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Reader question: In this sentence - She took the bull by the horns and was very aggressive - what does “take the bull by the horns” mean? My comments: Obviously it means she was very aggressive. That much is certain. If you have ever watched bullfighting, one of the most popular as well as controversial pastimes in Spain, you’ll see that bullfighters, or matadors, never take bulls by the horns. That says a lot about the sport, I am afraid, in which matadors are usually honored as brave and courageous. They’re nothing of the kind. Just dirty, tricky and mean, if you see the bloody sport from the view of the bulls. You see, a matador uses a piece of red cloth to trick the animal into lunging forward at the piece of red and as the animal passes the matador by, the latter pulls out a sward-like thin blade and knifes the raging bull on top of the back, aiming the blade at the heart and lungs underneath. Again and again. Matadors never, ever, take the bull by the horns. Dare not. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that they should (take the bull by the horns). I’m just saying conventional ideas often rest on questionable premises. Bullfighting is simply not a fair sport. And therefore it would be very difficult for unbiased third parties, say, someone flying over Earth from the Mars, to accept that matadors are brave and courageous as we humans sometimes do accept them as such. In all likelihood, those from the Mars would probably consider the bulls to be braver and more courageous, foolhardy too to be sure, than any of the two legged earthlings involved. | 
