Hunting and game

Hunting German hides in plain sight in everyday speech, and the clearest case on this list is jemandem durch die Lappen gehen, to slip through someone’s fingers. Die Lappen are rags, and in older hunting they were strips of cloth hung on lines round a stretch of woodland: game shied away from the fluttering cloth and stayed inside the ring, so an animal that broke through the Lappen had got away. Few people who use the phrase have ever seen such a line, yet a contract, a bargain or a suspect still geht einem durch die Lappen — always with the dative of whoever is left empty-handed. The rest of the list is the trade as it is practised now, and most of its words are about keeping numbers in balance rather than about the kill: der Abschussplan, die Schonzeit, der Verbiss, die Wilddichte.