Business Vocabulary Idioms — Animals

In this article, you will

• learn some useful animal idioms
• practice key vocabulary on the topic of business and animals
• notice expressions of degree and amount.

Newsmart Level 3 (B1+, TOEIC 389–550, TOEFL iBT 41–52, IELTS 4.5–5)

Are you a successful top dog or fat cat? Or are you tired and feel like you’re flogging a dead horse?

Different cultures often use animal metaphors to describe human behavior in terms of animal behavior, and it’s not surprising to find a multitude of animal metaphors in use in business vocabulary. Animal metaphors are used to describe all aspects of the business world, from business people and companies to markets and products.

The meaning of some animal metaphors is universally clear and doesn’t need further explanation. A “loan shark,” for example, is a predatory lender who offers loans at unreasonably high rates of interest to people who can’t get a loan from a regular lender. Just like a real shark, a loan shark is a dangerous, ruthless hunter, and in this case, the metaphor is easy to understand. That, however, is not the case with all animal metaphors.

Take the humble dog, for example. What qualities would you usually associate with a dog? Brave, perhaps, or hard-working and loyal? In English, dogs are often described as “man’s best friend,” so it might be a little surprising to learn that in business vocabulary, when someone describes a product as a “dog,” it means they think it’s a terrible product that will fail!

Because it’s not always easy to guess what an animal metaphor means, it’s important to learn the main ones so that you don’t get the wrong idea.

Before seeing a few animal metaphors and idioms in action, let’s do some donkey work and figure out what they mean.

- Fat cat

- Top dog

- Bullish

- Flog a dead horse

- Unicorn

- Cash cow

Now let’s integrate some of these into a story about a dissatisfied insurance salesman (let’s call him Ryan).

A while ago, after many years selling insurance, Ryan decided that he was flogging a dead horse. He’d always been bullish about his chances of succeeding at his company and even becoming top dog one day, but after slaving like a mule he still hadn’t been noticed by the fat cats in the C-suites. After being passed over yet again for promotion, Ryan became convinced that his career was going to the dogs. The problem was that he didn’t know what else he could do to make a living!

It was then that Ryan’s tech-savvy friend Carlos came to him with an idea for a new app for selling insurance. He asked if Ryan would like to help him develop it. Although Ryan was worried at first that the product might be a turkey, Carlos quickly convinced him that it would be a cash cow and make them fabulously wealthy. Sure enough, it turned out that Carlos had spotted a niche in the market and the app turned out to be a golden goose. Now, ten years later, Ryan and Carlos are the proud directors of a unicorn!

The world of business can be difficult to understand, and describing business concepts, activities, and the behavior of business people in terms of the behavior of animals can help to simplify things. If you learn a few animal metaphors, you’ll also be able to add color and interest to your business conversations. As a lot of business is about communication, it’s definitely in your interest to be an eager beaver in this regard!

Photo credit: Quinn Rooney for Getty

Originally published at www.getnewsmart.com.