Veganised Language

Jordi Casamitjana, the author of the book “Ethical Vegan”, writes about how to veganise our language, and lays out the “Rules of Veganising Language” to help AI to correct our texts to make them less speciesist

We do it all the time.

By just using language in the real world, we are changing it. Languages evolve, and even if you get a bunch of philologists to set their rules and punish those who break them, in the end, the languages will go where their users take them. 

Look at the Romance languages we found today in the world, for example. The top ten in number of native speakers are Spanish (489 million) Portuguese (283 million), French (80 million), Italian (67 million), Romanian (24 million), Catalan (9.1 million), Galician (2.4 million), Occitan (1.5 million), Sardinian (1.2 million), and Rhaeto-Romance (0.6 million).  When I grew up in southern Europe in the 1970s, I could only speak two of these and half-understand a couple more, yet they are all evolved forms of a single language, the Vulgar Latin, which in just a few centuries became all of these distinctive languages — and many more. Why? Because people change the language they speak all the time, and even the rules that seem to be immutable may end up changing if enough people commonly break them. Don’t believe me? Try to find out when was the last time people spoke Latin as their mother tongue. You will not find when, as it never happened. Latin never stopped to be spoken. It just gradually evolved into something different in different places — as the surviving dinosaurs evolved into many types of birds.

If overzealous orthodox linguaphiles would have managed to stop language change, we would not have Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Cervantes’s Quijote, or Verdi’s Traviata — that’s how important is to let languages evolve. 

Who oversees this linguistic transformation, by the way? We all are, the speakers — native or not. It seems to me, then, that if a community decides to deliberately change the language its members speak to make it more aligned with its values, this is a totally legitimate thing to do.  

For quite some time the vegan community has identified that, within the different languages vegans speak (virtually all languages in the world as there are vegans everywhere), there are terms, expressions, and even grammatical rules that clash with the vegan philosophy as they suggest non-human animals are objects or commodities rather than independent sentient beings, or that they are inferior creatures whose exploitation is justifiable. We call this problem “speciesist” language, as speciesism is the discrimination against others for the species or groups they belong to (and treating non-human animals as if they are inferior to humans is a form of speciesism). I am an ethical vegan, and many of us do not like this, so we change the language we communicate with, in an attempt to make it less speciesist — sometimes even daring to change some well-established grammatical rules. 

We are entitled to do that, because, through millennia, human supremacists have been making the language speciesist, and we do not have to accept what they did as our entire philosophy is based on not accepting what human supremacists say is the norm. Carnism, the dominant ideology that justifies this human supremacy, has been changing language all the time to indoctrinate people into accepting animal exploitation. It did it from the very beginning of the agricultural revolution by creating disrespectful terms such as livestock or pet, or by eliminating the plural of fishes or sheeps (in standard English the plural of these is the same as the singular), as if individuals of the species exploited do not matter — the fishing industry does not count how many fishes they exploit anymore, just the total weight, as if they were not sentient beings but just flesh. 

Carnism is still doing it right now. In the last few years, it has been claiming it owns words such as burger or cheese, and they can only be used in the context of animal exploitation. And even more recently it has been trying to change terms such as “lab meat” or “cell meat” to “cultivated meat” or “clean meat” (which sound more benign), for the same reason it changed “pig” to “pork” or “bull” to “beef” — to hide where dishes made from animals come from.

It is about time that we vegans better organise ourselves to combat speciesist language, so I decided to write this article inspired by all the English language changes I have seen (such as the list of Animal-Friendly Idioms from Peta) that vegans have used to eliminate speciesist language from a text — effectively veganising the text. In other words, compile the “Rules of Veganised Language”. 

If you are an experienced vegan (someone already proficient at excluding animal exploitation) trying to improve every day in your veganism (which we all should be doing), you may find that veganising your language more is the very thing for you. 

Time will tell us whether these rules end up changing the language (especially when we get closer to the vegan world we are building). Some of the rules will catch (rules 1 to 4 below are already widely used) while others may not. Some may be used in internal communications within the vegan echo chambers, while others may be more acceptable in mainstream communication (like the term “companion animal” and “animal guardian”). Some people may use these rules only in particular circumstances, but not in others — for instance, I always use “companion animal” instead of “pet”, but sometimes I may use “pet food” for better comprehension. 

Using Conversational AI to Veganise a Text

I don’t follow all the rules to veganise language from this article all the time, by the way. I am better at it now, but sometimes speciesist language still sneaks into my writing. I want to get better at using them, and sometimes I may need some help from others identifying the mistakes I make. It could be good that grammar software and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Language Models could also help, though.  

This is another reason I wanted to write this article as a list of rules of veganised language, all in one place. These days there are all sorts of Conversational AI models around that have become language experts, and I thought it may be a good idea if we recruit some of them for “our cause” — sort to speak.

By creating an article about how to veganise a text to eliminate speciesist language (and a separate webpage with just the rules), people could use these webpages to help train conversational AI models such as ChatGPT, New Bing, or Bard to do it for us automatically when they have conversations with the chatbots that run them (a chatbot is simply the interlocutor you converse with when you interact with conversational AIs).

You could instruct chatbots to veganise a text you have written based on the rules written in this article. For instance, you can write the following prompt (a prompt is an instruction or question you give to a chatbot): 

“The grammatical rules of veganised English language are different from the grammatical rules of the ordinary English language. Please veganise a text I will give you based on the ‘Rules of veganised language’ written on this webpage: https://veganfta.com/veganised-language/ Do you understand?” 

Once the chatbot replies saying that it understands then you can add the text, and it will reply with the veganised versions (if the text is very long you will need to do this in chunks).

An alternative version of a prompt could be: 

“The grammatical rules of veganised English language are different from the grammatical rules of the ordinary English language. Please help me to veganise a text I will give you based on the ‘Rules of Veganised Language’ written on this webpage: https://veganfta.com/veganised-language/ by listing the instances when any of such rules have been broken in the text. Do you understand?” 

This may be a more useful method as then you can make the changes yourself in the text without worrying that the chatbot may have changed something you want to keep.

If you cannot refer the chatbot you are chatting with to this website because it has no access to live websites (New Bing has, but others, such as Chatgpt 3.5, hasn’t), you could copy and paste the rules below in a prompt instead. For instance, you can start with this simple prompt preceding the list of rules: 

“Tell me if you understand the following ‘Rules of Veganised Language: [list of rules]” 

Then, once the chatbot confirms it understands then add this prompt preceding the text you want to veganise: 

“Please check the following text and show me the sentences where the rules of veganised language were broken, and how they should be changed to avoid breaking such rules, marking in bold the changes you have made (do not show me any sentence where no change was needed): [text]”

If the chatbot has a limit of the number of characters per prompt and the list of rules or text exceeds it, you may need to divide the rules and text into smaller parts and repeat the process for each part.  

If the chatbot changes the text but does not highlight the changes straight away (some chatbots may not get all your instructions at the beginning, so you need to insist), you could add this prompt: 

“Please show me the changes you have made, by listing the original sentences together with the veganised sentences for those sentences you have changed anything, and by marking the words that have changed in bold (do not show me any sentence where no change was needed).”

You may want to only ask for corrections regarding one particular rule, and for this reason, I have numbered them and added sufficient context in each rule. So, you can write prompts such as, 

“The grammatical rules of veganised English language are different from the grammatical rules of the ordinary English language. Please help me to veganise a text I will give you based on the ‘Rules of Veganised Language’ written on this webpage: https://veganfta.com/veganised-language/ by listing the instances in the text I will give you when rule number 5 of the ‘Rules of veganised language’ of the website was broken.” 

Current versions of conversation AI models may not be as good at making all the changes as future versions will be (I have tested it and some of them sometimes missed some, so it is good to ask the chatbot a couple of times after it has produced a response to check it did not miss any. Also, we may want to add more rules in the future, so this may not be the definitive list yet — but we need to start somewhere. 

The following chapter has all these rules (this is the chapter that you can copy and paste in its totality or partially when you ask a chatbot to veganise a text for you), which Vegan FTA has also in a separate webpage.

The Rules of Veganised Language

Following are “the rules of veganised language” (also known as the “rules of veganized language” or the “rules of non-speciesist language”):

1. Rule 1, personal pronouns: All members of the Animal Kingdom are sentient beings, just like humans, so the third-person singular personal pronouns used for them should be the same as those used for humans; in other words, never the pronoun “it” should be used to refer to a non-human animal as a third person singular, but instead “he” or “she” should be used, depending on the sex of the individual referred to. This rule only applies to the third person singular as the third person plural “they” or “them” are already used for both humans and non-human animals. This rule only applies when the pronouns refer to animals (including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates such as insects), but not to inanimate objects or things, or to other living entities that are not animals (such as bacteria, fungi, or plants). If the sex of the individual referred to is not known, the pronoun used to replace “it” could be the combined “she or he”, or the neutral “they”.

For example, to veganise the sentence “There is a mosquito flying around the room, so you may want to cover your arms as it could sting you” it should be changed to “There is a mosquito flying around the room, so you may want to cover your arms as she could sting you.”

2. Rule 2, possessive pronouns. All members of the Animal Kingdom are sentient beings, just like humans, so any possessive pronouns used for them should be the same as those used for humans; in other words, never the pronoun “its” should be used to refer to a non-human animal as a third person singular, but instead “his” or “her” should be used, depending on the sex of the individual referred to. This rule only applies to the third person singular as the third person plural “theirs” is already used for both humans and non-human animals. This rule only applies when the pronouns refer to animals (including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates such as insects), but not to inanimate objects or things, or to other living entities that are not animals (such as bacteria, fungi, or plants). If the sex of the individual referred to is not known, the pronoun used to replace “its” could be the combined “her or his” or the neutral “theirs”.

For example, to veganise the sentence “The bee used its wings to create an airflow” should be changed to “The bee used her wings to create an airflow.”

3. Rule 3, interrogative and relative pronouns. All members of the Animal Kingdom are sentient beings, just like humans, so any interrogative or relative pronouns used for them should be the same as those used for humans; in other words, never the pronouns “that”, “what, or “which” should be used to refer to a non-human animal, but “who”, “whose”, or “whom” should be used instead, as in the case of humans. This rule only applies when the pronouns refer to animals (including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates such as insects), but not to inanimate objects or things, or to other living entities that are not animals (such as bacteria, fungi, or plants). 

For example, to veganise the sentence “The cat, which was awakened by the noise, began to move” it should be changed to “The cat, who was awakened by the noise, began to move.”

4. Rule 4, reflective and intensive pronouns. All members of the Animal Kingdom are sentient beings, just like humans, so the third-person singular reflective and intensive pronouns used for them should be the same as those used for humans; in other words, never the pronoun “itself” should be used to refer to a non-human animal as a third person singular, but instead “himself” or “herself” should be used, depending on the sex of the individual referred to. This rule only applies to the third person singular as the third person plural “themselves” are already used for both humans and non-human animals. This rule only applies when the pronouns refer to animals (including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates such as insects), but not to inanimate objects or things, or to other living entities that are not animals (such as bacteria, fungi, or plants). If the sex of the individual referred to is not known, the pronoun used to replace “itself” could be the combined “herself or himself” or the neutral “themselves”.

For example, to veganise the sentence “The cat licked itself clean after eating” it should be changed to “The cat licked himself clean after eating” if we know the cat is male.

5. Rule 5, zero inflexion plurals. All animals are individuals and their individuality should be respected by not referring to them in plural nouns that have the same form as singular nouns (which is known as zero inflexion plurals) as this often happens in the case of animals that are treated as goods or hunted/fished. When in standard English the term for an animal is the same in singular and plural, the plural in veganised English should be changed to a regular plural; in other words, the plural of ‘fish’ should be ‘fishes’ and the plural of ‘sheep’ should be ‘sheeps’. This rule does not apply when the plural is an irregular plural that is different than the singular, as in the case of goose and geese, or mouse and mice. This rule only applies when the nouns refer to animals (including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates such as insects), but not to inanimate objects or things, or to other living entities that are not animals (such as bacteria, fungi, or plants).

Here are examples of veganised plurals for animal names:

Deer should be Deers

Sheep should be Sheeps

Fish should be Fishes

Moose should be Mooses

Trout should be Trouts

Bison should be Bisons

Salmon should be Salmons

Pike should be Pikes

Squid should be Squids

Shrimp should be Shrimps

Cod should be Cods

Carp should be Carps

Elk should be Elks

Walsus should be Walruses

Boar should be Boars

Buffalo should be Buffalos

6. Rule 6, disrespectful terms. All animals are sentient beings who should be treated with respect and should not be referred to by using terms that treat them as if they were objects, commodities, goods, or property. In Veganised English, the disrespectful terms of Ordinary English should be replaced with more respectful versions. 

Here are examples of disrespectful terms that have been veganised:

Livestock should be Farmed Animals

Breeding stock should be Reproductive Farmed Animals

Unit (referring to a whole animal in the animal agriculture industry) should be Individual

Head (referring to a whole animal in the animal agriculture industry) should be Individual

Specimen (referring to a whole animal) should be Individual

Soft Commodities (referring to animals in the animal agriculture industry) should be Non-Human Animals

Farm Animals should be Farmed Animals

Game Animals (or just Game in the hunting vernacular) should be Hunted Non-Human Animals or Targeted Non-Human Animals

Lab animals should be Non-Human Animals Used In Laboratories

Pet should be Companion Animal

Dog Owner should be Dog Guardian

Cat Owner should be Cat Guardian

My Dog should be My Dog Companion or My Dog Friend

My Cat should be My Cat Companion or My Cat Friend

To Own an animal should be To Be The Guardian of an animal

To Be The Parent of an animal should be To Be The Carer of an animal

The Subject (in the context of veterinary treatment) should be The Patient

Zoo Keeper should be Zoo Jailer

Seafood should be Marine Animals Killed For Food 

Pest should be Unwanted Non-Human Animal

Alien Species should be Recently Naturalised Species 

“Humans and Animals” should be “Humans and Non-Human Animals” (as humans are animals)

Sentient Beings and Animals should be Sentient Beings (as animals are sentient beings)

Almost Human should be Similar to Human

Higher Animals (in the context of biological classification) should be Vertebrate Animals

Lower Animals (in the context of biological classification) should be Invertebrate Animals 

Purebred Animals should be Selectively Inbred Non-Human Animals 

Beast should be Non-Human Animal

To Feed On (referring to non-human animals) should be To Eat

Humane should be Kind or Compassionate 

Inhumane should be Cruel or Violent

Person (meaning any human) should be Human or Human Person

People (meaning only humans) should be Humans or Human People

Primates (excluding humans) should be Non-Human Primates or Other Primates

To water (a Non-human animal) should be To Give Water To

7. Rule 7, euphemistic terms. The exploitation of animals by humans should not be glossed over or hidden with euphemisms to disguise the reality of what it entails, so terms that have been created to do this in Ordinary English should be replaced by more honest and transparent versions in Veganised English. 

Here are examples of euphemistic terms that have been veganised:

To Harvest (referring to animals in animal agriculture) should be To Kill

Beef should be Bull Flesh or Cow Flesh

Pork should be Pig Flesh

Swine should be Pigs

Cattle should be Cows and Bulls (or Bovines)

Poultry should be Farmed Birds (or specifically Chickens, Ducks, Geese, or Turkeys) 

Fowl should be Birds

Dairy Herd should be Cows Herd

Animal Exhibit (as in a zoo) should be Zoo Enclosure or Cage

Cultivated Meat or Clean Meat should be Lab Flesh or Lab Meat

To Sacrifice (referring to killing animals) should be To Kill

To Cull (referring to killing many animals) should be To Kill

To Put Down (referring to killing animals) should be To Euthanise

Animal Habitat (as in a zoo) should be Zoo Enclosure or Cage

To Finish (meaning killing animals as in farming) should be To Kill

Race Horse should be Horse Forced to Race

Race Dog should be Dog Forced to Race

Fight Animals (in the context of organised animal fighting) should be Non-Human Animals Forced to Fight

Animal Actor should be Non-Human Animal Trained to Act

Hunting Dog should be Dog Forced to Hunt

Guard Dog should be Dog Forced to Guard

Service Animal should be Non-Human Animal Trained to Serve

Beast of Burden should be Non-Human Animal Forced to Work

Animal Carcase should be Non-Human Animal Corpse

Bullfighting Bulls should be Bulls Bred for Fighting

Zoo Animals should be Zoo Inmates or Zoo Prisoners 

Aquarium Fish should be Fishes Kept Captive In Aquaria

Ornamental Fish should be Fishes Kept Captive As Ornaments 

Whaling should be Hunting Whales

Fieldsports (in Britain, if involving animals) should be Bloodsports 

Shooting (in British bloodsports) should be Shooting Birds

Wildlife Control (meaning killing wildlife under conservation excuses) should be Wildlife Killing 

Pest Control should be Control of Unwanted Non-Human Animals 

To Spay an animal should be Practice Ovariohysterectomy on an animal

Biomedical Research (if includes animals) should be Vivisection

Humane Slaughter should be Slaughter

Shooting Preserve should be Shooting State

Predator Control should be Killing Predators

Dam (referring to a mother) should be Mother

Sire (referring to a father) should be Father

Endangered Animal should be Member of An Endangered Species

Chicken, Lamb, Tuna, etc. (meaning the food) should be Chicken Flesh, Lamb Flesh, Tuna Flesh (etc.)

Foie gras should be Goose Diseased Liver or Duck Diseased Liver

Veal should be Bovine Calf Flesh

8. Rule 8, derogatory language and animals as Insults. Human supremacists sometimes use the names of animals to insult people because they consider animals “inferior” and therefore they want the people they are insulting to feel inferior to. For instance, calling someone a pig to infer the person is dirty, a chicken to imply the person is a coward, a cow to imply the person is fat, a sheep to imply the person is submissive, a donkey to imply the person is stupid, or even just “an animal” to imply the person is inferior. This may be normal in ordinary English but in Veganised English, this is not allowed, as none of these implied attributes are accepted by vegans. Therefore such types of insults should be replaced by the terms they are implying (unless describing verbatim what someone said or quoting someone).  

9. Rule 9, expressions and Idioms. Many expressions, idioms, turns of phrase, and clichés that people use in ordinary English include animals either abused, disrespected, or exploited, or animal products viewed as commodities, but veganised English language should not use these, and instead, it should use alternative non-animal versions that already exist, or create new ones that are animal-friendlier. This rule only applies when the meaning of the use of non-human animals in sentences is not to be taken literally, but just as part of a common figurative expression to convey a particular metaphorical meaning. 

Following are common idioms and their veganised versions (in alphabetical order):  

Original Idiom	Veganised Alternative
A bad egg	A bad apple
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush	An ace in the hand is worth two in the deck
A dark horse	A dark snowball
A different kettle of fish	A different kettle of dish
A feather in your cap	A flower in your cap
A fish out of water	A square peg in a round hole.
A fish rots from the head down	A broccoli rots from the top down
A lame duck	A torn sock
A pig in a poke	A pick in a poke
A pig in Clover	A gig in Clover
A red herring	A red hat
A snake in the grass	A traitor in the class
A wild goose chase	A Fall leaf chase
A wolf in sheep’s clothing	A thorn in moss’s clothing
Act like an animal	Act like an ogre
Ants in your pants	Itches in your britches
At a snail’s pace	At tectonic plate’s pace
Back in the saddle	Back in the armchair
Back the wrong horse	Back the wrong team
Bark up the wrong tree	Open the wrong door
Be a Guinea pig	Be a test dummy
Be catty	Backbite
Beat a dead horse	Beat a broken drum
Bee in your bonnet	Thorn in your side
Big cheese	Big nut
Birdbrain	Pea brain
Blind as a bat	(don’t use this idiom because it’s ableist)
Bread and butter	Bread and oil
Bring home the bacon	Bring home the bagels
Bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan	Bring home the bagels and toast them
Build a better mousetrap	Build a better mouse pad
Butterflies in one’s stomach	Jitters in one’s belly
Can’t teach an old dog new tricks	Can’t teach an old clown new tricks
Cash cow	Moneymaker
Catch more flies with honey	Catch more friends with money
Change horses in midstream	Change cups in midstream
Chicken out	Lose your nerve
Coming out of your shell	Coming out of your cave
Cry over spilt milk	Cry over spilt wine
Curiosity killed the cat	The curious fell into the trap
Dirty dog	Filthy fiend
Dirty rat	Dirty rascal
Dog and pony show	Halftime show
Dog days	Hot days
Dog-eat-dog world	Cut-throat world
Dogfight	Free-for-all
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch	Don’t count your chips before they’re cashed
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth	Don’t look a gift box on the label
Eat crow	Eat your words
Eat like a pig	Eat like a glutton
Egg on your face	Hummus on your face
Every dog has its day	Every Saint has a day
Fat cat	Rich Hat
Fish or cut bait	Cook or leave the kitchen
Fishy	Shady
Fly in the ointment	Sand in the gears
Fox guarding the henhouse	Vampire guarding the blood bank
Get off your high horse	Come down off your pedestal
Get your ducks in a row	Get your act together
Go to the dogs	Go to pot
Hare-brained scheme	Foolish plan
Have a dog in this fight	Have a stake in this game
He’s a catch	He’s a match
Hold your horses	Hold your fire
Hooked	Obsessed
Horse of a different colour	Flower of a different colour
Horsing around	Messing around
Hounded	Hassled
I’ll be a monkey’s uncle	I’ll be a virgin father
In the doghouse	In hot water.
It’s raining cats and dogs	It’s pouring buckets
Kill two birds with one stone	Cut two carrots with one knife
Let sleeping dogs lie	Don’t rock the boat
Let the cat out of the bag	Spill the beans
Like a bat out of hell	Like lightning
Like a bull in a China shop	Like a tornado in a China shop
Like a chicken with its head cut off	Like your hair is on fire
Like a lamb to the slaughter	Like a dancer in a minefield
Like chalk and cheese	Like chalk and tofu
Like shooting fish in a barrel	Like picking grapes from a plate
Look like the cat who swallowed the canary	Look as guilty as sin
Mad as a hornet	(don’t use this idiom because it’s ableist)
Mad as a March hare	(don’t use this idiom because it’s ableist)
Madder than a wet hen	(don’t use this idiom because it’s ableist)
Make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear	Make a diamond bracelet out of a lump of coal
Milk it for all it’s worth	Juice it for all it’s worth
Monkey business	Shenanigans
Monkey see, monkey do	Follow suit
More than one way to skin a cat	More than one way to peel an orange
Not my circus, not my monkeys	Not my problem
Not my first rodeo	Not my first roadshow
Off the hook	In the clear
One-trick pony	One-trick magician
Packed in like sardines	Packed in like pickles
Pig out	Hoover it up
Pigheaded	Hardheaded
Pony up	Pay up
Pull a rabbit out of a hat	Pull a coin out of an ear
Pull the wool over your eyes	Pull the cloth over your eyes
Pussyfoot around	Tread lightly
Put all your eggs in one basket	Put all your berries in one basket
Put lipstick on a pig	Gild the lily
Put the cart before the horse	Put the caboose before the engine
Put the cat among the pigeons	Stir the pot
Quit cold turkey	Quit cold tofu
Ruffle your feathers	Mess up your hair
Sitting duck	Easy target
Smell a rat	Smell a rotten apple
Snail mail	Slow mail
Stubborn as a mule	Stubborn as a fool
Sweat like a pig	Sweat like a liar
Take the bull by the horns	Take the rose by the thorns
Talk turkey	Talk Tofurky
Tastes like chicken	Tastes like tofu
That dog won’t hunt	That boat won’t float
That really gets my goat	That really gets my goatee
The bee’s knees	The cream of the crop.
The early bird catches the worm	The early starter gets the pancake
The lion’s share	The cream of the crop
The straw that broke the camel’s back	The pea that broke the dinner plate
The world is your oyster	The sky is the limit
To badger	To bother
To butter someone up	To oil someone up
To be a honeytrap	To be a maple syrup trap
To be a sausage fest	To be a cucumber fest
To be a parrot	To be a mimic
To be a weasel	To be a con man
To be as busy as a beaver	To be as active as a river
To be as sly as a fox	To be as shrewd as a scammer
To be as smooth as butter	To be as smooth as oil
To be a fair game	To be a fair target
To be dead meat	To be in dead row
To be full of beans and lean meat	To be full of beans
To be in the meat grinder	To be in the seed grinder
To be the dog’s bullocks	To be the top of the line
To be tough as leather	To be tough as wood
To be the meat and potatoes	To be the heart and lungs
To egg someone on	To push someone on
To fish in someone else’s pond	To play in someone else’s pool
To fish for compliments	To look for compliments
To have a frog in your throat	To have a lump in your throat
To have a heart as sweet as honey	To have a heart as sweet as maple syrup
To have a horse in the race	To have a runner in the race
To have a tiger by the tail	to have a fire by the wick
To have a whale of a time	To have a blast
To have bats in the belfry	To have a screw loose
To have bigger fish to fry	To have bigger potatoes to fry
To have meat on the bones	To have flesh on the bones
To hog	To monopolize
To hunt with hawks	To dance with Dukes
To know which side your bread is buttered on	To know which side your bread is oiled
To rat out	To nark
To speak with honey on the tongue	To speak with sugar on the tongue
To teach your grandmother to suck eggs	To teach your grandmother to peel a potato
To win by a nose	To win by a hand
To work like a dog	To work your fingers to the bone
Walking on eggshells	Walking on thin ice
Watching like a hawk	Watching like a sniper
When pigs fly	When hell freezes over
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?	Which came first, the oak or the acorn?
You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs	You can’t make juice without breaking fruits
Your goose is cooked	You’re dead in the water