WHO AMONGST US IS A TROUT?

Why are robust and curmudgeonly older women called 'trouts?' This has always struck me as a very strange quirk of language, the trout being as near to a sexless beast as it is possible to come this side of the molluscs and one that is actually rather timid to boot. If one were looking for a female piscean, armed with stout hat and umbrella, intent on putting watery public officials in their place, surely Pike would be a better species to pick on than Trout? But nevertheless ‘trout’ wins by a mile. Whence comes this usage, I wonder?

But why should I be asking at all, I hear you murmuring from your comfortable position in the hammock, glass of Pimm’s beside you and a light novel open across your lap?
“Because,” says I, envying this mythical land of perpetual August sunshine with the hazy drone of lawn mowing only just audible above the birdsong, “that was the word used the other day in a Times review to describe the character played by the wonderful Eileen Atkins - the stalwart but decrepit Lady Tressilian - in Kevin Elyot's adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories on the television last Sunday. And that set me thinking.

Despite my asking, no-one seems to know from where this odd usage of the word trout comes. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable does not even mention ‘trout,’ and the Concise Oxford English Dictionary is no help either.

There is a deep crevasse between the animals to which at various times and in various places we have aspired to be and the reality of who we are. We all have our favourites - I see myself as a racing hare, wild and fancy free, bounding over ditches, ears laid back and a coat of hair groomed to perfection by the wind. You, on the other hand, may picture me as a tedious variety of beetle or even a cow with hatstand horns. Still, while some of us might choose to be that King of Fish, the salmon, racing up waterfalls with the same energy that lesser beings reserve for the New Year Sales, few, I think, would voluntarily choose to be labelled a ‘trout.’

Alec Guiness used, apparently, to imagine the character he was preparing as an animal and then play that animal. He once demonstrated this on a chat show by turning himself into an elephant. A half bend of the back, a slight shake of the shoulders, a look, the slow raising of a leg - and there, in motion, was an Indian teak elephant. But what animal, I am still asking, would he choose to represent a stalwart matron or, for that matter, the chronic churl or buffer? Or do we have no option but to accept ‘trout?’

Powerful and determined women may look like many members of the animal kingdom, but not surely fish? Even in old age fish are sleek and wrinkle free, which despite fortunes spent chez L’Oreal or Laboratoires Garnier, is something few of us can claim to be. Real trout also emit no sound, unlike their human namesakes, nor organise jumble sales for the Red Cross and pronounce on morals.

Perhaps the word is anyway now falling into desuetude; a consequence of the feminist advance. In childhood I remember the word being applied regularly by my step-mother to those who had offended her in some way. Thankfully women can stand up for themselves today without attracting negative comment, whether from men or indeed other women.

Certainly ‘trout’ has a Blandings Castle, 1930s, feel to it, which is probably why it was the Times critic's word of choice to describe Eileen Atkins’ arresting cameo performance of Laddy Tressilian - the dying old matriarch (who nevertheless contrives to get herself murdered - this being Miss Marple after all) lying abed all day, chain-smoking cheroots, while issuing quasi-military orders to the household and listening to the beguiling conversations among her guests that chanced conveniently to drift through her open window. “Oh what does it matter?” she croaks irritably. We shall all be dead come September.”

I suspect, though, that even in real life Eileen Atkins would not mind particularly if people thought she was a ‘trout.’ She is not afraid to say what she thinks, particular when it comes to the guidance of young girls. Earlier this summer she condemned in no uncertain terms the laddish behaviour of young women who believe feminism is about aping the heavy drinking and sexual habits of their male counterparts.

"My skin crawls when I see laddish women presenting television shows who almost slap their thighs as if they're in panto," she is reported to have said said. "I think, 'Stop. This isn't what we meant by feminism.' It's gone completely wrong.” At the price of becoming a trout myself I say amen to that.