METAPHORS FROM STUDENT PAPERS

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear All:

This was sent, again, by my friend Spencer.

Anyone who has taught English ( like me) and read several thousand student essays, stories and other compositions has found gems like these.

My favorite, from thirty years of my own teaching , was the following, submitted by a daisy-fresh, absolutely moral young lady of eighteen who was a Mormon, and extremely devoted to her religion. Thereby we know it was unintentional, and thereby even funnier.

As Dave Barry often says, I am not making this one up:

( Her essay was entitled "Premarital Sexual Intercourse." She was, of course, arguing against the advisability of such behavior).

But her first sentence was:

"Persons who engage in premarital sexual intercourse may find themselves in a very sticky position."

Here are some fun metaphors harvested by other teachers:


( paste)


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 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 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.

[stilltrucking]

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

[pandora]

"6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. "

haha!

[mnaz]

Great stuff, Z.

Honestly, I haven't laughed this hard for quite some time...

"Nancy Kerrigan's teeth"..... brilliant...


Thanks!