Pilot Fish - Etymology and Metaphors

Etymology and Metaphors

There are a few possible, conflicting etymologies for the term "pilot fish". One is that seafaring people believed that pilot fish, which would appear around the bow of their ships when they were close to land, were leading (or piloting) them back to port. An alternative etymology is that pilot fish were once, erroneously, thought to be piloting sharks to food, or even (as legends have it) piloting ships, whales and swimmers to safety.

In this latter sense, the pilot fish is sometimes used as a metaphor or simile; "they are like the pilot fish to the shark, serving to lead him to his victim". In a vaguely similar vein, Ernest Hemingway uses the term "pilot fish" in his memoirs (A Moveable Feast) to refer to the scouts that rich people send out to check on artists to see if they are the next big thing. Pilot fish are also used as a metaphor or simile for scavengers or looters which accompany a greater threat; in this sense, the term "pilot fish" was applied to a group of extraterrestrial robots that heralded the imminent appearance of a much greater threat (the "shark") in The Christmas Invasion, the 2005 Christmas Special of the BBC television show Doctor Who.