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The noun goldfish is used to characterise or to stereotype a person or a category of persons:
– as having limited intelligence—especially in the phrase to have the brains of a goldfish and variants;
– as being unable to retain information or memories for any significant length of time—especially in the phrase to have the memory of a goldfish and variants. (The allusion is to the widespread but spurious belief that the brain of a goldfish retains information for only a few seconds.)
—Cf. also the phrase a memory like a sieve.
1-: Association of the noun brains with the noun goldfish before the phrase to have the brains of a goldfish first appeared:
A United-Press story that was published in many U.S. newspapers on Monday 31st January 1916 may have popularised the association of the noun brains with the noun goldfish—this story was published as follows, for example, in the Monroe News-Courier (Monroe, Michigan, USA) [page 3, column 4]:
GOLDFISH HAVE BRAINS—SCIENTIST
(United Press.)Marion, O., Jan. 31.—Edwin P. Haughton, local natural scientist, today informed the world that goldfish have brains. Haughton owns an aquarium of trained goldfish which he says he has educated from a naturally low mentality to a high state of intellectuality; thereby proving that goldfish have brains if one just takes the trouble to develop ’em. Haughton has trained his goldfish to answer the dinner bell. When he rings, the fish dart to the surface, their mouths wide open, for their daily feed. Haughton’s aquarium is made of concrete, 12 feet in diameter and several feet in depth. In the course of a long period of instruction, Haughton says, the fish were taught to come to the surface in summer and to a hole in the ice in winter, by the ringing of a tiny bell. This is one of many evidences of mentality that Haughton says the fishes show.
The following two paragraphs may refer to the above-quoted United-Press story:
1.1-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up the column Among Our Exchanges, published in the Franklin Evening News (Franklin, Pennsylvania, USA) of Thursday 20th April 1916 [page 4, column 4]:
Youngstown Telegram: If a goldfish had brains it would lead a miserable life.
1.2-: From the Appeal to Reason (Girard, Kansas, USA) of Saturday 20th May 1916 [page 2, column 6]:
A scientist claims that goldfish have brains. Well, the first thing we know a scientist will come along and say he has discovered a set of brains in the cranium of a workingman who votes an old party ticket.
The U.S. author of children’s stories Mary Graham Bonner (1890-1974) also associated the noun brains with the noun goldfish in the following from Daddy’s Evening Tale, published in The Macon Beacon (Macon, Mississippi, USA) of Friday 26th September 1919 [page 7, column 6]—the title of this story is The Goldfish:
“Our home, of course, is here, in this large bowl. We have nice gravel in it and some pretty plants, and every morning we get a little food. I know it is morning because I am hungry. That is fairly bright of me considering I am nothing but a goldfish. Of course a goldfish is bright in color but not in brains. No, not in brains.”
2-: Earliest occurrences of the phrase to have the brains of a goldfish and variants:
2.1-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up the column As You Like It, published in The Meriden Daily Journal (Meriden, Connecticut, USA) of Tuesday 20th January 1920 [page 4, column 8]:
That boy has more brains than a goldfish.
2.2-: From Killing No Murder, an editorial published in The Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) of Tuesday 18th July 1922 [page 10, column 1]:
Hasn’t there been a maudlin effort in this country, and perhaps some others, since the World War, to hold up murderers of a certain kind as heroes and heroines? And isn’t that bound to encourage wicked people to make Cain their exemplar? […] Jurors who think they are showing themselves soft-hearted, but who are really only showing themselves soft-headed, bring in verdicts of “Not guilty,” groups of courtroom loungers with the brains of goldfish wildly applaud.
2.3-: From Looking Like That, by ‘Mme. Qui Vive’, published in the Buffalo Evening News (Buffalo, New York, USA) of Tuesday 29th August 1922 [page 14, column 4]:
How often you will see a woman beautifully and wondrously attired, in the latest lala fashion. She has her hair hennaed, her eyelids blued, her lips made currant red, her nose, chin and forehead as white as tombstones and her cheeks to match the lips. And what thought flashes through your mind? That she hasn’t the brains of a goldfish. It may be that brains are not necessary in a woman’s simpering young life.
2.4-: From Married Life of Helen and Warren, by the U.S. author Mabel Herbert Urner (1881-1957), published in The Yonkers Herald (Yonkers, New York, USA) of Saturday 18th June 1927 [page 11, column 8]—the title of this story is Helen’s inflated vanity leads to the loss of their precious passport:
“Hereafter I hang on to this,” pocketing the passport. “First time I ever trusted you with it—and the last! Haven’t the brain of a goldfish,” he fumed on.
3-: Earliest occurrences of the phrase to have the memory of a goldfish and variants:
3.1-: From the column Assignment: America, by the U.S. journalist Phyllis Battelle (1922-2005), published in The Marion Chronicle (Marion, Indiana, USA) of Tuesday 9th September 1958 [page 6, column 6]:
Miami.—As everyone is constantly being advised by females: females are smarter than men.
Ask your mother, she’ll tell you. Don’t ask your wife, she will too.
But this theory is slightly misconceived, according to Adolph Frohn of Miami. Adolph says that females are indeed more curious, nosy and loud than males, but that whatever knowledge they pick up through these unlovable characteristics is quickly forgotten.
“In fact, compared with males, females have the memory of a goldfish,” Frohn says.
This tall and amiable expert on the relative intelligence of the sexes always makes his comparisons in terms of fish. This is […] mainly because he’s the nation’s foremost porpoise and sea lion trainer.
[…]
“We should really give up trying to educate females,” Adolph says, “they are not really good troupers.
“They learn fast, in a flamboyant, noisy sort of way, but they forget everything the minute they are emotionally upset.”
3.2-: From On the trail of the warbler, by Martin Wainwright, published in The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Saturday 13th June 1992 [page 25, column 3]—here, the phrase is used in reference to birds:
The birds’ usual acceptance of birdwatchers, even of hundreds of lenses pointing at them from close range, is put down by some to their “goldfish memory”—by the time they realise they are being watched, they have forgotten what they have realised.
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