Don't be catty!

On any list of strange English expressions have to be a handful of idioms that relate to animals. Now, I'm not talking about expressions that take their meaning straight from the behavior of the animal, like "He eats like a pig." I'm talking about expressions like "Don't be catty!" Even if you know that a catty person is a person who gossips about someone in a negative way (as opposed to GOOD gossip, like, well, hmm... is it only gossip if it's bad news?), where does this expression come from? Do yowling cats sound like people gossiping? Heck, no! They sound like people telling it like it is for all the world to hear. Are cats deliberately insulting? I think not!

As for dogs, well, the expression "He's such a dog" should get the canine union, or perhaps the Kennel club, howling in the streets for being derogatory. "He's such a dog" means (Let's see, how can I put this for my students...), it means that he shamelessly pursues sexual encounters. Interestingly enough, this phrase is typically used for a man pursuing a woman or a man (or a mailbox, for that matter), but not for a woman pursuing anyone. We have other words for that, but they aren't based in the names of animals. Ahem. Now, I suppose you could say that dogs don't let social customs stop them from romance, and so this expression makes some sense, but it still hardly seems fair.

That brings us to "fishy." Where did that come from? "Fishy" simply means "suspicious," and other than the fact that most fish are UNDERwater where we can't see what they'r doing, I can't imagine the reason that they are associated with suspicious behavior.

Are there any I missed? There are lots, like "horsing around," "eating like a bird," etc., but they all seem pretty self explanatory. Even "worming your way into something" makes good sense if you know what a worm is.

Well, now ya know!