Researching ship name lists based on 'themes' has become a big thing for me. I've now got a total of 50 files with more-or-less non-duplicate lists of 100 names or more. Currently, I'm working on something that's a bit harder than usual. Researching a mythology is actually pretty easy. You can find reference works in the library and special sites on the internet. But this idea is to gather all of the 'metaphorical' creatures that can be found in English idiom as a 'theme' list. Note that I've already got a list of animal names. That's a fairly obvious idea, and not hard to research. This is 'imaginary' animals in language. The qualifications used to make them into metaphors are essential to keep them from duplicating the existing list, and not all of them have to be animals. Here is the list of metaphorical creatures I've recollected so far. If you can think of any other 'vernacular' phrases that use some sort of creature metaphor please post. I like to have 100 or more names before declaring a list 'ready to use'.
Bird of Prey
Black Sheep
Cold Fish
Dark Horse
Dumb Ox
Fly on the Wall
Fat Cat
Gay Dog
Great White Buffalo
Iron Horse
Lone Wolf
Love Bird
Lucky Dog
March Hare
Moby Grape
Old Goat
Pink Elephant
Raging Bull
Rubber Chicken
Rubber Duckie
Rug Rat
Sacred Cow
Silly Goose
Sly Dog
Tar Baby
Ugly Duckling
War Hawk
Wet Hen
White Elephant
Young Lion
Edit: Yes, I'm aware that 'Moby Grape' is not a metaphor but the old name of Jefferson Airplane/Starship.
This list actually began as a psychedelic theme rather than metaphoric but I cannot find ANY way to research psychedelic phrases. If you can think of any of those, please feel free to add them here, as well.
[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 27 August 2001).]
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