sleeping with the fishes

There are 11 definitions for the verb "play" in the Oxford American Dictionary. Ten of them are not at all strange. Play means what you think it means in all circumstances except, of course, for fish. Because for the poor little fishies, "play" means "to allow (a hooked fish) to exhaust itself by its pulling against the line." Oh the metaphors that I am going to let slide through my hands on this one. Actually, if you think of the metaphors as fish, I'm letting them get away.