It makes you more than a little uncomfortable.Īnd it should! That’s the thing with this expression. He just seems to be fishing around for information. She may ask many people lots of general questions about their lives before finding something interesting to write about.Īnd let’s say your co-worker asks you a lot of questions about your personal life. Now, you can “fish” for many other things too.Ī writer can fish around for a good story idea. But she hopes one of them will give evidence about the crime. She does not know if any of them are guilty or if they know anything. It does not stick to a stated goal, but hopes to uncover useful evidence or information.įor example, if a police detective is on a fishing expedition, she may ask all the people who were near a crime in their neighborhood. A fishing expedition is a general search. In conversation, a “ fishing expedition” is very similar. But you are going to spend a lot of time and effort trying to catch something. Let’s say you are planning a long, complicated fishing tour. At last count, it was a million bees and thousands of stings. Each time he tells the story, the amount of bees and bee stings increase. He loves to tell people about the time he was attacked by a swarm of bees. This expression comes from the fact that people who fish often say their catch is bigger than it really was.īut fish stories don’t have to be about fish. We tell others fish stories when we want to brag or show off. Now, if you tell someone a fish story, you are telling them a story that is so strange or surprising that it seems very unlikely to be true. For this one, we also say smells fishy – a phrase I think is even better. The word “fishy” means “likely untrue.” In other words, something that sounds fishy sounds like a lie. Note that the expression usually begins with the verbs “buy” or “fall.” For example, “he fell for my excuse hook, line and sinker,” or, “she bought my story hook, line and sinker.”īut what about people who are not so gullible? When something sounds even the slightest bit fishy, they do not believe it. When people believe a story “hook, line and sinker,” they accept it completely – even though it is a big, fat lie. We use it to describe fooling someone who is easy to fool. In addition to a fishing pole, you will need a fishing hook, a fishing line and sometimes, a sinker.īut in conversation, we don’t use the expression “ hook, line and sinker” when we are talking about catching a fish. Whatever type of fishing you do, the equipment is similar.

You can go ice fishing, deep sea fishing, or fly fishing in a river, to name a few examples. We are going fishing!įishing is a popular outdoor activity you can do in lots of different places.

On this program we talk about common expressions and phrases in American English. Now, the VOA Learning English program Words and Their Stories.

Fishing in the dark means