Wednesday, January 31, 2007

I never metaphor I didn't like

Is there such a thing as a Pre-Script?

I forgot to mention that Debut Blaze author Lori Borrill will be guest blogging here tomorrow. Please help us give her a great big Playground welcome!




I'm not sure of the validity of this but it's funny all the same.

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.

These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country.

Here are last year's winners.....

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

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

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

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

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

8. 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 ATM machine.

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

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. Instead of 7:30.

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

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

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

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

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

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

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

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

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

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

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

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

I struggle sometimes with similes and metaphors. And I always appreciate a good one. But these... Ya gotta laugh.

Now's the fun part. I want everyone to make up a simile today. In case you've forgotten, a simile is a figure of speech in which the subject is compared to another subject. Frequently, similes are marked by use of the words like or as. For example, "It's as cold as a brass toilet seat today."

Today's best simile (selected by moi with no particular criteria in mind) will win a book thong. Make me laugh. Make me cry. Just make me feel better than I've felt for the past week with this horrid cold.

16 comments:

Jennifer Y. said...

He felt as if he had stepped in super glue and couldn't move when he entered his bedroom and spied the slumbering girl in his bed lying as still as a 'possum in the middle of the road that had been hit by a semi-truck.

Sorry...it is the southerner in me. Plus it is late and I am not very good. LOL

ReadingIsSoMuchFun said...

I still remember a few simile's that are very funny so here it goes. Hope this makes you feel better Playground Monitor.

Don’t tell Mom that her cookies taste like (lumps of sand).

I am so hungry I can eat a horse.

Will try to come up with more later.

Hugssss
Linda.H.

Anonymous said...

I love these! So funny. Here is one for you.

Her hair felt like silk on an ear of corn yet to be shucked. The color a warm golden underneath with brown showing at its tips.

Problem Child said...

How 'bout this...

It's as cold as a witch's left titty in a brass bra on Halloween.

I won't tell you where that one came from.

Katherine Bone said...

I could never get over the fact that my DH used these when we first met.

I'm as full as a tick.

It's coming a flood. (Known other places as 'It's raining cats and dogs'.)

Or, It's a gully-washer!

Oh, the south! Ya gotta love it.

Now for something entirely different.

I stood there, frustration mounting and felt like I was calling a deaf dog to come out of the woods in 30 degree weather.
(Personal experience with this one.)

Kathy

Andrea Laurence AKA Smarty Pants said...

His response to her question stunned her and her mouth refused to form the words in her throat as though she'd accepted a double-dog dare and frozen her tongue to the flagpole in the school yard.

Kira Sinclair - AKA Instigator said...

These were hilarious! I especially like #14, 2 subjects for the price of 1 :-)

Instigator

Angel said...

Hilarious!!!! Great laughs. And all those southern similes. We have our own special language in the south. Like "tump". I grew up on a farm where we said tump (as in to turn over a bucket, dump).

So here goes:

He tumped the bucket over, the muddy water pouring down the hill like manure in a barnyard flood.

As you might can imagine from the above farm reference, I too drew from personal experience for this one. If you've ever walked through a crowded barnyard after days of rain.... shudder.

Angel

Jennifer Y. said...

My grandmother used to say, "It's coming up a cloud!" meaning it is about to rain.

And my dad will occassionally say, "I am so hungry my stomach thinks my throat's been cut."

traveler said...

Solitude is like Spanish moss which finally suffocates the tree it hangs on.

Playground Monitor said...

Y'all are GOOD! I'm loving these and I can tell already it's going to be difficult to pick just one.

Keep 'em coming!

PM

principessa said...

Her hair was like gravy, running brown off her head and clumping on her shoulders.

ReadingIsSoMuchFun said...

Here goes a few more I remember *G*

As bald as a baby's backside.

As welcome as a skunk at a lawn party.

As gentle as a lamb As good as gold

Look at the moon in the winter sky, it is like a glowing ball
Floating in a sea of darkness.

Hugssss
Linda.H.

Anonymous said...

As the roller coaster took that first drop, she felt as green as snot draining from the nose of a baby with a nasty cold.

catslady said...

He was as delighted with the woman sprawled on the bed waiting for him like an ice cream sundae, dripping in gooey syrups and whipped cream is to a starving, overweight virgin.

ok someone had to get a little riske lol

Anonymous said...

This one is an old one from my high school days, but I never heard anyone else use it.

"Don't get your piles in a bundle."


Katonah1