Fishing is one of the oldest occupations in the world, dating back at least as far as the Paleolithic era when catching fish was necessary for survival. Today, people fish for many reasons such as relaxation, the sport of it, or simply for the fish story – that colourful boastful tale about the size of the fish almost caught. There’s an old proverb that says nothing grows faster than a fish from the time it bites to the time it gets away.
Over time, many fishy terms and expressions have found their way into our language.
The expression a fine kettle of fish dates back to the eighteenth century and means a muddle or mess. There are a couple of possible origins, one is that the phrase was originally ‘a fine kiddle of fish’, a kiddle being a barrier in a river with an opening fitted with nets to catch fish. Poachers would raid the traps and destroy the kiddles, leaving a mess. Kiddle then became corrupted to kettle over time. Another theory is that the gentry would take a kettle down to the river on the border of Scotland and England. Salmon would be caught and thrown into the boiling kettle. The expression relates to the resulting mess or muddle of bones and broken up fish. A different kettle of fish, meaning a different state of affairs, is a newer term, dating from the twentieth century.
To fish for a compliment is to use leading questions to obtain praise and a cold fish is someone who is distant and unfeeling. The expression a fish out of water, meaning a misfit or someone unsuited to a situation, dates back to 1613 where it was published in Samuel Purchas’s Pilgrimage – ‘The Arabians out of the deserts are as fishes out of the water’.
If you’ve been disappointed in love someone might tell you that there are plenty more fish in the sea, meaning that there are many other potential opportunities still available. This is a modern version of the old sixteenth century proverb there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.
To swallow something hook, line and sinker is to believe a tale or be extremely gullible, like a fish that not only takes the bait and hook, but the lead weight and some of the line as well. A similar but older phrase is to swallow a gudgeon. A gudgeon is a small freshwater fish used as bait to deceive fish and came to mean an easily fooled person.
So, if you don’t have other fish to fry, then dive into this issue and get solving. I know you’ll have a whale of a time!
Happy puzzling!
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