OT 'How Not to Write Metaphors' The Press has been outdone.

[TonyHiggins]

These are from a British site: http://www.schoolzone.co.uk/students/exams/metaphor.htm
(Not quite Shakespearian)

These are (allegedly) metaphors from actual GCSE essays:

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a tumble dryer.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hotgrease.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left York at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55mph, the other from Peterborough at 4:19 p.m.at a speed of 35mph.

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the full stop after the Dr.on a Dr Pepper can.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon.

Even in his last years, Grandpa had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

The door had been forced, as forced as the dialogue during the interview portionof Family Fortunes.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The plan was simple, like my brother Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

"Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a student on 31p-a-pint night.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from "I Can'tBelieve It's Not Butter."

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.

The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Glenda Jackson MP in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Robin Cook MP, Leader of the House ofCommons, in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the suspension of Keith Vaz MP.


The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behindher, like a dog at a lamp post.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free cashpoint.

The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.

It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a dustcart reversing.

She was as easy as the Daily Star crossword.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature British beef.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

[emmline]

Made me giggle like a baby just before it spews back a spoonful of globby orange strained peaches.

[mcbob]

Those are as funny as something really funny...

[Steven]

I've seen many of those circulated before as being from American schoolkids. For instance, the trains were coming from New York (instead of York) and, I believe, Pittsburgh.

Whatever the country of origin, though, they're pretty funny, even more so if they actually came from kids' papers.


Steven

[burnsbyrne]

Those were great. Some of them would go well in a Spenser book. However, let me be the first to remark that although the title claims that the quotes are metaphors they are, in actuality, similes. But funny nonetheless.
Mike

[Jerry Freeman]

My friend, Marc Halberstadt, is a ne'er-do-well standup comedian, as good as many on prime time. However, being unsuccessful and misunderstood is part of his shtick, so you'll probably never see him on the air.

He has a spoof, analogy writing for hire business called ...

AA Analogy Service
(We know what it's like.)

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Bloomfield]

There isn't really anything wrong with most of those metaphors, I think. They are strange and over-the-top, but they aren't broken or mixed, like "When he understood the root of her troubles, it flew in the face of all he had previously clung to". The metaphors here are consistent: "Even in his last years, Grandpa had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut." He/she sticks to the image, not saying something like "Even in his last years, Grandpa had a mind like a steel trap, only one whose bark was worse than its bite. "


I agree that some of them are too clever to are likely schoolkid blunders:

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

is brilliant, imho. And these are pretty smart, too:

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature British beef.

Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

[vomitbunny]

That's about as funny as one of those funny web sites that everyone passes back and forth and laughs about. I'm sure it will be passed around like Michel Jackson in a federal prison.

[Nanohedron]

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre.

I'll use that (converted to 2nd person and for color, of course) when chatting up my next amour.

[IDAwHOa]

McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup.

The visual should give you nightmares, but I just laughed in spite of the horror envisioned.

OUCH!

[EricWingler]

This one sounds like something Douglas Adams would write:
"The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
bowling ball wouldn't."

[Zubivka]

Some of these belong to the first chapter of a Dashiell Hammett novel.
I wished I had signed a couple of them.

Mixing metaphors is like the art of the saucemaker: the forbidden ingredient may produce The Gustative Miracle. Or Disgustative--same thing in negative.

I wrote--and cooked--even worse but some, I'm still proud of it

[Steven]

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre.

I'll use that (converted to 2nd person and for color, of course) when chatting up my next amour.

Better make sure she has brown eyes (or you adjust the metaphor appropriately)! Otherwise, big trouble mister!!

And good luck.


Steven

[vomitbunny]

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre.

I'll use that (converted to 2nd person and for color, of course) when chatting up my next amour.

Better make sure she has brown eyes (or you adjust the metaphor appropriately)! Otherwise, big trouble mister!!

And good luck.


Steven

Uh, "her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre, except her eyes were blue"? Would that suffice?

[vomitbunny]

Here's one from the south.
"Her butt was like two hogs in a tow sack fighting over an ear of corn."