There once was an ugly duckling...

I wonder if you've ever considered how much animals give English. Apart from clothing and feeding many of us, they do much—metaphorically speaking—to make our language as colourful as it is. From as mad as a box of frogs to bats in the belfry, and from as proud as a peacock to being up to your armpits in alligators, our language positively teems with wildlife images.

Lately, I've been staying in a lakeside house, and the birdlife I've observed has brought to life some well-known expressions. A pair of coots* built their nest nearby, and hatched six chicks (cootlets? cootlings?). Since at least as early as 1430 we've spoken about a person being bald as a coot, because of the distinctive white patch on the bird's forehead. And even this unobtrusive little bird has given us as drunk as a coot, as queer as a coot, and a coot, meaning a foolish or difficult person.

Also on the lake are a pair of swans and their cygnets. I was enraptured when, a few weeks ago, the mother (technically a "pen") appeared, and from under her wings three bundles of down emerged and sploshed into the water, graphically illustrating to be under someone's wing. Since then the cygnets have rather lost their babyish charm. With their black beaks and grey, moth-eaten not-yet-feathers, they truly are the proverbial ugly ducklings. (If you'd like to explore further how such bird images pervade English, I've written about it in the chapter on metaphor in Damp Squid: the English language laid bare.)

But birds inhabit only one cage of the zoo our language has omnivorously devoured. With such a menagerie to choose from, I must rein myself in (there I go again—dragging in horses), so I'll confine myself to: man's best friend; cats;—oh, and a stray crustacean and a cephalopod.

The largest collection of modern English in the world, the Oxford Corpus, confirms that dogs truly are man's best friend: dog is the most common animal word. Canine popularity in language owes much to the number of stock phrases featuring dogs. Commonest among them are mad dog (when meaning a person), you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and let sleeping dogs lie—all rather negative.

So, do the moggies have the upper hand in the PR war? Perhaps. If you're dog tired, a catnap revives you. While some unfortunates lead a dog's life, luckier people think they're the cat's whiskers (or pyjamas), and possibly look like the cat that got the cream. On the other hand, not to have a cat's chance in hell doesn't sound a promising position to be in, and if something is the dogs bollocks, it really is the best.

Why do some animal images go forth and multiply, while others die out? Sometimes a pleasant sound may ensure survival. Why clams should be content is obscure, but as happy as a clam, with its fourfold assonance on 'a', is a fixture in American English. Sometimes the image is so apt it's hard to think of an alternative. With a very hot August promised for Britain, some of us will have to avoid getting burnt as red as a lobster.

As with other aspects of language, mistakes play a part. What was a naddre became our modern adder. Similarly, the wet firework which refused to light in a damp squib has turned into the soggy a damp squid, and another animal image has joined the tribe.

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