Pigs

But it’s pigs who seem to get the worst linguistic abuse. Belittled and berated at almost every turn (except “as happy as a pig in clover” and other such rare similes), these animals are the butt of many a mocking English expression.

You “eat like a pig”, you’re “as fat as a pig” and you “sweat like a pig”. If you’re selfish, you “hog” something; if you’re horrible, you’re a “swine”. As a description of humans, “pig” can mean fat, filthy, lazy, ugly, disgusting, obstinate, ignorant, sexist or selfish.

But it doesn’t end there. The ears of this poor, beleaguered animal get rather a linguistic bashing, too. It’s said that “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”, which implies that something of poor quality cannot be improved, and when you do something badly, you make “a pig’s ear of it”. All very ironic for such intelligent, clean animals – with very neat ears, at that!

The black sheep of the (animal) family

To make use of a final idiom, it seems that farm animals are the “black sheep” of the animal kingdom when it comes to their browbeaten place in our vocabulary.

As Christine Ammer, the language-focused American writer, says: “Unfortunately, ‘farm’ does often have a negative or diminutive context. It’s not always flattering to talk about farming.”

And it’s true. Compare our findings here to horse-related idioms, say, and you’ll notice the “strong”, “wild”, “steady”, “hungry” associations conjured up by the latter.

All animals are not born equal

This quick analysis of farm-animal idioms throws up some fascinating points, and reinforces the fact that many see farm animals as inherently different to pet cats or dogs (on that point, why do farm animals get “feed” when pets get “food”?).

It’s obviously a minor symptom of a much broader problem about the value that we place on farm animals, and goes some way to help explain why farm animals continue to be raised in factories rather than farms.

But despite this linguistic lambasting, things are changing for the better. An ever-increasing number of people, governments and businesses are recognising that we need to end factory farming, supporting farmers who truly care for their animals. And for that reason, we’re happy as pigs in clover (sorry).

Help us end factory farming for good.

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Talking language and livestock