Fish out of Water

"Like fish out of water". What images pop up in your mind when you hear this expression?

A: The edge of a pool of water, some sand and a fish struggling for its existence.

Would you say the expression points to water, or fish? What is the dominant image?

B: Fish, I think, and the struggle for existence of those who are not in their home environment, not in their own element.......

C: I think of the late Prof. Edward Said, who did very well in an alien and hostile environment, but wrote compaliningly about it, even about English, a field of study which he matsered. -- much to the chagrin of many other people ....

D: I think you guys have the wrong image. When I hear "fish out of water"
what I see is something like a can of tuna fish that I can buy at the supermarket! That is fish out of water. It's been removed from its element so that I can eat it....

Yesterday I brought a nice tuna fish sandwich to work - which by the way my wife did not make -.

K: Let me tell you something. I am a fisherman. For many generations my family has lived off of the ocean, catching and selling fish. But now we are out of our business. The capitalists have fished the whole ocean out of all the fish. The fish are all gone. No more fish. For me to fish for myslef or to sell.

It's terrible.

I don't want to think about those words: the fish out of the water. It's too sad for me.

X: The fish image has something to do with Christianity. But I am not sure what.

F: Could be. But I want to say something in support of what my friend the fisherman has just said. I read in the New Scientist news today that at least 5 species of deep water exotic fish are now nearly extinct. They are on the critically endangered list.

G: "critically endangered", what is that?

F: I read that "the danger of extinction depends on the rate of decline per generation. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature calls any species that declines 80% or more within three generations due to a continuing cause critically endangered".

Many fish are now in that category.

Pretty soon maybe there will be water, but no fish. And the old expression about fish and water may also cease to exist. Over. Ivarai.

L: Is this expression used only by English speaking people?