Metaphorically speaking



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"These are actual metaphors taken from recent GCSE essays:"


* Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other 
  sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

* His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like 
  underpants in a tumble dryer.

* She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used 
  to dangle from doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door 
  open again.

* The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a 
  bowling ball wouldn't.

* McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag 
  filled with vegetable soup.

* Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
  [How romantic! -Ed.]

* Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre.

* Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

* He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

* The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you 
  fry them in hot grease.

* Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across 
  the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one 
  having left York at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55 mph, the other from 
  Peterborough at 4:19p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

* The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the full stop after the 
  Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.

* John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had 
  also never met.

* The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet 
  of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

* The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon.

* 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.

* The door had been forced, as forced as the dialogue during the 
  interview portion of Family Fortunes.

* Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

* The plan was simple, like my brother Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan
  just might work.

* The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating
  for a while.

* "Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a student 
  on 31p-a-pint night.

* 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.

* Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell
  butter from "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."

* She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes 
  just before it throws up.
  [Gotta love that one! -Ed.]

* It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had 
  ever seen before.

* The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Glenda Jackson MP in her 
  first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Robin Cook MP,
  Leader of the House of Commons, in the House Judiciary Committee 
  hearings on the suspension of Keith Vaz MP.

* The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg 
  behind her, like a dog at a lamp post.

* 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 cashpoint.

* The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric 
  fan set on medium.

* It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around 
  with their power tools.

* He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as 
  if she were a dustcart reversing.

* She was as easy as the Daily Star crossword.

* She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-
  temperature British beef.

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

* Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation 
  thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

* It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it 
  to the wall.
  [I'm sure we can all relate to that... -Ed.]


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[Contributed by Bob]