animals and non-animals

[Victor Steinbok]

A commenter on a blog linked to an  "Animal Idioms" page.

http://www.doghause.com/idioms.asp

Mostly benign stuff, although some are poorly defined or unusually worded.

But two stood out right away:

     Bear the brunt
     Bear down

Wrong bear, I'm afraid--at least in the first instance... Almost a
pseudo-eggcorn--faux etymology, but the spelling's unaffected. At least,
they did not include "bear witness", not to mention bear up, bear off,
bear date and to bring to bear. ;-)

Same issue with

     Duck out
     Ticked off

I am not up on etymology of "duck" verb, but if it's connected to the
bird, the meaning split a millennium ago.

Another odd one, for a different reason:

     Have a chicken to pick with someone

The meaning is obvious (at least, I believe it is--although it's just
picking a [verbal] fight, not being nitpicky), but I'm not sure about
the provenance. Is this really common or might it be a translation of
someone else's ethnic idiom? It's one of only three I don't recognize
(the others being "lamb down", and what's listed as "I swan").

Also not sure what "get [] dander up" has to do with animals...

"Three dog night" is labeled as Australian. Really? (The meaning listed
is the same as UD.)

"A tough dog to keep up on the porch" seems to be an unnecessarily
sanitized version.

Inevitably, there is

     Sounding horse

No, really--it's there! Well, one formal eggcorn, at least...

     VS-)

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