Fishy Expressions

The Venerable Bede (c.672-735) tells this story about Bishop Wilfrid’s conversion of the South Saxons in the 680s:

When the Bishop first came into the kingdom and saw the suffering and famine there, he taught them how to get their food by fishing: for both the sea and the rivers abounded in fish but the people had no knowledge of fishing except for eels alone. So the bishop’s men collected eel-nets from every quarter and cast them into the sea so that, with the help of divine grace, they quickly captured 300 fish of all kinds.

As the sea and rivers of Bede’s description abounded in fish, the English language abounds in expressions related to fish and fishing. Here are just a few.

1. to drink like a fish: to drink to excess.
2. to feed the fishes: to die by drowning.
3. to feel like a fish out of water: to feel out of one’s comfort zone.
4. to fish for compliments: do or say things to elicit praise from others.
5. to sound fishy: to seem dubious or suspicious.
6. All is fish that comes to his net: He makes use of everything that comes his way.
7. Fish or cut bait!: Make a decision one way or another.
8. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime: a proverb meaning that it’s more useful to a person to teach him how to do something for himself than to give him a hand-out.
9. There are plenty of other fish in the sea: a comforting remark made to someone who has broken up with a sweetheart.
10. a pretty kettle of fish: an awkward situation or state of things.
11. big fish in a small pond: someone important in a small community
12. cold fish: an unemotional person
13. Fisher King: in Grail legend, the Fisher King is the uncle of Sir Perceval. He suffers a grievous wound that cannot heal until he is asked the right question.
14. Fisherman’s ring: a seal ring presented to a pope upon taking office. The ring is used to seal official documents; when the pope dies, the ring is broken. The apostle Peter, who was a fisherman, is regarded by the Catholic Church as having been the first pope.
15. fishing expedition: an attempt to elicit information by asking random questions.
16. fishwife: literally, a woman who sells fish; figuratively, a loud vulgar woman who shouts abuse
17. queer fish: an eccentric person

I’ll leave fish-related expressions involving mackerels, herrings, sardines, andgills for another time.

Congratulations on or for?

Several readers have written to ask which preposition should be used with congratulations. Should we say “congratulations on” or “congratulations for”?

The answer is, “It depends.”

In the singular, congratulationis the action of congratulating. In the plural, congratulations is what one offers to express pleasure in the success or good fortune of another.

The preposition on is used when expressing one’s good wishes in the context of a happy event:

Congratulations on your marriage!
Congratulations on your new baby!
Congratulations on your promotion!
Congratulations on winning the lottery!

Congratulations can be offered as praise for someone’s achievement. In that context, the preposition to use is for:

Congratulations for completing 100 days without an accident!
Congratulations for leading the Scouts to safety!
Congratulations for saving the farm from foreclosure!

Congratulations can also be offered to someone.

The CEO offered congratulations to all her employees.
The townspeople offered congratulations to the utility company for the swift restoration of power.

The word can also be used reflexively: “Go ahead and congratulate yourself. You deserve it.”

Finally, congratulations can be used by itself:

“Everyone shouted ‘Congratulations!’ as the newlyweds descended the staircase.”

Nowadays, wedding guests offer congratulations to both bride and groom, but not so very long ago, it was considered a breach of etiquette to congratulate the bride. The custom was to congratulate the groom and to offer “best wishes” to the bride. The rationale was that the groom deserved to be congratulated because he had won out over his rivals. The bride, on the other hand, received best wishes in the hope that her choice of a husband would prove to have been a wise one.

Escape Velocity

Reader Vinayak Naik wants to know how the term “escape velocity” has come to be used in connection with social justice.

The expression derives from a scientific term defined as “a speed sufficient to overcome the gravitational force of a planet.”

The Earth, with a diameter of 7,918 miles, has an escape velocity of 25,000 miles an hour. The moon, with a diameter of only 2,16 miles, has an escape velocity of 5,320 mph. The planet Jupiter, with a diameter of 86,881 miles, has the greatest escape velocity of all: 133,018 mph.

The term seems to have gained its buzzword status as the result of an academic paper published in the American Economic Review (Vol. 103, 2013) by two Harvard economists: “Achieving escape velocity: Neighborhood and school interventions to reduce persistent inequality.” Authors Roland D. Fryer and Lawrence F. Katz examine policies needed to enable young people in poor neighborhoods to “escape the gravitational pull of poverty.”

Before the publication of the social studies paper, the expression enjoyed some popularity as a book title, for example, Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century, published in 2007, and Escape Velocity: Free your company’s future from the pull of the past, published in 2011.

Since mid-2013, escape velocity has achieved buzzword status, not only for social reformers, but also for bankers, artists, and publishers:

The U.S. economy has had trouble rising above a 3% growth rate since the financial crisis, a line in the sand often cited as the threshold for achieving “escape velocity” of sustainable expansion. — Matthew Boesler, Business Insider, Nov. 7, 2013.

After the announcement a year ago of his appointment as Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney worried publicly and repeatedly that Britain’s economy had not yet achieved “escape velocity”. — London Times, November 14, 2013.

“We believe the missing links for the economy to achieve ‘escape velocity’ are real estate, banks, and small businesses,” Michael Hartnett, investment strategist quoted in Business Insider, November 2013.

Once a striking metaphor, escape velocity is on its way to becoming just another cliché.

Prepositions with Enamored

A reader is troubled by the use of enamored by instead ofenamored of. (Britishenamoured).

It may be because I read a lot of British literature, but the only usage with enamored that sounds “right” to me is “enamored of,” as in Titania’s remark when waking from the spell in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “Me thought I was enamoured of an Asse.”

However, another preposition is acceptable with enamored, but it’s not by; it’swith. Merriam-Webster gives these examples:

tourists were enamored of the town
a beautiful Indian girl with whom he was enamored–Walter Havighurst

The verb enamor may be used transitively, as in “Rosamond Vincy enamored Dr. Lydgate.” That means that she affected him in such a way as to make him fall in love with her. More usually, enamor is cast in the passive: “Dr. Lydgate was enamored of Rosamond Vincy.” Here, the meaning is that he was inflamed with love for her.

Paul Brians, an English professor at Washington State University offers this helpful mnemonic:

If you’re crazy about ferrets, you’re enamored of them. It is less common but still acceptable to say “enamored with”; but if you say you are enamored by ferrets, you’re saying that ferrets are crazy about you.

I’ll offer my own view as to how one might choose between of and with to use with this verb:

Use “enamored of” when speaking of romantic love: “Marc Antony was enamored of Cleopatra.”

Use “enamored with” when speaking of mere fascination or interest: “Charlie is enamored with his new iPad.”

As for “enamored by,” remember the ferrets.