There’s a reason English idioms have always been barking mad

Has something impressed you recently, so much that the phrase ‘the bee’s knees’ doesn’t quite cut it? In that case why not try ‘the oyster’s ice skates’, ‘the caterpillar’s kimono’ or, if you were really impressed, ‘the kipper’s knickers’?

The English language has always loved an animal reference. This book gathers together some of the most interesting examples, proving just how much our fellow creatures inspire us.

It might be in nature: the dandelion gets its name from the French phrase ‘dent de lion’, because its jagged leaves resemble lions’ teeth. Or in everyday parlance: ‘Shanks’s pony’ means walking because your shanks are your shins.

Even modern slang gets in on the act – the drug ‘meow meow’ earned its nickname through its chemical name, 4-methylmethcathinone, or ‘MM-Cat’ for short.

Cats, as you might expect, feature heavily, as do dogs. The Japanese have a proverb: ‘Feed a dog for three days and he will remember you for three years; feed a cat for three years and she will forget your kindness in three days.’

Rudyard Kipling advised: ‘Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware, of giving your heart to a dog to tear.’ ‘Barking dogs’ was American slang for tired feet, which is how the brand of shoe that claimed to combat the pain got the name ‘Hush Puppies’.

In 1736 Frederick, the Prince of Wales, was given a puppy whose collar was engraved: ‘I am His Highness’ Dog at Kew, Pray tell me Sir, whose Dog are you?’

The novelist Virginia Woolf, who was a smoker, trained her beloved spaniel to blow out her matches.

The book also reveals just how long we’ve kept dogs as pets. In a cave in France there are footprints of a child aged under ten accompanied by paw prints.

It’s thought that the child was carrying a torch which brushed against the wall. By analysing that charcoal mark we can date the incident to 26,000 years ago. Metaphors differ around the world. An Australian who isn’t all there is said to have ‘a kangaroo loose in the top paddock’. And an American telling you to keep calm would advise ‘don’t have a cow’.

US president Franklin D. Roosevelt had an interesting take on an old saying: ‘I sometimes think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.’

In a similar vein, Woody Allen offered his own take on a Biblical quote: ‘The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep.’