Chrysti The Wordsmith: Animal Verbs - 3

Greetings verb of course I'm Christie the wordsmith. Lately on this series we've been examining animal verbs such as to badger to duck and to bug some animal verbs are commonly paired with propositions. Words such as. Up around out and away giving us such constructions as clam up horse around ferret out and squirrel away. We'll devote the next few minutes to these unique animal verbs. When a person clams up she refuses to talk. This phrase linguistically compares the mouth of a taciturn person to the tightly closed half shells of a bi valve mollusk horsing around essentially describes the boisterous running wrestling and mock battles of children. Kids that play are not unlike cavorting Colts doing what they do best biting and kicking at one another and racing their playmates in circles around the pasture generally horsing around. If you're curious or observant by nature you may easily ferret out secrets. Ferrets relentless carnivores pursue

rodents and other prey deep into their burrows and dispatch them with ferocity. Similarly when humans ferret something out they follow clues to their deep dark sources. Squirrels are exemplary conservationists. They collect and store nuts and seeds for consumption during the winter months. Similarly when we humans preserve resources against lean times we are said to squirrel things away. I'm Christie the wordsmith Christie the wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.