Red pandas, like this one at the Wellington Zoo, New Zealand, have influenced human language.
© Joyce McGreevy

Animal Idioms Around the World

Animal idioms have burrowed into everyday wordplay since Moses was a pup. It doesn’t take a fisheye lens to get the picture. Animal words prowl the planet.

You don’t have to be a bookworm or wear a deerstalker hat to ferret out examples. A simple mouse click ponies up swarms of animal buzzwords.

Fledgling Phrases

Animal idioms are cross-cultural and nest in every language. Some are as timeless as a phoenix rising from the ashes. Others are newly hatched.

Bird idioms abound, so don’t quail. Have a lark and let wordplay take flight!
(Carmel, California)
© Joyce McGreevy

Consider the Red Panda Effect

People who experience this condition see things that aren’t there or misidentify what they do see. The term goes back to 1978 when a red panda escaped from a German zoo. People reported hundreds of sightings—long after the red panda had been found.

Seems our brains construct what we expect to see. Hence, the Red Panda Effect. Proving that’s what red all over isn’t always black and white.

Giraffe Language

Quick—what sound does a giraffe make? I don’t know either, but Giraffe Language is changing the way humans speak across cultures.

In French, peigner la giraffe (“combing the giraffe”) is to do a
pointless task. But that’s a horse of a different color. 
© Joyce McGreevy

Giraffes have the biggest hearts of any land animal, a fact that inspired psychologist Marshall Rosenberg. As the founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication, Rosenberg explored two genres of interpersonal communication:

• Giraffe Language, the language of requests, respect, and compassion, and
• Jackal Language, the language of demands, insults, and self-interest.

I hope we’ll consider that the next time we tweet or retweet.

We needn’t be birds of a feather to flock together, or animals of the same stripe to bond.
(Wellington, New Zealand)
© Joyce McGreevy

Weasel Words

Weasel words are all about evasion. They allow the user to avoid giving clear answers, so one might think this term reflects weasels’ ability to navigate tight spaces. In fact, weasel words come from an unproven belief that weasels can suck the insides out of an egg without affecting the shell.

What member of the weasel family is as slippery as an eel? You otter know.
(Wellington, New Zealand) © Joyce McGreevy

Classic examples of weasel word language include:

• “Research shows” (without citing data)
• “This product is 30% better” (compared to what?)
• “somewhat” or “in most respects” (kinda-sorta-maybe, or maybe not)

Weasel-like meerkats are neither weasels nor cats, nor mere. (Wellington, New Zealand)
© Joyce McGreevy

Busy as a Lizard?

Animal traits are often used to describe humans. Accordingly, someone can be as proud as a peacock, slippery as an eel,  hungry as a horse, stubborn as a mule, graceful as a gazelle, and drunk as a skunk—though rarely all at once.

Some animal comparisons are less clear. In Australia, the equivalent of being “busy as a bee” is to work “flat out like a lizard drinking.” Huh?

It has to do with how rapidly lizards dart their tongues when drinking water. Oh, I see: Animal idioms can really take you down a rabbit hole.

That’s one very chill lizard at the Pet Parade in Bend, Oregon. 
© Carolyn McGreevy

And what of “lounge lizard”?  It describes a sleazy character who hangs out in bars looking for—well, not love, exactly.  That expression seems unfair to real lizards, who are often adorable.

No flies on you, Lizard Lips! (Wellington, NZ)
© Joyce McGreevy

Polar (Bear) Opposites?

Other animal idioms are contradictory. “To be an ostrich” is to stick your head in the sand, ignoring what’s going on around you.  But ostriches are quick to stick their necks out.

More fluent in Jackal than Giraffe, these ostriches are mad as wet hens when . . .
© Joyce McGreevy

. . .a baby antelope tries to eat like a bird. (Wellington, New Zealand)
© Joyce McGreevy

How did the ostrich idiom begin? Pliny the Elder, an ancient Roman philosopher, believed incorrectly that ostriches hide their heads in bushes. Pliny the Younger would have corrected him but I guess the cat got his tongue.

Then there’s the expression, “to have a monkey on your back.” It means to be addicted or encumbered with a problem. But it could just as easily have meant to protect someone more vulnerable than you.

In Wellington, New Zealand, Mum’s got your back.  And vice versa. 
© Joyce McGreevy

Monkeying Around

Speaking of monkeys, some cultures have had more fun than a barrel of ’em when it comes to animal idioms. Take the English expression “The cat is out of the bag.” In Dutch it becomes “Now the monkey comes out of the sleeve.”

Likewise, someone who doesn’t want to get involved in another’s issues might invoke this American colloquialism: “My dog ain’t in that fight.” In Poland, this idiom translates into, “Not my circus, not my monkey.”

Hay, Herd These? 

Cows get a leg up in international animal idioms:

• In the Netherlands, if you “pull an old cow out of the ditch,” you’re rehashing an old grievance.
• In Sweden, “There is no cow on the ice,” means “No need to worry.”
• In China, “to play piano for a cow” is like throwing pearls before swine. It means your audience can’t appreciate or understand you.

“Okay, now you’re just milking it.” (Lehinch, Ireland)
© Joyce McGreevy

Animal Quackers

Many animal idioms have cross-cultural cousins:

• In English, we try to get all our ducks in a row. In Portugal, “paying the duck” means taking the blame for something you didn’t do.
• In English, someone who fakes being nice to hide ulterior motives is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” In Japanese, such a sneaky person “wears a cat on one’s head.”
• The Indonesian equivalent is, “There’s a shrimp behind the rock!” Clearly, Indonesian shrimp are no mere prawns in the shell game.
• By contrast, “to slide in on a shrimp sandwich” is how Swedes describe someone born to privilege—those lucky ducks who inherit “the goose that laid the golden egg.”

Linguistic Animal Planet

One could rabbit on till the cows come home about cross-cultural animal idioms. But I don’t want to be like a dog with a bone, so I guess I should clam up.

In France, you might “have a cat in your throat.” In New Zealand, this lion
suggests things could go the other way.
© Joyce McGreevy

Just remember: Somewhere in Buffalo, NY someone may be getting into a Bronco and listening to Drake or the Arctic Monkeys. A clothes horse in Chihuahua, Mexico could be swanning about on the dance floor. Someone sailing the horse latitudes might have raided a piggy bank to fly the coop to the Canary Islands.

Ewe never know.

Me, I’m going to squirrel away a few more animal idioms, then make a beeline for a catnap. After all this animal talk, I’m a little hoarse.

That bird was watching me like a hawk. (Cooper’s hawk in Carmel, California)
© Joyce McGreevy

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.