Indian idiom "eye like a dead fish"
Steve Hayes
player that he "had an eye like a dead fish".
Can anyone familiar with Indian English explain this usage?
Steve Hayes
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
Mike
news:3e4e7655....@news.saix.net...
> Ravi Shastri, the former Indian cricket captain, now commentator, said of
one
> player that he "had an eye like a dead fish".
>
> Can anyone familiar with Indian English explain this usage?
Your eyes only move if some one else shakes you. You also smell a bit.
Cheers
Mike
Mark Shea
one
> player that he "had an eye like a dead fish".
>
> Can anyone familiar with Indian English explain this usage?
For some reason, it seemed to mean 'has got his eye right in.'
I can only guess that his head was very still, or some such.
Mark Shea
Michael Jameson
> Ravi Shastri, the former Indian cricket captain, now commentator, said of one
> player that he "had an eye like a dead fish".
>
> Can anyone familiar with Indian English explain this usage?
It exists in Australia and England too. It means that your eye (meaning your
ability to see the ball well) is unshakeable, unremittingly spot on. The eye of
a dead fish stares out clearly and without wavering. It's like saying someone's
concentration is 'unblinking' - physically impossible but try reading it as an
exaggeration, a characterisation. Then try staring down a dead fish.
Mick.
--
"You are the music while the music lasts" - Antonio Damasio (after TS Eliot).
Dingus
Something fishy going down here?!
Hmmm.
"Michael Jameson" <m.ja...@hunterlink.net.au> wrote in message
news:3E4E932B...@hunterlink.net.au...
Moby
>
> > Ravi Shastri, the former Indian cricket captain, now commentator, said
of one
> > player that he "had an eye like a dead fish".
> >
> > Can anyone familiar with Indian English explain this usage?
>
> It exists in Australia and England too. It means that your eye (meaning
your
> ability to see the ball well) is unshakeable, unremittingly spot on. The
eye of
> a dead fish stares out clearly and without wavering. It's like saying
someone's
> concentration is 'unblinking' - physically impossible but try reading it
as an
> exaggeration, a characterisation. Then try staring down a dead fish.
I stared down a dead fish. I wept.
Moby
Mad Hamish
wrote:
>Ravi Shastri, the former Indian cricket captain, now commentator, said of one
>player that he "had an eye like a dead fish".
>
>Can anyone familiar with Indian English explain this usage?
>
Max Walker described Duleep Mendis as having an eye like a stinking
fish in the mid 80s. So it's a long way from exclusive Indian/english.
--
"Hope is replaced by fear and dreams by survival, most of us get by."
Stuart Adamson 1958-2001
Mad Hamish
Hamish Laws
h_l...@aardvark.net.au
Dingus
"Mad Hamish" <h_l...@aardvark.net.au> wrote in message
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Mad Hamish
>needle nodle noo!
>
I believe the original source is Mr Prestwidch in 1956.
Wayne
> wrote:
>
> >Ravi Shastri, the former Indian cricket captain, now commentator, said of
one
> >player that he "had an eye like a dead fish".
> >
> >Can anyone familiar with Indian English explain this usage?
"Eye like a dead fish" was commonly used amongst guys I used to play cricket
with in Victoria. It comes from the fact that when you put a fish in the
open air and it dies, it's eyes bulge out of it's head and look very large.
The reference is that the batsmans eyes are large and he sees the ball very
clearly because of this.
Like many terms used in Australia, sometimes the relevence is hard to
fathom.
Cheers
Gilly
Synic
> "Eye like a dead fish" was commonly used amongst guys I used to play cricket
> with in Victoria. It comes from the fact that when you put a fish in the
> open air and it dies, it's eyes bulge out of it's head and look very large.
I'd have thought it would be more likely to refer to a dead fish's eye
being glazed over and unseeing.
> The reference is that the batsmans eyes are large and he sees the ball very
> clearly because of this.
Possibly it's a bit of the the impenetrable reversal slang that was fashionable
a few decades back coming into play ('Bluey' for a redhead, 'Honest John' for
a liar, etc).
> Like many terms used in Australia, sometimes the relevence is hard to
> fathom.
Yep. There's rarely just the one "right" explanation in these things.
Dingus
"Mad Hamish" <h_l...@aardvark.net.au> wrote in message
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