This weeks lesson is all about idioms involving animals...

raining cats and dogs
monkeying around
a dog eat dog world

and every time I teach this lesson one of my examples reminds me of one of my favourite answers that I ever got, which I am sure I must have mentioned at the time.

It's in the example

__________ tears.

where I am looking for the answer "crocodile tears" meaning "pretending to be sorry".

Once in class a girl answered "fish tears". Intrigued, I asked her why and her answer was the lovely and quite poignant "because when a fish is sad, no one can see that it's crying". If that isn't a real idiom, it damn well should be.

And while I am on the subject, walking home after class it occurred to me how many "monkey" idioms there seem to be.

monkey around
make a monkey out of someone
monkey see monkey do
I'll be a monkey's uncle
monkey wrench
a barrel of monkeys
a monkey (£500 in Uk slang)
monkey business
cheeky monkey
a monkey on your back
brass monkeys weather
grease monkey
pay peanuts, get monkeys
softly softly catchee monkee
monkey suit
not give a monkeys
an infinite number of monkeys
a cartload of monkeys
the organ grinder, not the monkey
not my circus, not my monkeys
freeze the balls off a brass monkey
monkey bars...
.
.
... and of course...
.
.
.
spank the monkey.

How many of these are used in the US? And do you know any more?

Wow - you are right. I hadn't thought of that before.

So, are there any there that are not used in the US?
A friend on FB also suggested

monkey nuts
monkey puzzle tree
welcome to the monkey house and
monkey's paw.

Any more ideas.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale, April 19, 2022 20:35