Stories That Words Tell Us

se words are used to describe people's characters. Sometimes people are merely compared with the animals whose qualities they are supposed to have, and sometimes they are actually ca

over with big towns, were covered with forest land. Wolves roamed in the woods, and the fighting of some wild animals and the taming of others formed a most important part of people's lives. The same thing was, of course, the case in other countries. So familiar were peopl

ose, however, who first used this expression thought of the lean and hungry wolves who prowled round the farms and cottages in the hard winter weather, driven by starvation to men's very door

ould do, and as our forefathers knew by experience that they did do. Most of the people who use the names of the wolf and the fo

e lion is such a fierce and magnificent animal that it naturally appeals to our imagination, and we find numerous compariso

this expression can have had any experience of the stubbornness of mules. Sometimes a stubborn person is described quite s

ious or unmannerly way. A more common description of a person of this sort is "a hog." Every one has heard of the "road hogs," who drive their motors regardless of other people

" "gay as a lark," "busy as a bee." We might also call a cross person a "bea

or her a "magpie." A person who talks without thinking, merely

ese metaphors were more eloquent in anger than in love. A very nice child will be described by its friends as a "little duck." A mischievous child may also

cur, and puppy are all used as words of abuse; and contempt for some one who is regarded as very mean-spirited is sometimes shown by describing such a person as a "worm," or worse, if possible, a "reptile." A "bookworm," o

been "gulled." Gull is now the name of a sea-bird, but in Early English it was used to describe any young bird,

ating others, especially at card games. It was earlier used, like gull, to describe the person cheated. It then came to b

, to be "silly" or "feeble-minded." When the name of the bird is used to describe a silly person, the word is really, as an interesting writer on the history of words says, turning "a complete somersault." The same i

son "apes" another when he tries to imitate him. This word comes, of course, fro

om the idea of a hound tracking its victim down. Another of these words which has the idea of persecution is badger. When some one constantly talks about a subject which is unpleasant to another, or continually tries to persuade him to do something agains

husband by a disagreeable wife, comes, of course,

projecting beak, at their prow, with which to "ram" other vessels. The Romans called such a beak an aries, which is the Latin for "ram," a male sheep. This was probably from the habit of rams butting an enemy with their horns.

too small a place. Or a man may "ram" his hat down on his head. Again, we may have a lesson or unpleasant fact "rammed" into us by some one who is determined t

aving animals' names are the "

other, is "capricious." Or we speak of a curious or unreasonable desire as a "caprice." These words really come from the Latin name for a goat-caper. The mind of the capricious person skips ab

the Middle Ages, in which all the characters are animals, the "Roman de Renard," the hare is

life hardly existed, everybody knew all about animals and their habits. Their conversation was full of this sort of thing. And so it is that in hu

imes hear people use the expression a "basilisk glare," which other people would describe as a "look that kills," meaning a look of great severity or displeasure. There is a little American lizard which zoologists call the "basilisk," but this is not the bas

e idea would be that "there is no one like him." It was believed in the Middle Ages that only one of these wonderful birds could exist in the world at one time. The story was that the ph?nix,

d once again of another side