Worst analogies ever written in a high school essay

jst5150 · Dec 9, 2005

Just think -- these are future members of the "AbsoluteWrite" board family!

The link is here. Snippet is below.

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.
Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring
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 p.m. instead of 7:30.
Roy Ashley, Washington

Celia Cyanide · Dec 9, 2005

I had been lwondering where that list was!! Thank you!

trumancoyote · Dec 9, 2005

I find that first simile to be rather descriptive, actually. Being morbid as **** aside, it captures the image of a man splatting against the ground pretty damn well.

Shadow_Ferret · Dec 9, 2005

OH, I love this one!

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
Chuck Smith, Woodbridge

Celia Cyanide · Dec 9, 2005

trumancoyote said:
I find that first simile to be rather descriptive, actually. Being morbid as **** aside, it captures the image of a man splatting against the ground pretty damn well.

Maybe to you, but for those of us who have never filled up a garbage bag with vegetable soup and dropped it from a 12th story window, we aren't sure what that looks like.

Annabella · Dec 9, 2005

That was really funny and...sad.
I found this one:

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

really funny.

trumancoyote · Dec 9, 2005

Celia Cyanide said:
Maybe to you, but for those of us who have never filled up a garbage bag with vegetable soup and dropped it from a 12th story window, we aren't sure what that looks like.

Is the experience necessary to imagine what it looks like? I imagine the bag ripping open with chunks spewing out in all directions, forming in a pool around the bag (the man's corpse).

If every metaphor was designed to tie an incident to one directly experienced by the reader -- well, that would be impossible. And it wouldn't encourage flights of fancy.

Besides, you really should try it. It's good fun.

Celia Cyanide · Dec 9, 2005

trumancoyote said:
Is the experience necessary to imagine what it looks like? I imagine the bag ripping open with chunks spewing out in all directions, forming in a pool around the bag (the man's corpse)

If every metaphor was designed to tie an incident to one directly experienced by the reader -- well, that would be impossible. And it wouldn't encourage flights of fancy.)

I think so too, but what is awkward, to me, is the fact that the writer is comparing two experiences that most people have never had or observed. The idea of vegetable soup in a garbage bag is actually more foreign and obscure to me than falling from a window and hitting the ground. Consider this:

When Josie shot Special Agent Cooper, it was as if she had stabbed him in the spleen with a knitting needle.

I agree that the metaphor doesn't have to be something everybody has experienced. But the purpose of a metaphor is to help express and idea. How do you explain what something is like by comparing it to something even less familiar to people? If falling from the 12th story window were something that most people had seen or done, it might work for me.

trumancoyote said:
Besides, you really should try it. It's good fun.

I'll stick to whip-cream filled garbage bags, thank you very much.

Perks · Dec 9, 2005

trumancoyote said:
I find that first simile to be rather descriptive, actually. Being morbid as **** aside, it captures the image of a man splatting against the ground pretty damn well.

I'm with you. That one's great! It's almost worthy of plagiary.

Sage · Dec 9, 2005

Wow... That's all I have to say about that.

Optimus · Dec 9, 2005

Worst?

Dude, those are, like, some of the best I've ever seen, or something.

writerterri · Dec 9, 2005

Okay, I guess I'll confess that I'm the "Unknown" arther or like, whatever. Okay? Okay. *rolling eyes* Ch, whatever, you know? It's like, GOSH! Get over it! It's not like I'm a loser. I got, like a, uh, D minus on the essay. Geek.....

WVWriterGirl · Dec 9, 2005

"Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like 'Second Tall Man'."
Russell Beland, Springfield

I like this one *grin*. It's almost good.

reph · Dec 9, 2005

The soup-in-Hefty-bag image works for me. It paints a vivid sound picture, if that makes any sense, of a giant *SPLAT!* I don't know how apt it is. Would a body hitting the ground sound like that?

Celia Cyanide · Dec 10, 2005

WVWriterGirl said:
I like this one *grin*. It's almost good.

Yeah, I think so, too. It's not really the analogy itself, it's just the way it's expressed. I can understand what he's trying to say. It just needs a little tweaking.

This one is funny:

"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."

I like this because it sounds like a writer who got an idea for a story he really liked about a guy who went blind looking at a solar eclipse, and then got the assignment and realized it didn't fit, but just had to work the guy who went blind looking at a solar eclipse into the story somehow.

blacbird · Dec 10, 2005

It's not an analogy (and not from high school, either, although only slightly removed), but I once graded a freshman college term paper on the subject of the Sahara Desert, which was a classic of unintended hilarity. Once sentence in particular has stuck in my mind to this day:

"Vegetation is scarce, due to the lack of plants."

caw.

aghast · Dec 10, 2005

I also like hefty-bag with soup especially tomato based. Of course, the tone of the piece is a bit comical I think. It would not work in a literary fiction.I like this one too: The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon. Ther eis something very childlike and endearing about it.

PeeDee · Dec 10, 2005

trumancoyote said:
Is the experience necessary to imagine what it looks like? I imagine the bag ripping open with chunks spewing out in all directions, forming in a pool around the bag (the man's corpse).

If every metaphor was designed to tie an incident to one directly experienced by the reader -- well, that would be impossible. And it wouldn't encourage flights of fancy.

Besides, you really should try it. It's good fun.

*sighs*

Well, my bowl of Cambell's Beefy Vegetable Soup....we shall perhaps meet another day. Today, I have no appetite.....

PeeDee · Dec 10, 2005

....I expected these to just be horrifically bad lines. Most of them are actually very clever. Douglas Adams would've used these. Terry Pratchett could use these. *I* certainly would love to use these.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
Russell Beland, Springfield

Maryn · Dec 10, 2005

This list has been drifting around online for a long time. I have a version of it (sans names) dated more than six years ago.

Its authenticity has been called into question. Note that it's "Based on an unoriginal article in the Washington Post"--somebody there got the email, too. I tend to think it probably isn't real, mainly because virtually all high school students in suburban schools produce a school-related google hit. I didn't knock myself out checking, but the three I tried didn't--only copies of this article and news items regarding same-named people too old to have been high school students in the last 20 years.

Which makes it no less funny, but to me it's not as good if somebody wrote these deliberately.

Maryn, who should get back to work

Carole · Dec 10, 2005

The hefty bag thing works for me, too. *SPLAT!*

I understand, however, that some people actually do have less creative visualization ability than others. I honestly didn't realize that until hubby and I were choosing drapery fabric for our apartment. All I had to do was see the fabric and I knew how it would look (as drapes). He just couldn't see it until he could literally *see* it.

robeiae · Dec 10, 2005

From Seinfeld:

The sea was angry that day, my friends...like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli. --George

Rob

Worst analogies ever written in a high school essay

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Touch and go