Metaphors and Analogies

The Wonders of Language:

Metaphors and Analogies Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. 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. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. 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 PM. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 PM at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

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

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. 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.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for awhile.

22. 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.

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

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

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

Fermata

Hold.
The fermata means to hold.
I stand here waiting,
holding, for the symphony to begin.

The beautiful chords right now
are only in a minor key.

What if the director never brings
me in to play my full part in the
symphony?

I hold, I hold on.
I do not want to sing a solo
My song is a duet.

Was this silence I feel written in
the music on purpose?
Or have I missed my cue?

Fermata.

No more childish tunes.

I stand in suspense,
arms outstretched,
waiting.

I do not like these callous chords
and poignant pauses.

The fantasy eludes me.

Where is the crescendo?

The weight of the song is heavy.

The song and my arms are empty.

~Emilie

Hmm...

I don't know what to write about. I decided to write and see if I could think of something. Nothing has come. Hmm.. Finals are coming. Moving out of my apartment needs to happen soon. A little bit o' stress going on at the moment. Life will work out. It always does. :)

What's in a name?

Stanley Morris: From the Rocky Meadow, dark skinned

Cristie Beth: Christ-bearer, pure

David Stanley: Beloved One, From the Rocky Meadow

Joel Daniel: God is willing, My judge is the Lord

Joshua Adam: Jehovah saves, earth, created by God

Stephen Michael: crown, who is like God

Matthew Aaron: God's gift, shining light

Emilie Anne: Ambitious or industrious, gracious

Caitlin Beth: Pure, house of God

Nathaniel Joseph: Gift of God, God will increase

Mine, Yours, or God's?

"I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours, and God's. (anything that is out of my control, your control and everyone else's control, I call that God's business) Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our own business. When I think, "You need to get a job, you need to take better care of yourself," I am in your business. When I am worried about earthquakes, floods, war, or when I will die, I am in God's business. If I am mentally in your business or in God's business, the effect is separation. When I mentally went into my mother's business, for example, with a thought like "My mother should understand me" I immediately experienced a feeling of loneliness. And I realized that every time in my life that I had felt hurt or lonely, I had been in someone else's business. If you are living your life, and I am mentally living your life, who is here living mine? Being mentally in your business keeps me from being present in my own. To think that I know what's best for anyone else is to be out of my business. Even in the name of love, it is pure arrogance, and the result is tension, anxiety, and fear. Do I know what's right for ME? That is my only business. Let me work through that before I try to solve your problems for you."

~"Loving What Is"