Animal epithet
An animal epithet is a name used to label a person or group, by association with some perceived quality of an animal. Epithets may be formulated as similes, explicitly comparing people with the named animal, as in "he is as sly as a fox", or as metaphors, directly naming people as animals, as in "he is a [sly] fox". Animal epithets may be pejorative, of negative character, or positive, indicating praise.
Animal similes and metaphors have been used since classical times, for example by Homer and Virgil, to heighten effects in literature, and to sum up complex concepts concisely.
Surnames that name animals are found in different countries. They may be
History
In the cultures of
Insults
Pejorative, politics
Animal epithets may be pejorative, indeed in some cultures highly offensive.[2] Epithets are sometimes used in political campaigns; in 1890, the trades unionist Chummy Fleming marched with a group of unemployed people through the streets of Melbourne, displaying a banner with the message "Feed on our flesh and blood you capitalist hyenas: it is your funeral feast".[3] On the other side of the ideological divide, the Cuban government described the revolutionary Che Guevara as a "communist rat" in 1958.[4] Epithets are not limited to mammals; for instance, comparing someone to a snail means they are (extremely) slow,[5] while calling them a slug implies they are lazy and loathsome.[6] Frog is pejorative for French people in English, from the use of frogs' legs in French cuisine.[7]
Taboos
Edmund Leach argued in a classic 1964 paper that animal epithets are insulting when the animal in question is taboo, making its name suitable for use as an obscenity. For example, Leach argues that calling a person "a son of a bitch" or "you swine" means that the "animal name itself is credited with potency".[8]
In 1976, John Halverson argued that Leach's argument about taboos was "specious", and his "categorisation of animals in terms of 'social distance' and edibility is inconsistent in itself and corresponds neither to reality nor to the scheme of social distance and human sexuality it is claimed to parallel". Halverson disputed the association of animal epithets with potency, noting that calling a timid person a mouse, or a person who does not face reality an ostrich, or a silly person a goose, does not mean that these names are potent, taboo, or sacred.[9]
Timothy Jay argues, citing Leach, that the use of animal epithets as insults is partly down to taboos on eating pets or unfamiliar wild animals, and partly down to our stereotypes of animals' habits, such as that
Metaphors and similes
The use of metaphors from zoology, such as referring to politicians as rats or hyenas, is what the linguistic researcher Aida Sakalauskaite calls "zoometaphors"[12] and Grzegorz A. Kleparski calls "zoosemy",[13][14] the use of metaphors from zoology. In each of three different languages, English, German, and Lithuanian, the most common animal categories are farmyard animals (40% in English), Canidae (including dog and wolf, 6% in English), and birds (10% in English). Grammatically, metaphor, as in "sly fox", is not the only option: speakers may also use simile, as in "deaf as an ass". In German, 92% of animal epithets are metaphors, 8% similes, whereas in English, 53% are similes, 47% metaphors.[12]
Animal Group |
Group frequency | Simile relative frequency |
Simile examples |
Metaphor relative frequency |
Metaphor examples |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Canidae | 13% | 49% |
|
51% | dog-tired; sly fox; vixen; bitch; dog; lone wolf |
Birds |
13% | 35% |
|
65% | to dove
|
Insects |
7% | 81% | 19% | louse; cockroach; (inconstant) butterfly; (unfaithful [hopping from one partner to another]) grasshopper | |
Farmyard animals |
41% | 54% | 46% | to mutton dressed as lamb
| |
Other animals |
7% | 50% | 50% | to ape; snake in the grass; speak with a forked tongue; snake; (adaptable) chameleon; worm | |
Aquatic animals |
6% | 57% | 43% | fishy; in shoals; (ugly) toad; (small) shrimp | |
Cats |
8% | 40% |
|
60% | catty |
lagomorphs ) |
5% | 62% | 38% | frightened rabbit; squirrel/to squirrel away |
The Hungarian linguists Katalin Balogné Bérces and Zsuzsa Szamosfalvi found in a preliminary survey of Serbian usage that the most commonly used "animal
Surnames
Some English surnames from the
Surnames that mention animals can also be
Some surnames, like Bird, dating from 1193 onwards, with variants like Byrd and Bride, are most likely
Surnames behave in similar ways in other languages; for example in France, surnames can be toponymic, metonymic, or may record nicknames ("sobriquets"). Poisson (meaning fish) is a metonym for a fishmonger or fisherman.[26] Loiseau (The bird) and Lechat (The cat) are nicknames, Lechat indicating either a flexible man or a hypocrite, Loiseau suggesting a lightly-built birdlike person.[27][28] In Sweden, the surname Falk (Falcon) is common;[29] it is found among Swedish nobility from 1399.[30]
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-103516-6.
- ISBN 978-1-317-29755-0.
- ISBN 978-0-521-57296-5.
- ISBN 978-1-84894-138-0.
- ISBN 978-0-313-29490-7.
- ^ "Slug". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on September 25, 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
2. A slow, lazy person. "'Even though you're dying to bitchslap your clueless roommate, loser boyfriend or loathsome slug of a boss, play nice.'"
- ^ "Why do the French call the British 'the roast beefs'?". BBC News. 3 April 2003. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
- ^ Leach, Edmund. Lenneberg, E. H. (ed.). Anthropological Aspects of Language: Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse. MIT Press.
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ignored (help) - JSTOR 2800435. (Subscription required)
- ISBN 978-90-272-9848-5.
- ISBN 978-90-272-8861-5.
- ^ a b c Sakalauskaite, Aida (2010). Zoometaphors in English, German, and Lithuanian: A Corpus Study (PDF). University of California, Berkeley (PhD Thesis). Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 December 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2016.
- ^ Kleparski, G.A. (1990). Semantic Change in English: A Study of Evaluative Developments in the Domain of Humans. Wydawnictwo KUL.
- ^ Kiełtyka, R. and G.A. Kleparski. 2005. "The scope of English zoosemy: the case of domesticated animals" [in:] Kleparski. G.A. (ed.). Studia Anglica Resoviensia 3, 76-87.
- .
- ^ Bérces, Katalin Balogné; Szamosfalvi, Zsuzsa (28 January 2009). "Animal Names Used in Addressing People (in English)". Archived from the original on August 19, 2016. Retrieved 1 July 2016.
- ^ "Fine Swine". The Daily Telegraph. 2001-02-25.
- ^ a b Reaney & Wilson 1997, pp. 234, 351.
- ^ Reaney & Wilson 1997, p. 334.
- ^ Reaney & Wilson 1997, pp. 404–405.
- ^ Reaney & Wilson 1997, p. 239.
- ^ Reaney & Wilson 1997, p. 45.
- ^ Reaney & Wilson 1997, p. 148.
- ^ Reaney & Wilson 1997, pp. 423, 480.
- ^ Reaney & Wilson 1997, p. 423.
- ^ "Patronyme Poisson : Nom de famille" (in French). Genealogie.com. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
- ^ "Patronyme Lechat : Nom de famille" (in French). Genealogie.com. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
- ^ "Patronyme Loiseau : Nom de famille" (in French). Genealogie.com. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
- ^ "Efternamn, topp 100 (2015)" (in Swedish). Statistiska centralbyrån (Statistics Sweden). 22 February 2016. Archived from the original on 29 July 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2016.
- ^ Hildebrand, Bengt. "Falck och Falk, släkter". Svenskt biografiskt lexikon. Riksarkivet (Swedish national archive). Retrieved 27 July 2016.
Sources
- Reaney, P. H.; Wilson, R. M. (1997). A Dictionary of English Surnames. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-198-60092-5.