How's That? (Really bad analagies)

During a discussion of Emerson yesterday in Kristen's online literature class, the topic of what makes a good or bad analogy came up. Kris's teacher gave the class a list of some excruciatingly bad anaolgies that were compiled by Dr. Bridwell, the former head of the Potter's School English department. (Dr. B. taught English classes for years in many settings from traditional schools to colleges, so I'm hoping these examples may have come from her long years of experience and not from her TPS students!) Enjoy!

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.

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who meant to accessT:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gotT:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 hot grease.

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."

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 55mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

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

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

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

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

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'm as eager to share these with my class as a student who wants to win the Speech Meet and doesn't really mind standing on stage in front of an audience.

Thanks for a hearty laugh!

Popular Posts