PETA policing clichés is a dog’s breakfast

PETA does admirable work on behalf of animals everywhere.

But before letting the cat out of the bag on its latest campaign — a call for humans to stop using “anti-animal language” — it should’ve probably got its ducks in a row. Or held its horses. Or realized it was about to open a can of worms that would take it on a wildgoose chase straight into the doghouse.

You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, especially when there are bigger fish to fry and the elephant in the room is a hare-brained idea. But if you go hog wild and put the cart before the horse, it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Then you’re a deer in the headlights who is crying wolf.

In a recent tweet that forced even hardcore vegans to get their feathers in a bunch, PETA tried to get the goat of anyone with common sense. Since “words matter” and “our understanding of social justice evolves,” the organization argued, it’s time to lock horns with animal phrases and cage them out of the lexicon.

Lacking any eagle eyes for the absurd — and sounding drunk as a skunk — PETA became a bull in a china shop. It squawked and squealed and posted a chart of proposed language changes that sounded like monkey business.

Let us now take a gander at some of their pet peeves.

Instead of “Kill two birds with one stone,” PETA proposes, “Feed two birds with one scone.”

Instead of, “Bring home the bacon,” we should say, “Bring home the bagels,” which could raise a separate issue for breadwinners with gluten allergies

And why “be the guinea pig” when you can “be the test tube”?

So is PETA collecting frogs in a bucket? Is it counting its chickens before they’ve hatched? Is it barking up the wrong tree? Is it pigheaded and stubborn as a mule? Is it pulling a rabbit out of a hat while putting lipstick on a pig?

Even without a dog in this fight, the answers are: yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.

First of all, you can be an eager beaver and repeat these invented phrases until the cows come home and they’re still laughably ridiculous.

Someone who takes “the bull by the horns” is dealing bravely with a difficult

situation. Someone who takes “the flower by the thorns” — PETA’s replacement — is a myopic masochist.

And isn’t it crueler to “feed a fed horse” instead of “beat a dead horse”? The living horse is already full! Why are you force-feeding it? At least when you were beating the other horse, it was already dead. So spare me the crocodile tears, PETA.

I’m not saying the organization should clam up or has ants in its marketing pants.

But on the issue of language, it is increasingly a fish out of water.

Last month, PETA asked a town in England to change its name from “Wool” to “Vegan Wool.” Earlier this year, it called upon the Delaware town of “Slaughter Beach” to rebrand as “Sanctuary Beach.”

I give it six months before PETA launches a full-scale street protest in Monkeys Eyebrow, Ken.

And all of this is as sad as a threelegged donkey.

At a time when animals around the world remain subjected to genuine horrors, PETA is now hunting and trapping cheap publicity.

It is throwing red herrings into a real kettle of fish.

In the rat race of competing PSAs, it has lost focus and does not grasp how these kinds of stalking horses can turn into swan songs of lost credibility.

Demanding people stop using animal aphorisms cold Tofurky — including people who might otherwise be receptive to PETA’s broader message — is hardly sly as a fox. It’s blind as a bat. And to equate semantic “speciesism” with “racist, homophobic or ableist language,” is nothing but an offensive dog-and-pony show. It is peacocking. It is mad as a badger. When animal welfare hangs in the balance, a campaign that gets people talking exclusively by mocking is hardly the cat’s pyjamas. Raising awareness by raising eyebrows with a cock-and-bull story is to throw a monkey wrench into advocacy.

It will cook your goose and you will be forced to eat crow. Come on, PETA. When it comes to language, let sleeping dogs lie.

Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.

Don’t go ape on people, including those who’d never hurt a fly. Separate the sheep from the goats. Don’t throw common sense to the wolves.

The world can’t be your oyster after you jump the shark.

On the issue of language, Vinay Menon writes, PETA is increasingly a fish out of water.

PETA's new campaign to get rid of anti-animal language has gone to the dogs, Vinay Menon writes.