Every year, English teachers from across the USA 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: I like #2, #6, and #13 the most--the most fresh, creative, and new. The others are kind of cliche, but which ones your favorite?
Yes very amusing! Asuming they are genuine my favourite would be number 14, as if real, I can really sense the abject boredom and subsequent ridicule of the school system that this would be satirist is conveying
I like 13 the best. I could actually picture using something like that in a story. It would be a weird story though.
It would make a great opening line for a psuedo-gothic world, like an M.T. Anderson story. THAT sure is going to set the tone for the narrator fast.
OH MY GOD I KNOW EXACTLY HOW THAT FEELS. Everything else made me laugh, too, but that one totally hit home. That describes so many lazy hotel evenings.
... meh ... it's not "plagiarism" [that's the correct spelling] if I do change it and then state that I used it from this source. Silly
Don't worry 'bout HOE, he just likes being uptight. And I still can't read those metaphors without laughing myself silly.
"Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do." That sounds like something I would write. Here's some of mine (most are from a parody piece; the main character is a weird journalist from the National Enquirer): "Nonetheless, as a distinguished scholar who knows three living languages, one dead one, and another which isn’t yet dead but really ought to be, I can say with utter honestly that I know how to strain the pieces of truth from the great wash of blather seeping in from all corners of this circular world." "I realized that the world is full of unhappy people being plundered and murdered and suchlike by other people who don’t speak the same language and don’t worship the same God and who sometimes don’t even use deodorant." "What is more – and I’ll stop soon, because my cat needs feeding and you know how they are when they get hungry and start poking through your wallet and trying to sneak outside with your car keys – what is more . . . " " . . . according to a friend of mine who went to Harvard until they threw him out . . . " "Then he fell in love with a woman who was accustomed to an opulent lifestyle. This is expensive. The answer: bond forgery."
*gasp* I gasp with sheer delight at your funniness. YOU MUST POST YOUR STORIES NOOOOOW. (Alright, not the most mature way of stating things, but hey, that stuff is good.)
No, please don't; spare us from the garbage. She doesn't even know what a simile is. She writes clunky sentence like an automative engine that refuses to run smoothly.
I will point out that those quotes are from an essay in which we were supposed to parody Jonathan Swift's essay on eating kids to solve the Irish famine. It's meant to be weird. The last one, the shorter one, is more my "typical" writing style. (Attempts to resist the urge to type up examples of similies and metaphors for HellOnEarth's benefit.) (Fails attempt.) Similie: The room was as dark as a cave. Angie slipped into the room silently, her tennis shoes padding like a panther on the pale carpet. Metaphor: The wind rose, a roaring train in the night. Oddness: His head resembled a cue ball. He looked like he'd been the butt of an ongoing joke and had only just found out. She had the kind of expression on her face that might scare children and small dogs. I liked it. "Crap." Caleb buried his head in his hands. "You mean I'm slowly turning into a god and I don't even get a say in the matter?!" There comes a time in the lives of all good men when you must make that important choice. With me, it was quite hard; but you see I had steeled myself for the hard times to come. Reluctantly, with not a little pain and sorrow, I put away those old relics forever, and locked the box away where the sight of that familiar cardboard could not tempt me. Then I went back to Marian's door and rang the bell. She answered more slowly than I would have liked; it gave my throat enough time to form a lump. "What do you want?" I swallowed. "I did it, Mary. I put them away." She blinked, then looked suddenly hard. "All of them." "Yes." "Even the X-Men collectibles?" They'd been some of the hardest. "Yes. Even them. All the comic books have been put away." She opened the screen door and rushed, quite suddenly, into my arms. I felt a sudden flood of relief and realized that I had made the right decision after all; as much as I had loved those magazines, had perused every issue until the covers were dogeared or missing, they would never be a match for the feeling that I had right then. We had something special, Marian and I. And I was glad, and she was glad. We entered the house together. Disclaimer: Any spelling or grammar errors in the above are probably there because I came up with that stuff on the spot. If you PM me, I'll edit to remove any errors you find. Thanks!
Sorry, I wrote something here and then had to cut it, so this is edited. First, HellOnEarth actually does have a point - those sentences were for a high school English class with a tolerant teacher, and while funny when read on paper, they are really hard to read aloud. Second, I dont writ like this w/abreviatns n mispelings so you know I can write decently. Third, I mainly edited this post because I was tempted to do a sort of sucker-punch by pointing out my age. That was a poorly thought out decision; young people shouldn't use their age as an excuse, and I have to agree with HellOnEarth that some of the examples I gave are simply poor writing. (I will maintain that they are funny to some folks though.) Lastly, I am not going to post those particular stories, and for good reason. The last quote came from a critical essay analyzing the book The Great Gatsby, and if I had not included the humor it would have been dull. Heck, it's still dull. And the Swift parody was just over-the-top madness. I mean, if people really want me to post it I might, but the parts I quoted were the good bits.
