As someone who uses words for a living, it’s getting increasingly more difficult to say anything these days, in fear of offending someone. But I don’t complain (about that). After all, our very ability to use words is a gift that Hashem gave us. Isn’t that what makes us better than the animals?

Not according to PETA, the world-famous animal-rights organization that, as far as I know still hypocritically only employs people.

But whatever—in general, their hearts are in the right place. They’re very instrumental in stopping tzar baalei chaim. But recently, they issued a kol koreh against people using expressions that normalize cruelty toward animals, such as “killing two birds with one stone.”

But PETA isn’t just ripping away all our time-tested expressions and leaving us hanging. To start us off, they presented a list of idioms we use that are insensitive to animals and that we should substitute, at least when we’re in the presence of those animals.

For example, take the expression “Kill two birds with one stone.” This seems morbidly anti-bird. Why is this considered a grand accomplishment? Instead, they say, why not replace it with “Feed two birds with one scone”? Well, for one, I’m not sure what a scone is. I’m not flying to England to buy a scone. But assuming I have a scone, I still think the expression isn’t as strong. How hard is it to feed two birds with one scone? I would say a scone can probably feed more than two birds, so isn’t the expression saying that you’re accomplishing less than you should? Unless we’re talking about ostriches.

Or take the expression “Let the cat out of the bag.” There are a lot of expressions about people doing horrible things to cats. Instead, PETA says, why not say, “Spill the beans”? Okay, first of all, “Spill the beans” is already an expression. And why are beans such a big secret, anyway? “Oh no, he spilled them! Now people know we have beans!” And second, isn’t letting the cat out of the bag a good thing?

They also have an issue with the expression “Opening a can of worms,” as this is cruel to worms, notwithstanding that putting them in the can is more cruel than opening the can. Either way, they want to change the expression to “Opening Pandora’s box.” Yeah. Um, isn’t this offensive to people who don’t believe in Greek gods? Which is basically everyone nowadays? PETA’s really opening a huge can of pre-cut onions with this one. What about—I don’t know—“Opening a fire hydrant”?

They also say that “Bring home the bacon” should be changed to “Bring home the bagels.” Well, that sounds anti-Semitic. At least we’re not offending pigs. Not that I ever loved bringing home the bacon. You can’t eat it anyway, and it ruins your whole attach? case. Also, I know they don’t know this, but isn’t bringing home the bagels what you do after a bris if your wife didn’t come?

They also want “There’s more than one way to skin a cat” to become “There’s more than one way to peel a potato.” This one might be anti-Semitic too. But is there? I only know of one way to peel a potato. Two, if you count spiking the potato on an electric drill and holding out the peeler. Oh, and there’s boiling them and then throwing them in ice water so the skin pops off. Hey, it turns out there are a bunch of ways to peel potatoes! Should we try all of those on cats? No, wait, I lost track of what we’re doing here.

And finally, they want to turn “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” to “Don’t put all your berries in one bowl.” Isn’t that called a fruit salad? So I shouldn’t make fruit salad? And anyway, it’s not the same at all. We use eggs for everything. There are no berry emergencies. Also, if you drop a basket of eggs, they all break. If you drop a basket of berries, you wash them off and they’re good as new. Even the bruised ones are still edible. It’s just cosmetic, like all these expressions.

“These expressions really get my goat,” said one PETA spokesperson. “Get my throat? Get my coat?”

And there are plenty of expressions they left out—“I could eat a horse” (“I could eat a horseradish”)—“You can catch flies with honey” (“You can catch guys with money”)—“Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day” (“Give a man a knish and he’ll eat for a day. But teach him how to knish…”)

Here’s the thing: I don’t love the original expressions either. I make fun of them all the time. But if you’re going to come up with a new expression that you expect to take off, it has to be at least as good. If you say, “Putting your berries in one bowl,” that will inevitably lead to someone asking, “What?” and then you have to explain it by way of using the eggs metaphor, and what did you accomplish? All your eggs will be offended.

Wait. No, they won’t. The animals themselves are not protesting, because either:

1. They don’t know English, or

2. They do know English, but they don’t care. They have bigger things to worry about, like the food chain. If other animals are hunting you, you’re not worrying about expressions.

The last time animals actually protested in the streets, that I know of, was in Mitzrayim, and they were protesting the unethical treatment of the Yidden. So I guess they had our backs, and we should totally have theirs.

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He has also published seven books and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].