SHAGGY DOGS:This week ALBERT JACKlooks at "A Whole New Kettle of Fish" and "To Hit The Ground Running"
A Whole New Kettle of Fishis one of our more unusual idioms and one of the most difficult to explain, although its meaning is straightforward - "another matter altogether" or a "different situation". Some research has suggested that the word "kettle" in this case is a corruption of the Old English kiddle, which was a grille set across a river to catch passing fish.
A fisherman might return to find poachers had helped themselves to the catch and left only the weed and debris in the "kettle". Consequently, he might well claim that this was a "different kettle of fish" to the one he was hoping for.
However, a more likely origin can be found in the Scottish border country where it was common for families and friends to spend the day feasting and socialising on the banks of a river. The main food of the day would be salmon, freshly caught in the river and cooked on a "kettle" or barbecue.
For this reason, the outings were known across Scotland as a "kettle of fish" and there were many reasons or circumstances that could make one kettle of fish (day out) very different from another.
One of the earliest recorded references can be found in Sir
Walter Scott's book
St Ronan's
Well(1823).
To Hit The Ground Runningis a phrase used to describe a person or event getting off to a successful start, straight into action.
Originally it was an American phrase, which can be traced directly to the military training schools of both the first and second World Wars. Foot soldiers, paratroopers and marines were all trained extensively to jump and land on their feet, so they could get on with the business at hand. "Hit the ground running" was a frequently heard shout from the training officer on manoeuvres. It had passed into regular usage by the time of the business boom during the 1980s when rapid success was a defining feature of the decade. A closely associated expression is probably even more widely used, and it is easy to see how those who stumbled when they hit the ground might soon be Up and Running.
Extracted from Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep by Albert Jack, published by Penguin