Every so often, different groups of people look at how we’re living our lives in the current day and compare it against what they believe is the way that we should be behaving and see just how well it all matches up. Obviously, it’s going to be different for everyone depending on their own list of moral beliefs and the strength in their convictions. If everything is hunky-dory, then that’s fine and we can keep doing what we’re doing without any worries but if something seems to go against the modern-day values, then you can be sure that there’ll be a song and dance made about the whole thing.

Sometimes they are fair enough points. I can vaguely remember when it was totally acceptable to smoke wherever and whenever a person desired, but now it’s almost unimaginable that you could be sitting in a restaurant or browsing a clothes shop with the pungent fumes of tobacco wafting around you. Similarly, as awareness of different social groups increases, we’ve come to decide that certain words that were once a ready part of our vocabulary, are now only used to cause offence and disregard and so they are purged from the language of civilised human beings.

Sometimes though, I think that some people go out of their way to be offended. It’s sad to say, but there are people who are so determined that they will find offence in everything or to at the very least put a dampener on things. Part of it is to do with individual perspective: one hundred people could share an experience but all feel differently about it, but most of it is just to do with the attitude towards life in general.

Many years ago, when I first heard of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), I thought they were a pretty good bunch of people. They’ve rescued monkeys from testing facilities, speak out about dog fighting and have showed the inhumanity involved in the fur trade. As a vegetarian, I appreciate their message but I think they go too far at times. They have no qualms of sharing visually disturbing images and videos of what goes on in meat factories both online and when campaigning in the streets and I personally don’t think children should be forced to see that without preparation.

As an organisation, they’re great at attracting attention. They’ve infiltrated fashion shows in America while throwing paint, had many models posing naked for their anti-fur campaign and publicly tried to link dairy to acne, cancer and strokes.

Their latest initiative is to try and change the way that we talk. They think that by using age old idioms such as “bringing home the bacon” and “open a can of worms” is comparable to racist and homophobic language. Yes, I’m being serious.

They claim when we say we’re “flogging a dead horse”, “taking the bull by the horns” or “letting the cat out of the bag” that we’re trivialising animal cruelty.

I think they’ve gone too far this time. I’m all for protecting animals, but by placing humans and animals on an equal footing, you’re saying that they are the same which is exactly where certain hate speech originates from. It’s not so long ago that H&M had to remove and apologise for an advert that featured a black child wearing a “coolest monkey in the jungle” hoodie due to the historical negative connotations that came from that link.

Honestly, they’re giving us vegetarians and vegans a bad name. I use these phrases without thinking if they’re apt in the moment and when I was learning them as a kid, I remember having to ask mum what they meant. To be fair, I had to ask her to explain a few of them just as I’m sure most parents do.

When I’m trying to be efficient, I’m not literally planning to “kill two birds with one stone” and if I’m trying something new, I have no problem being referred to as the guinea pig – it certainly sounds

better than their alternative where you’ve to “be the test tube” instead. In the same way, I don’t literally have to “pull my socks up” if I’m having a less than efficient day, to “pull someone’s leg” would likely end up in a fight rather than in fits of giggles at a good joke and my gymnastic skills are non-existent so if I was to be “on the ball”, I certainly would not be doing a good job.

PETA want us to feed the birds scones instead of throwing stones and to put berries in a basket instead of eggs. If bacon was on the shopping list and I decided to substitute it with bagels then I’m sure there would be a few choice words when I got home. We should apparently talk about there being “more than one way to peel a potato” rather than “more than one way to skin a cat”. A can of worms sounds like it may cause problems whereas you need a lesson in Greek mythology before understanding what Pandora’s box even is.

A language expert has said that a shift in our language is inevitable as concerns about animal welfare and climate change increase. As a non-expert, I disagree. There isn’t a shred of evidence to show that animal-centric idioms have increased harm towards animals.

Similarly, there’s no evidence to show idiom language encouraging fighting amongst humans. It’s still fine to try and “teach granny to suck eggs”, to tell someone to “break a leg” and to “add insult to injury” though so at least we don’t have to worry about that.

There are enough battles to fight without inventing some and more than enough things in the world that are blatantly offensive without having to create a whole new class of wrongdoing. Sorry PETA but I really think that you’re barking up the wrong tree with this. It’s better to just let sleeping dogs lie.