Why Most English Teachers Retire Young

The following are a number of analogies, metaphors and similes found in high school student's exam papers. Although I suspect them to be somewhat tweaked, I am delighted to see the existence of a bit of wit in the great unwashed.

For those unfamiliar with the terminology, an analogy is a comparison based on a similarity between otherwise dissimilar things or concepts while a metaphor is a comparison made without the use of a grammatical conjunction like as, like or as if. A simile is a comparison made with the use of such words.

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 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. 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.
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. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
23. The ballerina raised 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.
26. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.
27. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
28. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall. 

Sources: 1, 2 Thanks to MHH

Post on the Occation of a Blog's First Anniversary

Today it is one year since this blog was started. It has come a long way. The first fumbling posts were, like the first inquisitive steps of an infant, an attempt to forge an identity and explore a new environment. The first posts were special in the sense that they were not targeted at any reader as such. The blog could not be found with search engines until the middle of February and I remember revelling in writing for its own sake. I could write about whatever sprung to mind with no concern for propriety or entertainment value and bask in the splendour of possibilities yet to be discovered.

This state of Arcadian simplicity only lasted so long, however. I soon became aware that one of these possibilities consisted of an excuse to study subjects closely and process them through writing. A new form of self-realising sprung to life, more constricted in form and perhaps language yet all the more rewarding in terms of content. This inevitably led to my "going commercial". I opened my blog for search engines and soon found new delight in meeting a wide array of visitors. This led to a heightened awareness of what I chose as subjects for my posts. With so many picture based blogs on trivial matters out there, I wanted to offer something of a more abstract but still utilitarian character. Granted, at times a lapse in standards would, and will, occur but I like to think that even these were somehow relevant.

I have at intervals been forced to review the parameters of my blog. With the above mentioned monitoring of traffic, was my blog becoming subject to the implied pressure of having readers and changing accordingly? Potential topics for posts would, admittedly, be discarded due to their presumed lack of popular appeal but this would happen tolerably rarely. If anything, the awareness of actual readers would have a positive impact on my blog insomuch as I would take greater care with finding reliable sources and presenting a good, readable product. This was, amongst others, instrumental in the changes the blog underwent in early spring and the first weeks of October. A stunning 38 visits on the "reopening" in the end of October was a testimony to the positive influence of having readers.

Today, I am proud of the 77 posts I have produced and sincerely happy for having dared to venture into unfamiliar and somewhat scary territory. I hope to be able to keep blogging although I must admit that the main objective remains unaltered; to allow myself room to just enjoy writing and using my favourite language.

I know it does me good.