Humor is a good thing in metaphors. But not unintentional humor.
Here are some stupendously warped metaphors and similes from student essays. Read 'em and weep.
1. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
2. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender
leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
3. Hailstones leaped from the pavement, like maggots when you
fry them in hot grease.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
bowling ball wouldn't.
7. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was
room-temperature Canadian beef.
8. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes
just before it throws up.
9. It hurt, the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it
to the wall.
10. 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.
11. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
also had never met.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose-hair after a sneeze.
13. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil,
this plan just might work.
14. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not
eating for a while.
15. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag
filled with vegetable soup.
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. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
18. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells,
as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
19. 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.
20. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the
East River.
