What's that got to do with the price of fish? Used when someone says something completely irrelevant to the conversation.
red herring: something that misleads or distracts from the relevant question. The jury is Out on whether Shagsper had any interest in fish or angling. But it is clear that Shaxpere's contemporaries had an interest in eating fish. Clear? How? Wot am ur evidence?
Clear because of the existence of Familiar Dialogues 1586 by Huguenot emigré Jacques Bellot who had been baffled by the colloquial English of costardmongers and drapers and resolved to write a phrasebook of English, French and English-as-she-is-spoke. These dialogues are familiar because they revolve around the antics of a cliché family arguing in the kitchen and out and about trying to purchase food and clothing. You can get the whole text in three columns on Project Gutenberg. I am annoyed with myself that this was completely new to me when it was posted on MetaFilter in May: niche lists involving foreign languages - c'est ma confiture. As often with MeFi, there is some interesting comments. Thereby, fo one example, I learned that a sheep's gather is/was equivalent to a chicken's pluck: liver + heart + lungs = the basic ingredients, with oatmeal, of haggis.
Mais revenons nous a nos poissons. It's all very well for quasi-bilingual foreign johnnies in 1586 to be comparing notes about what was on the fishmonger's slab but what are we to make of the available chowder-fare 440 years later. It's the perennial problem of using common names with all their ambivalence of meaning and regional variation [see Flora previa]. For future googlers, I here share my Linnaean findings.
English French Linnaean
Soles Des soles Solea solea
A good plaise Vne bonne plis Pleuronectes platessa
Viuers Des viures ???
Rotches, Gornettes Des rouges Chelidonichthys cuculus
Whittinges Des merlenc Merlangius merlangus
Waisters Des huistres Ostrea edulis
Thurnebacke De la Raye Raja clavata
Smeltes De l'eperlenc Osmerus eperlanus
Redde hering Du hareng sor Clupea harengus
Whitte hering Du hareng blanc Clupea harengus (salt)
Shrimpes De la creuette Palaemon serratus
A loupster Vn hommar Homarus gammarus
Crabbes Des escreuices Cancer pagurus
A picke Vn brochet Esox lucius
A pickerell Vn brocheton Esox lucius (small)
A millers thumbe Vn gouion Cottus gobio
A saumond Vn saumond Salmo salar
A lamproye Vne lamproye Petromyzon marinus
Elles Des anguilles Anguilla anguilla
A dorey Vne dorée Zeus faber
A makerell Vn maquereau Scomber scombrus
A trouette Vne trouite Salmo trutta
Smal lamproyes Des lamprions Petromyzon marinus
Moskels Des mousles Mytilus edulis
Cockelles Des coques Cerastoderma edule
A tenche Vne tenche Tinca tinca
A carpe Vne carpe Cyprinus carpio
Kempes Des pimperneaux Anguilla anguilla
A whale Vne ballaine Balaenoptera acutorostrata
I think I'm correct‽ Fight me in the comments. "Rotches" could be the fresh water roach Rutilis rutilis but I think it's more likely in the context to be gurnard. I was baffled by "Waisters" until I looked at the french huisters or, as she is wrote today: huîtres where the âccent is the trace of the lost "s". Still baffled by "viuers" or in modern orthography vivers. A viver is apparently a stew-pond but here seems to be the inhabitants, so it's likely some sort of carp. As for "A whale" I've taken a punt with Balaenoptera acutorostrata, the minke whale, the smallest of the baleen whales. Although at ~10m long, it would be a good old heft to get that up from the Thames to Billingsgate fish market. The mystery fish pictured at Top? Clue.
More? In my trawls I came across Fish-eating in ancient Greece. Edible fish categories beyond the Linnaean taxonomy at academia.edu [behind sign-up wall]. Like me they have tracked down some ancient writing about the availability of fish in the market and tried to work out exactly what folks were eating 2000 years ago.
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