[Windswept]

When I used to hang out on some British messageboards, one of my English friends from there and I exchanged a few good similes.

He worked at an American bank in England, and kept hearing various similes used by an American colleague. He got a real kick out of them and would write them down so he wouldn't forget them. He mentioned some to me.

Maybe you have some similes or metaphors you'd like to share.


~ Some similes that he liked and sent me were:


"He was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs."

"He was as fast as a one-legged man in a kicking contest."

"He was as frantic as a one-armed paperhanger."

"They were all over him like a cheap suit." (Yeah, that one's common, I know.)


~ Metaphors (commonly-used):


"The lights were on but no one was home."

"She was a few bricks short of a load."



I was hoping some of you might have a few I hadn't heard before.

Thanks for any replies.

[billybobsky]

I just realized that the undergrads at Penn are constantly speaking in similes...

In their honor:

"That is like the dumbest request ever."

[alcimedes]

We're a few pepperoni slices short of a good time.

[billybobsky]

Alright, I will play along.

They were bouncing around like elections in the conduction band of a superconductor below its Tc.

Hahahaaahhahaaa...

This is why nobody asks me to entertain at parties...

[BlueRabbit]

"He was as tall as a five-foot, six-inch tree."
Also, a random Australian one I heard somewhere - "He was as happy as a boxing kangaroo in the fog"

[sunrain]

Like an overripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor.

[billybobsky]

Originally Posted by alcimedes We're a few pepperoni slices short of a good time.

Nice (and the edit made it so much better).

She had breasts whose elasticity would rival a superball.

[billybobsky]

Kissing her was like sticking your face into a tub of maple syrup.

[mattf]

A simile I use far too often (usually in relation to a server):
Up and down like a tart's knickers

A metaphor (Australian in origin, I think):
(Sh/H)e couldn't pull a greasy stick out of a dead dog's arse (The British equivalent of that is probably "(Sh/H)e couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery")

[turbulentfurball]

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief.

Perhaps one of the most famous metaphors of all time. I studied Romeo and Juliet in High School, and I can still remember this passage.

[Dorian Gray]

Not quite Shakespeare, but José Hernández:

"Justice is like the spider's web,
it traps the small bug
but the big one breaks it."

And some others I can remember at the moment:

"her sense of humour is so dry you could use it as a towel"

"sharp as a bag of wet mice"

"my iBook's hinge has more play than a kindergarten at recess" (or "flexes like a bodybuilder")

"the MacBook Pro is as power-hungry as a politician"

"come and go like it's your mum's house"

Some of them more laboured than effective, but that's all I can think of now. And a completely unrelated epigram which came into my mind for no good reason and which I can't resist sharing:

"I am His Highness' dog at Kew/Pray tell me sir, whose dog are you?" - engraved on the appropriate dog's collar!

[curiousuburb]

On the "metaphors for stupidity" front:

• A few clowns short of a circus
• A few sandwiches short of a picnic
• A few fries short of a happy meal
• All hat, no cattle
• All foam, no beer.
• Sharp as marbles
• Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.
• Knitting with only one needle
• Slightly less clever than a bag of hammers
• Takes an hour and a half to watch 60 minutes
• So dense, light bends around him
• Wheels are spinning, but the hamster's dead.

I'd also include the metaphoric words of David Mitchell that reside in my sig at the moment.

Favourite similes of recent months are below:

Originally Posted by Iain M. Banks ~ The Algebraist, p.380 "The waves came booming in like blindness, like stubbornness bundled and given liquid form, an unending slow launching against the ragged fringe of massively sprawled rocks, each long low rough ridge of water heaving skywards to tumble like some ponderously incompetent somersaulter, rolling up and falling forward, hopeful and hopeless at once, disintegrating, exploding in spray and foam, coming to pieces amongst the fractured boneyard of rock."

Brilliant writing... 3 memorable similes in 3 lucid lines.

[Windswept]

~ He couldn't find his ass with both hands.

~ Running around like a man with a paper ass in a forest fire.

(Yeah, that one sucks. )

~ Clinging as tight as a tick in a hound-dog's ear.

(Okay, I just made that one up. )

~ You can put that where the sun don't shine.

( Always loved 'that' old favorite. )

~ As old as dirt.

~ Dumb as a box of rocks.

[Wrao]

Life is like Apple computer, you never quite know what you're going to get, and you only eat fish.

[murbot]

Hmm, a few that spring to mind:

Tighter than a warped door.

Useless as tits on a boar.

He's got more chins than a chinese phonebook.

Have to piss like a racehorse.

Hit him so hard his kids will die.

[Luca]

There are a lot of good ones taken from an SNL sketch where Darrel Hammond played Dan Rather:

"I'm madder than a rained-on rooster about it."

"He may be feeling as strong as an acre of garlic."

"Her new hairdo has more unauthorized guests than a Mexican Motel 6."

"This has been a night of surprises, and here's one more. Carl, go down to the basement. Mabel, get in here, take your clothes off, and put these shoes on. Also the hat. Now, put one leg up on that chair, arch your back and listen to this, ‘cause it’s a humdinger."

"If I was a betting man, I'd say his chances of survival are slim and none - and slim just left town."

[billybobsky]

Originally Posted by curiousuburb Brilliant writing... 3 memorable similes in 3 lucid lines.

You really do like flowery language don't you?

[mattf]

Originally Posted by murbot Tighter than a warped door.

Which reminds me....

(Said of Canadians, by a Canadian)
They're as tight as a Scotsman robbed of his sense of generosity.

[scrouds]

ok, lets try some out.

Kissing her was like a garbage truck getting hit by an onion train (used ina creative writing class)

as useless as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest

you can't swing a dead cat in downtown fredonia without hitting an english major.. (ok, ok, it just needed to be here, ok?)

tastes like lake erie water

as potent as a virgin rum and coke

i need that like i need ass zits

phony as a three dollar bill

[curiousuburb]

Originally Posted by billybobsky You really do like flowery language don't you?

"waves heaving skywards to tumble like some ponderously incompetent somersaulters"

Picturesque. I'll never watch bad gymnasts the same way again.

[billybobsky]

Originally Posted by curiousuburb "waves heaving skywards to tumble like some ponderously incompetent somersaulters" Picturesque. I'll never watch bad gymnasts the same way again.

Your picturesque is my flowery...

Words are so much more than their ability to describe objects or scenes...

I find that this sort of language ignores the best parts and attempts to justify its existence by giving you a high definition view of the narrative.

Edit: Mind you, this is written by a scientist...

[Wrao]

Originally Posted by billybobsky Edit: Mind you, this is written by a scientist...

[billybobsky]

He found success with his similes so rare that he likened the probability of capturing a reader's attention to the insuferable impossibility of not hitting a grain of sand when firing a pistol to the earth...

[Wrao]

Originally Posted by billybobsky He found success with his similes so rare that he likened the probability of capturing a reader's attention to the insuferable impossibility of not hitting a grain of sand when firing a pistol to the earth...

I hear there's about a 70% chance of missing.

[billybobsky]

Arr! Damn the water....

[intlplby]

Happy as a dead pig in sunshine.
Hard as Chinese arithmetic.
Ran like Moody's Goose.
Dumb as a can of dirt.
Mixed up as a frog in a blender.
Lazy as a cut dog.
Tighter than Dick's hatband
Happy as a dog with two dicks.
The best part of him dripped down his mama's leg.
Ran like a rat with its ass on fire.
I'd like to buy him for what he's worth and then sell him for what he THINKS he's worth. I could retire tomorrow.
He's too lazy to wipe his own ass. He just waits for it to dry up and flake off by itself.
Fish, or cut bait.
If wishes were horses, beggars could ride.
Shit, or get off the pot.
Hornier 'n a two-peckered billy goat
Fine as frog hair split four ways.
beat you like a rented mule
beat like a red-headed step-child
heavier than a dead preacher
happy as a tick on an artery
He doesn't know whether to wind his butt or scratch his watch
He's about as useful as tits on a bull.
Killed him deader than fried chicken
Sweatin' like a whore in church"
Ain't been this happy since the hogs ate my little sister
Dumb as a bag of hammers
That boy's about as sharp as a sack of wet mice
Took off like a scalded dog
He could talk the horns off a billy goat.
She looked like death chewing on a cracker
Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first
Harder than a wedding dick
Scattered like a madwoman's shit.
So nervous, you couldn't pound a nail up his ass with a sledgehammer.
So scared, my ass pulled ten pounds of cotton outen the seat of my pickup truck
Ugly as Death backing out of a shithouse readin' Mad magazine
Dang....she's eat up with ugly
Happy as a sissy on a troop train
ugly as a bar of homemade soap
he couldn't pour the piss out of a boot, it the instructions were on the heel
Colder than a frog's ass
slick as snot
"Dumber than a box of dirt" (also: bag of doorknobs, box of nails, just plain "dumber than dirt")
Crazy as a shithouse rat
I've known him since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.
Sharp as a bag o' wet leather
Sharp as a bowling ball
older'n God's parents

colder than a welldigger's ass

madder than a wet hen

mean as a cornered dog (sometimes cat)

built like a brick shithouse

Purdy as 2 pups fightin in a blanket (usually reserved for a woman walking away)

hard as day old biscuits
Couldn't pull a greasy string out of a cat's ass
runs like a striped ass ape
She's got a face that would make a freight train take a dirt road.
She's flatter than piss on a board.
If I tell you to shit, you'd better squat and ask what color
The last time I saw a mouth like that, it had a hook in it!
Sweating like a gay man eating a corndog
Worthless as tits on a boar hog
Gay as a two dollar bill.
Slicker than greased owl shit.
Looks like a horse's ass sewed up with a bicycle chain
So cold I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets
And when you want to answer emphatically yes!, "Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?"
Fucked up as a can of worms.
Educated beyond your intellect.
The sun don't shine up the same dog's ass every day
He's not the sharpest tool in the shed
Quicker than a turpentined cat.
Deeper'n a well diggers ass
Meaner than a sunburned rattlesnake
sorrier than a broke-dick dog
He thinks he's hot snot on silver platter, but he ain't nothing but a cold booger on a paper plate
like poking warm butter up a wildcat's ass
Slower than molasses in the winter
Mad as a hornet
Madder than a wet hen
Older than dirt
Fits like socks on a rooster.
Drier than a popcorn fart
Beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick
There's nothing more self-righteous than a reformed whore.
gay as a baseball bat

[mattf]

Originally Posted by billybobsky Your picturesque is my flowery...

Thank God I'm not the only one. That writing is more flowery than the Royal Horticultural Society's Chelsea Show.

Edit: Mind you, this is written by a scientist...

ditto

A couple more:

Closed tighter than a duck's arsehole
He's so classy, he'd get out of the shower to take a piss

[turbulentfurball]

Originally Posted by mattf He's so classy, he'd get out of the shower to take a piss

Neither a metaphor nor a simile

[mattf]

Originally Posted by turbulentfurball Neither a metaphor nor a simile

Where's the two-fingered-salute smilie when you want it?

I knew that when I wrote it, but couldn't be bothered rewording it as:
As classy as a man who gets out of the shower to take a piss.

Better?

[alcimedes]

Easier than a virgin on prom night.