‘But it’s not just horses’

Animals and language
An essay by Christopher Levenson

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No, I am not going to write about parrots or chimpanzees attempting human speech, fascinating though that might be. Rather I want to make readers more conscious of, and subsequently I hope more curious about, the language we all use by suggesting ways in which animals – mostly ordinary, domesticated animals – and their behaviours have permeated our everyday speech.

Before the Industrial Revolution and the movement of former peasant farmers into the big new industrial cities, most people lived much closer to the land and to its animals and this is still reflected in many expressions. I am amused when people say or write ‘I gave him free reign,’ which doesn’t mean anything, whereas ‘free rein’ means letting a horse ‘have its head’ (another expression!) meaning to go at its own pace. Likewise, with ’spurred on,’ which has now become a dead metaphor: most of us would not consciously see spurs because we don’t ride horses. So too with expressions such as ‘to take the reins,’ to ‘be saddled with’ a task, and to ‘ride roughshod over’ someone’s objections or proposals.

But it’s not just horses. Other animal behaviours too live on in our everyday speech. Even if few of us have ever literally taken ‘the bull by the horns’ or ‘bought a pig in a poke’ (what is a poke in this instance? a bag or sack, nowadays an obsolete or dialect word, so the phrase means ‘to buy something without seeing or being able to test it’) most of us flounder at times or try ‘to feather our nests.’ 

So too with the symbols of ownership: when we look for our favourite brand of shirt or find that the book we wanted to borrow has been earmarked for someone else, we do not visualize the hot iron being pressed into the cow’s flank or its ear being clipped and stapled.

In fact, our everyday speech is littered with animals. Consider the following:

The toddler crowed with delight as his mother beavered away at her thesis, and aped her movements.

They were rabbiting on about their rights, and badgering their parents to buy more toys but clammed up and weaseled out of their responsibilities.  

He dogged my footsteps, hogging the microphone and parroting the usual excuses until he was hounded out of town for ratting on his neighbours.  

After he wolfed down his breakfast he said “I won’t have them monkeying around with my tools.” 

There are of course many more such verbs in common usage, but let’s look now at some of the nouns.

Since the Cold War ended, we have heard less about fascist hyenas, but the world is still dangerous and deceptive enough, thanks to loan sharks, kangaroo courts, and moles, while society still has its share of literary lions, lounge lizards, and black sheep, all having a whale of a time. Our colloquial landscape is also populated with turkeys, ostriches, peacocks, shrews, loons, and crocodile tears, and our streets with zebra crossings.

When during elections, commentators speak of bellwether ridings, we all know what that term means, a riding that could go either way, but the term itself is obscure. In more pastoral times, we would have known that shepherds had their own vocabulary for counting sheep; in the Bowland area of Lancashire, for instance, the shepherds’ numerals from one to ten were: Yain, Tain, Eddera, Pedera, Pit, Tayter, Layter, Overa, Covera, and Dix, while variants of these were common across the whole country. In each flock the designated (often castrated) male sheep with what P.R. firms would name ‘leadership potential’ was called a ‘wether’ and a bell was attached to its neck. The way it jumped was the way the rest of the flock followed, which is not very complimentary to us as electors…

Adjectives too are replete with fauna: someone makes a catty remark, or is dogged in their pursuit of the truth, and who would not prefer to be eagle-eyed or have aquiline (i.e. eagle -like) features rather than being, say, mulish, or sheepish, let alone bovine? 

The list goes on. As with so much of our language, which is a matter of habit and convention, we are probably maligning whole species of our fellow animals, but maybe when scientists discover more about the ways that animals such as whales communicate with each other, they will finally be able to answer back.

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Born in London, England, in 1934, Christopher Levenson came to Canada in 1968 and taught at Carleton University till 1999. He has also lived and worked in the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, and India. The most recent of his many books of poetry is Moorings. He co-founded Arc magazine in 1978 and was its editor for a decade; he was Series Editor of the Harbinger imprint of Carleton University Press, which published exclusively first books of poetry. [Editor’s note: Recently we’ve published the initial chapters of Christopher Levenson’s memoir Not One of the Boys, Beginnings & Schools. Hardly the happiest years. Christopher previously contributed the essays on the subjects of the malleability of language in The world’s favourite second language and the evolution of language in On Permanent Loan, and has reviewed books by Margaret Atwood, Kelly Shepherd, Cynthia Woodman Kerkham, Jess Housty, Susan Musgrave, and Katherine Lawrence for The British Columbia Review.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster