Sunday, July 16, 2006

World's Worst Analogies

Okay, so this isn't exactly original, but the tank still hasn't filled up yet. An anonymous friend sent me these analogies, which are floating around the internet. They are attributed to The Washington Post Style section, but I don't know if they actually came from there. They did make me laugh like a chicken would laugh if it had a sense of humor.

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. 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.

6 comments:

Penrick said...

They probably graduated like an idiot walking down the aisle to celebrate failure.

rdl said...

Wow!! my favs: 3,5,17 &24

Anonymous said...

I just hope that the image of the ballerina at the fire hydrant doesn't pop up in the middle of the next ballet I attend! Hilarious visual images.

Anonymous said...

I just hope that the image of the ballerina at the fire hydrant DOES pop up in the middle of the next ballet I attend! Hilarious visual images.

Anonymous said...

A strange metaphor from _Schlepping through the Alps: My Search for Austria's Jewish Past with Its Last Wandering Shepherd_, the first book by a young journalist obsessed with finding a girlfriend, on page 22: "When I disembarked and retrieved my backpack from the luggage carousel, I found that the top was covered in a strange semenlike substance. While I'm fairly certain it was not semen, the thought that one of the airport baggage people had ejaculated on my backpack put a bad taste in my mouth..."

Money spent on a good editor is never wasted!

Anonymous said...

So, then, it's actually not a good idea to lick your luggage?