Orwell's Animal Farm - is it's title a common expression?

I'd like to ask you a question about this book's title. It was translated into my native language several times and naturally each edition had a different title, though the meaning certainly remained the same. Now I have a few questions about the original title itself.

1.Is "animal farm" a collocation, like cattle farm or cattle-ranch? Or was this combination of words "cooked" by Orwell himself?

2.Are those two words unmistakably referring us to the Orwell's work or if somebody (imagine!) had never heard about it he could've thought that it's just some farm we're talking about? In other words, wouldn't "animal farm" sound a bit odd for this poor ignorant?

3.Does the term "Animal farm" have some shades of meaning (old fashioned, for example), or is it emphatically neutral?

Thanks in advance

Wikipedia has an article on "Animal Farm" which pretty much explains how the novel got its name. It says within that it is "...about a group of animals who oust the humans from the farm they live on and run it themselves..."

Please see more below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_farm

For better or for worse, it is not unusual for titles to get changed partially or totally when they get translated from one language to another. For example, there is a Turkish novel by called by Yaşar Kemal called "İnce Memed" (Literally "Slim Mehmed") but its English translation is "Memed, My Hawk ". The French translation of the title "Mehmed le Mince" is faithful to the Turkish original. Perhaps the American publisher of the book did not think the book would sell very well if it was called "Slim Mehmed."

Thank you, Brennus for quick response, but for some reason I'd like to know some specifically linguistic details that can't be found in Wikipedia. So can you answer, let's say, my first and second questions?
1. Is "animal farm" a collocation, like cattle farm or cattle-ranch? Or was this combination of words "cooked" by Orwell himself? I myself actually never seen this set of words anywhere but here, but I might be mistaken.

2.Are those two words unmistakably referring us to the Orwell's work or if somebody (imagine!) had never heard about it he could've thought it's just some farm we're talking about? In other words, wouldn't "animal farm" sound a bit odd in colloquial speech?

And thank you again for your reply.

It is not a common collocation at all. In fact there is not one appearance of that combination in the BNC, apart from in reference to the book:

1 BMD probably be a recording by George Orwell, author of 1984 and Animal Farm. George Orwell wrote for the BBC Overseas Service and made
2 BML George Orwell put these characteristics to imaginative use in his book Animal Farm, in which top pig Napoleon became the Stalin of the
3 CBC Lilliput, Wonderland, Oz, Middle Earth, Gormenghast, Animal Farm --; that are so vivid that, for a time,
4 CCV and Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. Orwell's political allegory Animal Farm and Stan Barstow's Joby add a more modern flavour.
5 CCV and counter-arguments about essential books in a core curriculum. If Animal Farm, why not 1984? And what about Dickens's Oliver
6 CH4 thought all children aged 16 should have read George Orwell's Animal Farm. This is the kind of remark on which the media
7 CKK Good Companions by J. B. Priestley Brighton Rock by Graham Greene Animal Farm by George Orwell It was a formidable list and by now Mrs
8 CKN the Matthew Kirtley Museum, the Country Park and the new Animal Farm being augmented by the presence of the Fat Controller, and
9 CKN , and in what Waugh in his letter of thanks for Animal Farm had called ingenious and delightful allegory. Strictly speaking Orwell's
10 CKN more equal than others", as the pigs decree in Animal Farm, symbolising the easy self&rehy;justifications of Leninists in taking and keeping
11 CKN like Rasselas, Waugh's Decline and Fall or Orwell's Animal Farm --; not to mention the fiction of Muriel Spark, which
12 CKN the two masterpieces they produced in 1945, Brideshead Revisited and Animal Farm. Respect was always guarded. Some months before his early
13 CKN anti&rehy;Stalinist fable that needs to be pondered. The copy of Animal Farm Waugh read in the summer of 1945 to spite his communist
14 CKN new preface and expunge by revision. He had already admired Animal Farm which, as he tells in his diary (31 August
15 CKN by being cast, at times, into argumentative fictions like Animal Farm (1945), though its true forte was the article
16 EWA much have respected. That convergence is the concluding point of Animal Farm, which ends on a sudden vision of a resemblance,
17 G33 and bake; and it is part of the style of Animal Farm that it contains many occurrences of pigs, farm, and
18 H83 it was the pigs who led the rebellion in Orwell's Animal Farm. On the smaller Indonesian islands, where people are afraid
19 H83 of the four most popular titles, with the exception of Animal Farm, the writer completed a checklist for each of the remaining
20 H83 a Knave Lingard, J. Across the Barricades Orwell, G. Animal Farm Steinbeck, J. The Red Pony Westall, R. The Machine
21 H83 special features which might be well illustrated by a reading of Animal Farm. Since The Machine Gunners found the biggest audience, it
22 K57 was an inappropriate means of analysis for a satirical fable such as Animal Farm.) As can be seen from the summary in appendix
23 K57 stamina to remain interested in the final turns. Joseph Farrell ANIMAL FARM THE TRON, GLASGOW IF, instead of the devious and callous
24 KB6 their right to lead? And how come the reader of Animal Farm accepts that they accept it? The answer must be hope
25 KCE year when our Adam started school. Yeah. Seemed like animal farm up here at one time, didn't it? Yeah
26 KCU not very good at English, like when they were doing Animal Farm, I had to explain that it was a parody of
27 KCU Jungle Burger? Was it Jungle Burger with a What is Animal Farm like? Everyone keeps going on about the Animal Farm Here
28 KCU is Animal Farm like? Everyone keeps going on about the Animal Farm Here are then Phil are you ready? You Jane,

http://view.byu.edu/

The novel is a satire about the Russian Revolution and its aftermath only animals are beng used as substitutes (or caricatures) for various human beings who were prominent in Stalinist Russia. Dictionary Dot.Com defines "satire" as : "A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit." "Animal" in English can also mean a person who behaves in a brutal or bestial manner. "Farm" in this sense is a euphamism for "country" --- the country of Russia; The Soviet Union etc. This explains its linguistic derivation, I think.

George Orwell (real name Eric Blair 1903- 1950) was a former communist sympathizer who later turned against Communism after witnessing Stalin's brutalities. He was not alone. For example, former ABC News anchorman Howard K. Smith (1914 - 2002), like Orwell, was originally a parlor pink who sympathized with communism as a college student but abandoned Communism after seeing how brutal the Stalin government in Russia really was.

Thank you, Brennus and M56. It definitely helps.

Nothing much to be added to what's been said about Animal Farm and George Orwell. Animal Farm and 1984 are his two best known works.

Oh...I also found out that Animal Farm is, or was, the name of a kids' TV program here in Britland....all the kiddy winkies frolicking about among cute white woolly wee lambs and moo cows ready for milking and pretty pink curly tailed piggies ready to be bundled off to market to be turned into tomorrow's middle cut brekkie rashers and all that stuff.

So, "animal farm" might not necessarily bear this brutal connotation? (Brennus: "Animal" in English can also mean a person who behaves in a brutal or bestial manner"). Since a kids' TV program was named so.

J,

Re: "Thank you, Brennus and M56. It definitely helps. "

You're welcome. I'm Glad that I could be of help. However you might want to wait for other comments.