"Top-of-the-fish"?
« previous post | next post »
Kelly Dwyer, "Mark Cuban on his beloved Rockets, save James Harden: 'That’s not a very good team'", Yahoo Sports 4/17/2015:
What better voice than Cuban’s, a man who inherited a perennial loser in 2000 before proceeding to act as the top-of-the-fish leader of a club that has made the playoffs in 14 out of 15 full seasons in the years since?
Bradley Sherman sent the link with a request for top-of-the-fish enlightenment. I got nothing, except maybe olive oil, pepper, thyme, and lemon juice.
Rubrick said,
April 18, 2015 @ 4:59 pm
Maybe some sort of cognitive spillover from "big fish in a small pond"? Not very convincing, but it's all I got.
As with many such oddities, I hope it catches on.
Dan said,
April 18, 2015 @ 5:10 pm
Cartoons representing the "food chain" sometimes show a sequence of bigger fish eating smaller fish.
Jerry Friedman said,
April 18, 2015 @ 6:35 pm
Anyone who would write "The Rockets finished only 12th in offense this season even with Harden turning a brilliant offensive turn. And Harden himself is coming off of a disappointing personal offensive turn in the 2014 postseason." is the top of the fish himself.
Jacob said,
April 18, 2015 @ 7:12 pm
A kosher version of "high on the hog"?
David N. Evans said,
April 18, 2015 @ 11:36 pm
Does the top fish in a school of fish exercise a special type of leadership?
mpg said,
April 19, 2015 @ 12:13 am
Perhaps a transcription error – or eggcorn – for "top of the fish-ladder"?
Fish ladders would seem an odd metaphor, but these are sports writers we're talking about.
RobertL said,
April 19, 2015 @ 6:33 am
Isn't he saying "top office leader"? As in the leader of the organisation's top office?
James said,
April 19, 2015 @ 6:56 am
I thought of Shark Tank immediately, but that's probably just a coincidence. (Cuban is a regular on the show.)
Now I think Jerry Friedman is on to something. If you want to be sure to cook the top of the fish, you have to keep turning it.
Stephen Goranson said,
April 19, 2015 @ 7:46 am
I do not know if it is at all relevant here, but "the top of the fish" appears in many reports on drilling for oil, for instance in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
John Shutt said,
April 19, 2015 @ 12:38 pm
Simply googling, there's a bar in West Palm Beach called Top of the Fish. One could imagine that being either effect or cause of such a usage.
languagehat said,
April 19, 2015 @ 1:17 pm
I e-mailed the author, who responded:
Tom V said,
April 19, 2015 @ 1:41 pm
Lime juice, and perhaps finely minced green chile
Piyush said,
April 19, 2015 @ 2:44 pm
Couldn't "top of the fish" be a confusion between the idioms "top of the barrel" and "shooting fish in a barrel" (which are used in very different senses but involve similar objects)?
bks said,
April 19, 2015 @ 3:32 pm
I find the author's explanation bottom-of-the-fish.
Jacob said,
April 19, 2015 @ 3:55 pm
It must be his day in the barrel.
AB said,
April 19, 2015 @ 4:21 pm
@languagehat
What a befuddling clarification. The top of the fish stops it stinking? what does "nature red in in tooth and claw" have to do with boredom?
I think this Dwyer fella might be one fish short of a barrel.
Rubrick said,
April 19, 2015 @ 4:44 pm
Since we have the author's explanation, that would appear to end the matter.
*FIN*
Jason said,
April 19, 2015 @ 9:06 pm
@ AB That's creatives for you.
(I was sure it was something boring like "autocorrected from "top-of-the-list", but, if so, he's decided to own it in any case.)
languagehat said,
April 20, 2015 @ 9:11 am
Yeah, it doesn't make much sense, but I'm ready to cut him lots of slack considering the amount of verbiage he has to churn out on a regular basis.
MBS said,
April 20, 2015 @ 5:25 pm
Perhaps it's sort of a reverse use of the phrase "a fish rots from the head down." Meaning that the Mavs used to stink until Cuban became the owner/head, at which point the team followed his lead of not stinking.
Jim said,
April 22, 2015 @ 6:10 am
I'm not sure exactly what it means, but it does scale.
Jason Siegel said,
April 23, 2015 @ 2:36 pm
I assume that, based on the author's explanation, "top of the fish" refers to all the fish(es) in the barrel, of which the ones at the bottom must surely be rotting away and the one on top of the others must be fresh. In this case, the Rockets are at the bottom and the Mavericks at the top.