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BridgeTheGap Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 11:41 AM
Original message
Metaphors be with you
Every year, English teachers from across the country submit their collections of actual similes 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. 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.
14. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
15. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
16. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
17. 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.
18. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
19. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
20. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
21. 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.
22. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
23. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
24. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

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MorningGlow Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 11:52 AM
Response to Original message
1. You know...
Edited on Wed Sep-05-07 12:03 PM by MorningGlow
speaking as a former English teacher, I've gotta say that some of these are downright clever, not stupid. (Unless the piece was serious--then the funny ones would stick out like a sore thumb, of course.)

I mean, come on: "He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River"? That's great! And "The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't" is a Douglas Adams ripoff, and he's definitely not a lousy writer.

I say :thumbsup: to some of these. The other ones...meh. Par for the course. Just ask any English teacher...!

On edit: A former English teacher should have better grammar! D'oh!
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skygazer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 11:55 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Yeah, I particularly like this one -
The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
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lost-in-nj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 11:59 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. I agree
I'm not an English teacher but some of these are great..
Alot of imagination used in some of them.....

lost
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ashling Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 01:37 PM
Response to Reply #1
6. HI, MG!
How's that smilie working for ya? . . . or should I say, "similie," given the topic of this thread.
:rofl:

I love the one about her limited vocabulary was like, whatever. That was pretty cute.

the person who wrote about the trains had obviously just come from Pre-Algebra.

:rofl:
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MorningGlow Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 04:55 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. Hey Ashling!
That smiley was just coveted today by a friend of mine (also a witch)! "WHERE did you GET that?!" She might steal it as well...I have a feeling...!

I LOVE the algebra one. Sounds like a disgruntled math victim to me! (And it takes one to know one!)
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ashling Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 10:00 PM
Response to Reply #9
12. you mean it was covented
get it, c-o-v-e-n-t-e-d? Sometimes I just crack myself up. I know, I am easily amused.
:rofl:
heres the link to the site where I got it.
http://www.snitchseeker.com
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MorningGlow Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 10:29 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. ...
:spank: :rofl:
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huskerlaw Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 12:01 PM
Response to Original message
4. ...
:rofl:

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triguy46 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 01:36 PM
Response to Original message
5. Your post was like a breath of fresh air
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Deep13 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 01:51 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. Not the metaphorical kind of fresh air either.... nt
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Reciprocity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 01:49 PM
Response to Original message
7. I love them! Here are a few more....
He was as tall as a six foot three inch tree.

Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night.

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

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.

Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.
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tigereye Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 05:02 PM
Response to Original message
10. there are a few there that aren't that bad
but yes, most of those are horrible.


They should all read some Kingsolver, Updike, Kiran Desai, etc.


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WinkyDink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-05-07 05:45 PM
Response to Original message
11. I got an "It's a doggy dog world" once.
Edited on Wed Sep-05-07 05:49 PM by WinkyDink
#6, 11, 13, and 16 are BRILLIANT!
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