many other words the p elided into a b, softening the o into an a. Some say American slaves effected the pronunciation change. Also, some say that the flat spreading mat of crab grass with three-pronged seed heads resembles a crab. (Some imagination.)

  Shrimp

  In the United States, both a small and a larger edible crustacean with ten legs is a shrimp. In the United Kingdom, the bigger one is called a prawn to avoid confusion. (Jumbo shrimp, often advertised in American buffets, is an oxymoron.) Shrimp comes from an old Germanic word meaning to contract or grow smaller, which probably led to its use as a name for the small crustacean and, later, a small or puny person. (Because human toes somewhat resemble shrimp, shrimping now means, besides catching shrimp, sucking toes for sexual stimulation.)

  What the US calls a shrimp cocktail is in Britain a prawn cocktail. Describing the appetizer as a cocktail came about during Prohibition, when America unrealistically banned alcohol. Thus, in the 1920s it became fashionably impudent to order a shrimp (or fruit) “cocktail.”

  A shrimp plant is a Mexican shrub so named because its clusters of small pink-brown flowers somewhat resemble shrimp.

  Cockles

  Warming the cockles of one’s heart is redundant and a misnomer. Cockles are edible burrowing bivalve mollusks (tasty, no?). They were once a dietary staple for people in coastal Britain and Ireland. The mythic Molly Malone pushed her wheelbarrow through Dublin’s fair city crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o!” Cockles were deemed to resemble a heart, but a human heart, not a Valentine heart.