Lexical Compendium

Mice lie and monkeys exaggerate.

-- David B. Weiner, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Chair, Gene Therapy and Vaccine Program, CAMB Co-Leader Tumor Virology Program, Abramson Cancer Program University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine

Dr. Weiner coined this aphorism while musing on the use of NHP (nonhuman primates) in HIV vaccines studies at a conference in 2008. In essence, animal models aren't necessarily predictive of how drugs will work in humans.

The phrase is often used in research papers and by science journalists. I can't recall where I first heard it, but I thought of it recently when a friend shared a blurb about how rapamycin is purported to have anti-aging benefits in humans. Though there is no evidence for this in humans, there have been studies with the drug on mice that have found that they live ~12% longer.

A canard is false or unfounded statement/story.

It literally comes from the French canard meaning "duck." There's a French idiom that goes "vendre un canard à moitié" and means "to sell half a duck," in other words, to swindle someone. Over time this evolved to mean something more like a "false report."

There's a second use of this word in the aviation industry where it's a bit of jargon which describes a configuration in which a small forewing is placed ahead of the craft's main wings.

In the early 1900s French aviation engineers built a plane with these small forewings that was reminiscent of a duck and they started calling these planes "avions canard."

Infinocchiare is an Italian word which means to cheat or swindle someone.

The term has interesting origins. The root of the word comes from the term finocchio which means fennel in English. In the Middle Ages, fennel was used as a masking spice. Wine merchants would serve customers fennel before offering them wine, in order to hide defects. In the same way, butchers began to put it in their salami as an alternative to pepper in order to cover up the taste of not very good meat.

Though not for the same reasons, this tradition persists today. When we were in Tuscany, Italy, we discovered finocchiona salami and I became intrigued with this word.

In Italian, the phrase Non farti infinocchiare means Don't be fooled but it translates precisely in English to Don't get fenneled.

I ran across the idiom loma abajo y sin frenos in an SNL sketch ^[1] about kids in a Spanish class.

It's a Cuban idiom that literally translates to "downhill without brakes." It is used to describe something that has gone "out of control," but is usually used in a romantic context to describe completely falling for someone (Me tienes loma abajo y sin frenos -- "You have me downhill and with no brakes").

I could not find the origin of this idiom.

This Spanish idiom literally translates to "to not have hairs on the tongue." The idiom is used to refer to someone who is outspoken, i.e. does not mince words.

For example:

No me gustó su pintura y le dije; yo no tenia pelos en la lengua.: I didn't like his painting and I told him so; I didn't mince words.

Interestingly, this idiom also exists in other languages. It means roughly the same thing in Italian, Welsh, and Croatian

The concept also exists in Greek and Turkish where it means "I'm tired of repeating myself."

While walking down the street, I heard two people talking about this idiom and it compelled me to research it. Idioms are great, aren't they?

To tilt at windmills means to fight or pursue some imaginary adversary.

I've always found idioms to be an interesting part of language and this is one of my favorites. In Jr. High, my class read/translated Don Quixote de la Mancha, which is where this expression comes from.

Trust, but verify is a maxim popularized by US President Ronald Reagon during the Cold War in the 1980s. It's US-origin comes from the Russian proverb, "doveryai, no proveryai." Reagon repeated this frequently during meetings leading up to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

More recently the phrase has evolved to never trust, always verify (i.e. "Zero Trust") in cybersecurity circles, due to increased risks. ^[2]

In February of 2026, on the subject of Iran nuclear treaties, Netanyahu gave the message to Trump: "Distrust. Distrust, and always verify." ^[3]