Slapped round the face with a wet fish!

I might even have used the expression ‘it was like being was slapped round the face with a wet fish!’, or ‘I felt as if I’d been slapped round the face with a wet fish!’ meaning I was astounded, surprised, taken aback, but usually by something that wasn’t particularly shocking or horrible. Sometimes the wet fish was identified as a wet haddock, or wet kipper I guess because haddock and kippers as words might sound comical… and it is a comical expression.

Some people use it as being the worst thing that could happen, ‘well, I suppose it was better than being slapped etc…’ A similar expressions is ‘poked in the eye with a burnt stick’ and I guess there are others and variations on the same thing.

I was looking at the BBC news web-site when I was amazed to find that someone really had been slapped round the face with a wet fish… and although I feel very sorry for the woman who received the slap, I couldn’t help chuckling.

The slapper was a teen-age girl, who no doubt had been dared to do it because a teenage lad was filming her; the slappee was a woman who worked in a supermarket in Accrington (which for English people – apart from those who live in Accrington – is a place with a funny-sounding name) To add to the humorous sounding incident, it was being investigated by Lancashire Constabulary, and the fish was identified as a large bream.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-26345264