Road Apples
Sept. 28, 2009

More metaphors, just phor phun

By Tim Sanders

I enjoy similes and metaphors because I suffered a brain injury as a youngster. My mother hit me above my left eye with a Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, trying to kill a fly. For several hours afterward she and Dad discussed my condition. “That’s quite a goose-egg the boy has there!” Dad said. Mom argued that it was more like a duck’s egg, considering the size and color. Then Mom saw a chance for a grammar lesson, and said to me: “Your Dad just used a metaphor, which involves calling a thing something it really isn’t but might possibly resemble. Now can you tell me what I used?” I told her I believed it was a dictionary. She admitted to that, but explained that she’d also used a simile, which was like a metaphor, only with “like” or “as” added. I learned a valuable life lesson, and those words were planted deep in the furrowed fields of my mind. To this day they stand there like imposing corn stalks, all tasseled out. I often hear them swaying back and forth in my cranium, murmuring: “metaphor,” “simile,” and of course “DUCK!”

At any rate, here are some metaphors and similes used by regular, everyday folks who never swatted flies with dictionaries, but probably would’ve if they’d thought of it. According to author and grammarian Richard Lederer, the first one was uttered by Lou Brock, former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder:

“I always felt I was a guy who had the ability to light the spark of enthusiasm which unlocked the hidden geysers of adrenalin that caused one to play at the summit of his ability.”

Here are more, used by students, journalists, pundits, and others who have way too much time on their hands:


He could feel Annie’s cold eyes burning two holes in the back of his head. “Norman,” she said, “that thundering noise you hear behind you is all your cows coming home to roost!”

“Listen here, Donald,” he said as he approached the Xerox machine, “it’s time for you to fish or cut cheese!”

Their romantic interludes had lately been far, and few between.

While urination had previously been a slow, tedious process for Grandpa, after prostate surgery he could pee on a dime.

The fight in the kitchen may have been messy, but Lucinda came out of it smelling like a roast.

Everett moved to rural Kansas in 1922, and bought the farm in 1936.

Jess Willard had always claimed he could whip Jack Johnson with both eyes blindfolded behind his back.

Diane and Martin loved sitting on the beach, watching the sunrise go down between their legs.

When Dexter heard of Marina’s plans, he never blinked an ear.

Since the President already had a full plate, his senior advisor decided not to open that can of worms.

When Jim listened, he smelled something that looked suspiciously like a rat.

Gloria was an open book, and Raymond’s eyes darted furtively from her table of contents to her appendix.

For a moment her face was on the tip of his tongue, and then it was blank.
That was the day that Carl and Erma bit the farm.

Every nerve in Andrea’s body was alive, and she could barely contain herself, like a cow on a hot tin roof.

Vice President Biden admitted that the ship of state was flying down an uncharted road.

When Ponce de Leon’s eyes first set foot in Florida, he told his men he could taste the gold and treasure there.

She grew on him like E.coli on an uncooked Quarter Pounder.

“Oh Jerome, take me!” she gasped, her breasts heaving like a drunken sailor who’d just eaten two platters of bad clams.

Florence Foster Jenkins may have lacked a true operatic voice, but after her performances there was seldom a dry seat in the house.


And although versions of this one have been around for several years, it is still worth repeating:


Long separated by cruel fate, the two star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:35 p.m. traveling at 50 mph, the other from St. Louis at 4:40 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.


If metaphors are the shingles that cover the huge, bustling warehouse which is our language, and keep it from leaking, then similes are the roofing nails. Or at least they’re a lot like roofing nails, only maybe not as flat-headed. Okay, so maybe similes are more like window putty, and metaphors are the windows, which let the reader look inside that warehouse and know what we’d really like to say if we could only figure out which shelf we’d left the right words on.

I’ve got to stop now. I feel one of my old dictionary headaches coming on.