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The phrase very like a whale is used of something that is very improbable.
This phrase occurs, for example, in the following from the Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia, USA) of Monday 22nd September 2003 [page A14, column 1]:
For the literary world, these have been the best of times and the worst of times. Fourscore and seven years ago, give or take a few centuries, Shakespeare and Molière * wrote plays. Or so it has been said. A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. And this business about Shakespeare and Molière writing their own plays might have been a whale of a lie. Aye, very like a whale.
Two scholars have come forth to say Molière did not write the plays ascribed to him—Corneille, author of Le Cid, actually wrote them—and Shakespeare collaborated with other authors more than previously thought.
* The reference is to the French playwright Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin – 1622-1673).
The phrase very like a whale alludes to the following passage from The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke (London: Printed by James Roberts for Nicholas Ling, 1605), by the English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) [Act 3, scene 2, lines 2247 to 2253]; in this passage, Hamlet points out a cloud to Polonius and compares its shape, successively, to that of a camel, to that of a weasel and to that of a whale—with Polonius agreeing to each of the comparisons:
Ham. Do you see yonder clowd that’s almost in shape of a Camel?
Pol. By’th masse and tis, like a Camell indeed.
Ham. Mee thinks it is like a Wezell.
Pol. It is backt like a Wezell.
Ham. Or like a Whale.
Pol. Very like a Whale.
Among the many texts referring to the above-quoted passage from Hamlet is the following unsigned letter to the Editor, published in The Aberdeen Journal (Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland) of Monday 9th November 1761 [page 178, column 2]:
I am sorry it can be said of too many of my countrymen, that shew them a cloud, and you may persuade them it is in the shape of a Camel, or like an Ouzle, or very like a Whale. They have eyes of their own, but they choose to see with those of another man.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences that I have found of the phrase very like a whale used of something that is very improbable:
1-: From an unsigned refutation of “the 17 Reasons for choosing Lawyers Assemblymen”, which had been published in The New-York Gazette; Or, The Weekly Post-Boy (New York City, New York, USA) of Monday 15th February 1768—refutation published in the Supplement to the New-York Journal, Or General Advertiser (New York City, New York, USA) of Saturday 20th February 1768 [page 1, column 1]:
Is there no one Instance, wherein any one Lawyer, in any one Assembly, hath ever betrayed the Interest of his Constituents? Have all of them ever prefer’d the Public Good to private Views?—Very like a Whale indeed!
2-: From Extract of a letter from Kildare, Monmouth county, April 9, 1778, published in The Pennsylvania Ledger: Or The Philadelphia Market-Day Advertiser (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) of Wednesday 22nd April 1778 [page 3, column 1]—in the text as printed in this newspaper, only the passage in brackets (which is a comment on the letter) is in italics:
“About 135 of the enemy landed […] at Shark river, and set fire to two small works, when they observed fifteen horsemen heave in sight, which occasioned them to retreat with great precipitation, indeed they jumped in their flat-bottomed boats in such confusion, that they sunk one or two of them. (Very like a whale! but gasconading is the country-fashion.) One of their pilots was the noted Thomas Oakeson. The enemy consisted chiefly of Greens, the rest Highlanders.”
3-: From The Public Register, Or, Freeman’s Journal (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Thursday 6th September 1781 [page 2, column 3]:
It is now the general opinion that it was sixty-six whales, and not sixty-six ships of the line, which were seen at the mouth of the channel; and it is generally believed that Lieut. Grampus, who arrived yesterday express in the Thames, was dispatched with the news. Indeed the First Lord of the Admiralty had clearly a suspicion of what the account would turn out, for when it was first mentioned to his Lordship, he shrugged up his shoulders, and exclained [sic] “Very like a whale.”
4-: From The Public Register, Or, Freeman’s Journal (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Saturday 6th January 1798 [page 3, column 4]:
The seditious prints contain a curious account of floating islands and castles in the air, preparing by the pedagogue Monge, for the attack of England—how “very like a whale!”
