Interesting Metaphors in English Essays

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JJ Cooper

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A friend sent me an email with some interesting metaphors/similes found in High School Essays.

JJ

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

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.

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

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

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

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

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.

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

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

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
"Sex in the City" comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

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

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

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

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

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law 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 Uni
student on $1-a-beer 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.

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

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

She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword

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

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

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P.S This was so funny I decided to dig out this purler I got once from a 15 year old student.

Mr. Sands really scared us. Like a dog who can't decide whether to lick his bum or scratch his fleas, the teacher moved erotically around the classroom.
 
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kdnxdr

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I wish there was a contest for the most hilarious thread in AW. I hurt so bad, like I laughed my insides out!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you soooooooooooo much for oxygenating my brain like it had been starved for eons and then sucked up the atmosphere!!!
 

JJ Cooper

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I think we should send it over to the Sudden Fiction Challenge. Less than 1000 words using as many of the metaphors/similes listed above as you can. What do you think?

JJ
 
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Novelhistorian

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Actually, I think you should share this with a couple of our colleagues who're feeling down in other threads. If this doesn't cheer them up, nothing will.
 

JJ Cooper

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Actually, I think you should share this with a couple of our colleagues who're feeling down in other threads. If this doesn't cheer them up, nothing will.

Yes. I wasn't sure where to start this thread. Is there some way of replicating it elsewhere? Do I need a mod to move it somewhere else?
:Shrug:

JJ

Thanks Lori
 
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swvaughn

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:roll:
There just isn't much more here to say! LOVE this!!!!

(the soup one... ewwwwwww! :D And for some reason, the 'whatever' one really gets me going!)

Thanks for posting this, JJ! Now I'm gonna have to try and top these. Ha!
 

Spiny Norman

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I've seen these.

A lot of them are brilliant and everyone knows it.

The bowling ball one sounds an awful lot like Douglas Adams' "The ships hung in the air much in the way that bricks don't," though.

The last few are sort of "meh," though - I don't recall them from the list I got. Maybe new ones?
 

KCH

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Spiny-- I agree. Most are brilliant. Which is why I don't believe for a minute these are really taken from H.S. essays. That's just the device to hang the collection on, and it works.

I've seen this list too and it always tickles me. It's been around awhile. As with all wonderful humor lists, there's always the recipient in the e-mail loop who just can't resist tinkering or topping. Those additions never measure up and stick out like a sore thumb.
 

The Grift

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I would love to use things like this in an actual novel. Semi-hijack: does anyone know of any published authors who do write like this? I would assume it would have to be first-person narrative...
 

Pagey's_Girl

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:ROFL:

Some of those sound like me being a smartypants...

And I don't think I'll ever be able to look at vegetable soup again without thinking that...
 

Spiny Norman

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I would love to use things like this in an actual novel. Semi-hijack: does anyone know of any published authors who do write like this? I would assume it would have to be first-person narrative...

Douglas Adams was fond of odd metaphors, like I mentioned. Here's a favorite:

"The two ships were now fused together, lurching about in the air like two ducks, one of which is trying to make a third duck inside the second duck, whilst the second duck is trying very hard to explain that it doesn't feel ready for a third duck right now, is uncertain that it would want any putative third duck to be made by this particular first duck anyway, and certainly not whilst it, the second duck, was busy flying."
 

akiwiguy

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They're all hilarious, but this one just kills me for some reason...

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

Soccer Mom

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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.

My favorite. I've seen these before, but love them anyway. Miss Snark had a link to them at one time, only there were a LOT more.
 

Will Lavender

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Spiny-- I agree. Most are brilliant. Which is why I don't believe for a minute these are really taken from H.S. essays. That's just the device to hang the collection on, and it works.

I've always been suspicious of the "high school essay" tag. I don't believe it, either.

They are, however, hilarious. Reminds me of Jack Handy's stuff, which is always great. (Handy, along with Ian Frazier and a few others, contributes to the absolutely brilliant "Shouts and Murmurs" column in The New Yorker.)
 

CatSlave

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I've always been suspicious of the "high school essay" tag. I don't believe it, either.

They are, however, hilarious. Reminds me of Jack Handy's stuff, which is always great. (Handy, along with Ian Frazier and a few others, contributes to the absolutely brilliant "Shouts and Murmurs" column in The New Yorker.)
I think they are gleaned from the Bulwer-Lytton annual bad writing contest.
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

"Her eyes glistened like two pools of urine in the moonlight."
 
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