"...as shots are wont to do"

[cleolinda]

I saw something about "bad high school student metaphors" on metaquotes and thought of an email I'd posted on my blog back in September:

All right, I can't vouch for the authenticity of these "high school essay" excerpts--I'm suspicious if only because the comedy is so masterful. So here you are anyway (thanks, Vicki M):

Subject: essay excerpts

Actual Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays:

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.

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

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, Grandpappy 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 a while.

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

23. 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.

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

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

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

27. She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.

28. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

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

30. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.


ETA: AHHHH! Now I know why the eclipse one sounded familiar! Here's the original metaquotes entry. Apparently some comedian on Comedy Central has used at least one of these as well.

Comments

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

But the thing is, I'd consider a lot of those to be GOOD in that they're creative and effective.

Heh.

Maybe I need to eat lunch....

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I think they're awesome if you're trying to be funny. (Which is why I think they're not really the work of hapless high school students--I can't think of any assignments in which you'd ever need to use "She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword," which is AWESOME.)

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not sure if the compilers of the list thought they were bad or funny, assuming they're made up to begin with. Maybe it was an excuse for someone to write a list of silly analogies. I mean "I'm going to write myself a list of silly analogies" is much more pointless than "Here's a list I compiled of bad analogies written by high schoolers."

YES I do need to eat lunch!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Either way? I am gonna steal me some of these, man. :D

[fba.livejournal.com]

Some of them are very funny - though I'm sensing maybe that PG Wodehouse, Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett have had an influence on the American understanding of metaphor - which IMO can only be a good thing!

That's odd.

[(Anonymous)]

I printed this out when I found it somewhere months ago, and just found the printout again two days ago. Coincidence.

[malenky-devil.livejournal.com]

She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.

BWAH! Hilarious. I happen to be a high school student and am somewhat miffed I never corrected an essay with such an analogy. Maybe lucky for them being that I would have laughed out loud, and that'd be mean >:)