You're the Idiom!

"I told the elephants to forget it, but they can't." -Zazu, The Lion King


When I was little, my dad used to describe me in terms of animals. He would often give me the compliment that I have a memory like an elephant or that I was "strong like bull." I've also heard analogies such as: she has the ears of a snake, he's sly like a fox, she's mean like a snake, he's slow like a turtle, she's quick like a cat, he's as quiet as a mouse, she's as gentle as a lamb, he's as mad as a wet hen, "don't you wish that you could be a fly on the wall?"(Miley Cyrus) etc.


So, I was wondering, how much truth do these analogies hold?


According to naturehaven.com, elephants actually do have good memories. The Web site says that elephants will often remember relationships with those they come in contact with, even if they have not seen that other person or animal in a long time.


Does anyone remember The Wild Thornberry's? When I read the above fact on the Nature Haven Web site, I was reminded of one episode in which Eliza talks to elephants. Eliza's family tends to an elephant stuck in the mud, giving Eliza a chance to bond with the elder elephant of the pack, Rebecca. Eliza's parents had worked with Rebecca twenty years earlier, and Rebecca claimed to remember them and their kindness. As Rebecca dies, she recounts for Eliza some of the events of her past and the other people and elephants she had had relationships with.


Another example of this analogy used in fiction is in Disney's The Jungle Book.
Colonel Hathi (an elephant) asserts that an elephant never forgets. However, moments later, the colonel forgets to tell his company of marching elephants to halt, thus causing an elephant pile-up. Mowgli then proceeds to laugh at the irony. "An elephant never forgets," he says, laughing.


Most of the other analogies I mentioned are common sense. For example, one of the most common images of a bull, at least in American culture, stems from the Spanish bull races. Bulls are depicted as ferocious animals that are easily agitated and could cause a great deal of damage to someone who gets in the way, hence strength. However, one that I havent understood is the "ears of a snake" analogy.


For those of you who are not familiar with this analogy, I heard it in the movie Jingle All the Way (with the Govenator!!! and Jake Llyod, a.k.a. the young Anakin Skywalker). In one scene, Myron (Sinbad), a father who is trying to obtain a hot Christmas toy for his son, go as far as to threaten a radio dj and a squad of cops with a bomb he picked up at his post office job in order to get his hands on the desired "Turboman" action figure. When he leaves the bomb squad with the bomb and escapes, he threatens, "I'll know if you move 'cause I have the ears of a snake."


For me, this didn't seem logical. Have you ever seen a snake with ears?


Turns out, snakes lack the external ear parts that humans have, but do have the internal ear parts. According to Highlightskids.com, snakes sense vibrations in the air or on the ground. Their skin and muscles receive the vibrations and transport them to the audial region. Therefore, snakes can sense movement, as Sinbad declared in Jingle All the Way.


All these analogies have made me wonder why humans feel the need to compare ourselves to animals. With our advanced brains, shouldn't we have been able to create better ways to describe ourselves?


Supposedly, some of the animal analogies we use today are from the Ancient Greeks. The Greeks had a saying, "A camel never forgets an injury," which may be the origin of our saying, "An elephant never forgets."

Maybe we use animal analogies because they are easy to understand. Animals and nature are all around us and are easily observed. Most people have some basic knowledge of animals and are more likely to understand an animal analogy than a psychological explanation or a Lewis Dot Diagram. This use of analogies could be proof of how evoluationary theory permeates our culture. Evolutionary theory suggests that humans are evolved from other types of animals. Perhaps, when we use these analogies, our roots are showing. Maybe humans are trying to find ways to relate to their origins and the world around them.