thats a whole different kettle of fish - why?

Question

snce when did fish live in kettles - now theres a thought eh! hello mr + fish wot u been upto? oh we've just bought our new kettle - its a detatched with a teapot on the side. very quaint.

Answer 1

Nobody is really sure where the expression comes from, but we do know that the phrase a kettle of fish was originally a literal term. These days, especially in Britain and Commonwealth countries, we think of a kettle as a small enclosed container with a handle and spout for boiling water to make our tea. (I believe that Americans are less familiar with this essential item of kitchenware.) In the eighteenth century, though, a kettle was any large vessel used to boil stuff in.

There was, it seems, a custom by which the gentry on the Scottish border with England would hold a picnic (though that term was not then known) by a river. The custom was described by Thomas Newte in his Tour of England and Scotland in 1785: “It is customary for the gentlemen who live near the Tweed to entertain their neighbours and friends with a Fete Champetre, which they call giving ‘a kettle of fish’. Tents or marquees are pitched near the flowery banks of the river ... a fire is kindled, and live salmon thrown into boiling kettles”.

What puzzles scholars is how this literal reference became an idiom—assuming, of course, that the phrase comes from the custom, which is far from certain. There is a clue in early examples, in which the term was used in the sense of a mess, muddle or confusion caused by one’s own misguided actions. For example, in Captain Francis Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue of 1811, it’s explained like this: “When a person has perplexed his affairs in general, or any particular business, he is said to have made a fine kettle of fish of it”. And a little later, Thomas Chandler Haliburton of Nova Scotia used it the same way in his Clockmaker: “There’s an end to the Clock trade now, and a pretty kettle of fish I’ve made of it, haven’t I? I shall never hear the last on it”.

Could it be that the contents of the kettles of fish looked messy after the fish had broken up under the influence of the boiling water? It would make sense of the early examples. But that’s just a guess.

Subscriber Henk Rietveld wrote to say that he had heard, while working in Newfoundland, that kettle of fish was a corruption of quintal of fish, a measure either of 100 pounds or a hundredweight. This is possible, since quintal was also known in the forms kintal and kentle in Newfoundland and New England, the last of which could easily have been misheard as kettle. It can’t be ruled out as a possibility, since the quintal was the usual way of measuring fish catches. Against it is the important point that the idiom kettle of fish seems to have been known first in Britain but that kentle is an American form.

Answer 2

The phrase as I was taught it was "that's a different Kettle of fish altogether." I was told that it came from the dockside where rich people had the pick of the catch and the poor people got the smaller fish left over from the catch. That meant that their life, was a different Kettle of fish altogether!
I'm a Vegetarian, but I still eat fish. Wild Salmon is my fish of choice but I like boiled fish also. Fish Kettle's are good, but you must not use a solid copper one on a regular basis (or any other type of solid copper cooking pot). The reason is that copper itself removes essential vitamins from the food whilst cooking. You will find that modern copper pots are usually made of another metal, that has been copper plated on the outside to retain the look.

Answer 3

as a chef i use a fish kettle. to cook salmons in. other meaning is ..that puts a different light on things.

Answer 4

my mother has a copper fish kettle- you place it on the heat to cook the fish in.

quite large so good for whole salmon etc.

Answer 5

i think its refering to fish in a kettle as in waiting to be cooked.

Answer 6

I have an aluminium fish kettle, it's fab, you can cook a whole salmon in it. Yum yum!!!!

Answer 7

It means : A different story - don't know where the saying came from.

Answer 8

This article may help to shed some light on your question:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ket1.htm

Answer 9

hmmm u r a strange girl

Answer 10

you do actually get 'fish kettles'
they're used for cooking