The Metaphor Zoo: Why the English Language Loves Animals
Nov 2026 · Sold by Simon and Schuster
Ebook
384
Pages
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infoThis book will become available on November 5, 2026. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
Ever wondered why it rains cats and dogs? Why some are early birds and others night owls? Or why on earth a cat would wear pyjamas?
'Charming, scholarly, boisterously playful, thoroughly engaging.' Benjamin Dreyer, bestselling author of Dreyer's English
English is home to a veritable menagerie of animal metaphors, similes, sayings, adages, proverbs, idioms and rhymes, ranging from the commonsense to the utterly absurd. From curious cats to mindless sheeple, lexicographer Jeremy Butterfield takes a species-by-species safari through the English language in pursuit of its most unusual animal idioms.
Learn how coots – perfectly nice little birds – become synonymous with madness, baldness and idiocy. Figure out if bees actually have knees, and if so, why they’re so great. And discover why pigs ‘oink’ in English, ‘khankhanah’ in Arabic, ‘heng heng’ in Mandarin – but cats always mew. Filled to the brim with fascinating facts and trivia, The Metaphor Zoo is the perfect gift for language lovers, amateur linguists and grammar nerds alike.
***
'You’ll savour every fauna-fuelled page... enchanting.' Vanessa Feltz
'Joyous, fascinating and utterly delightful.' Stephen Moss, author of The Accidental Countryside
'The English language is crawling, hopping, slithering and soaring with animal words. The Metaphor Zoo lets them all run wild, to glorious effect.' Sally Coulthard, author of A Short History of the World According to Sheep
'Charming, scholarly, boisterously playful, thoroughly engaging.' Benjamin Dreyer, bestselling author of Dreyer's English
English is home to a veritable menagerie of animal metaphors, similes, sayings, adages, proverbs, idioms and rhymes, ranging from the commonsense to the utterly absurd. From curious cats to mindless sheeple, lexicographer Jeremy Butterfield takes a species-by-species safari through the English language in pursuit of its most unusual animal idioms.
Learn how coots – perfectly nice little birds – become synonymous with madness, baldness and idiocy. Figure out if bees actually have knees, and if so, why they’re so great. And discover why pigs ‘oink’ in English, ‘khankhanah’ in Arabic, ‘heng heng’ in Mandarin – but cats always mew. Filled to the brim with fascinating facts and trivia, The Metaphor Zoo is the perfect gift for language lovers, amateur linguists and grammar nerds alike.
***
'You’ll savour every fauna-fuelled page... enchanting.' Vanessa Feltz
'Joyous, fascinating and utterly delightful.' Stephen Moss, author of The Accidental Countryside
'The English language is crawling, hopping, slithering and soaring with animal words. The Metaphor Zoo lets them all run wild, to glorious effect.' Sally Coulthard, author of A Short History of the World According to Sheep
Ever wondered why it rains cats and dogs? Why some are early birds and others night owls? Or why on earth a cat would wear pyjamas?
'Charming, scholarly, boisterously playful, thoroughly engaging.' Benjamin Dreyer, bestselling author of Dreyer's English
English is home to a veritable menagerie o...
About the author
Jeremy Butterfield is a lexicographer and writer. For many years he worked in senior editorial positions in Collins English and Bilingual Dictionaries and edited the fourth edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage. He is also the author of Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare and the Oxford A–Z of English Usage, and has written about language and grammar for the Guardian. He lives in York.
Jeremy Butterfield is a lexicographer and writer. For many years he worked in senior editorial positions in Collins English and Bilingual Dictionaries and edited the fourth edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage. He is also the author of Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare and the Oxford...
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