I usually groan when relatives send me forwarded jokes and humour pieces in my email, but parts of this one made me laugh till I wept.

These are supposed to be real examples, but I almost can't believe it. I'm not a teacher, so I can't judge properly.


Why English Teachers Die Young

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual similes 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 she was 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 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.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

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

14. 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.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

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

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. 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.

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

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

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

22. 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.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.





~ Frodo patrols the beach on Tol Eressea while Elves frolic in the waves.

(O.K., so it's Lanakai Beach in Hawaii, but it's sort of like Tol Eressea.)


~ Mechtild
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shirebound: (Default)

From: [personal profile] shirebound


Howl! Once I started snortling and snickering at these, I couldn't stop.

Ooooh, love the beach pic! Hope Frodo has his swim trunks on under all that.

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


I couldn't stop, either. Finally my daughter came in to know what was so danged funny.

From: [identity profile] mews1945.livejournal.com


I swear, I've read these before, but they just lay me out. Especially "Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do." That is so simple it's elegant.

Love the Frodo on the beach picture.

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


I wondered if they were old. Sometimes I get the same forwarded jokes from ten people. But I hadn't yet seen these. These were the funniest I'd read. Yes, "shots rang out, as shots are wont to do," killed me. I just went to see the Robert Altman, "Prairie Home Companion" film, and Kevin Kline's 'Guy Noir' would have said that line perfectly. *choke*

From: [identity profile] ellinestel.livejournal.com


Especially if this non-native English speaker has a degree in English language and literature. :D

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


Yeah, but in your literature courses, surely you are not supposed to be reading pulp fiction (which is what all those detective novels are)! Aren't you supposed to be reading the high-brow stuff?

From: [identity profile] ellinestel.livejournal.com


We're supposed to read everything, from notes of the fridge till early ballads and beyond. There were six texts being used by the teachers on our final Literary Analysis exam, the worst exam of all, because you had to "know simply everything there was to learn during the five years in the institute."

The most difficult one was the first page of HP 1. And, believe me, it was difficult. Two of our best students got C marks, working with that text, and I was just lucky - I didn't get it! :D I got a piece from Roald Dahl I haven't read before (we didn't know what text we'll be given), but which was fairly easy.

Also, the favourite words of our interpretaion teacher: "If you're a translator, you have to know everything. If you don't, it your problem, not mine." Then he proceeded, telling us how an atomic reactor works. ;)

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


I had forgot your emphasis would be in translation. You are right: to translate well, you'd have to be familiar with every genre, not just the "literary" stuff.

You certainly have shown yourself fluent comprehending English and its various idioms (British and American!) since I've been posting with you. You Are Amazing!

From: [identity profile] ellinestel.livejournal.com


Thanks! :) I'му just studied English way too long... ;)

From: [identity profile] bagma.livejournal.com


They are priceless!:D
I'm very fond of #12: I've never thought a nose after a sneeze could be romantic; apparently I was wrong.
Poor Frodo needs a holiday, BTW; he looks stressed.

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


It's funny that you posted your comments by students (about Martin Luther and Hanery VIII) at the same time, just as I was asking if students could really have written such things. Your students' answers showed that they could have.

Frodo looked stressed? Well, he should have. Far too many clothes for Hawaii. Especially clothes made out of plastic.

From: [identity profile] notabluemaia.livejournal.com


*snort* Mechtild, those are hilarious. (Be sure to stop by [livejournal.com profile] bagma for students' thoughts on the Renaissance.)

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


I did stop by, Nota. In fact, I thought it was terribly ironic we should have posted these at the same time, they are so similarly, hilariously dreadful. :D

From: (Anonymous)


LOL!!
I can see several if these actuallly *working*, though - in the proper ironic context. That would for instance be nos. 4 and 18. But I take it there was no irony whatsoever involved when all these were written.........

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


Hi, Maeglian!

Actually, I wondered if some of these were written by very smart students merely being tongue-in-cheek. I said above that they were just like lines (some of them) the character 'Guy Noir' would say on "A Prairie Home Companion" (a radio show written and narrated by a humourist named Garrison Keillor). Guy Noir says outrageous things as he attempts [and fails] to be ironic and sophisticated -- all of his material written in a very witty way by Mr. Keillor.

From: [identity profile] maeglian.livejournal.com


I think I've actually read a book by G. Keillor- Lake Woebegone Days. Many years ago. I can't recall whether Guy Noir was in it, though.........

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


Guy Noir is a more recent regular character. He's supposed to be like those "film noir" B-detective movie heroes that always fell for the mysterious woman in the trenchcoat: "She was blond, she was bad, she was beautiful." Garrison voices him in the radio program, but Kevin Kline played him in the film -- brilliantly.

The "Naked Gun" movies with Leslie Nielson make fun of the genre, too.

From: [identity profile] elasg.livejournal.com


Oh, they DO sound like Guy Noir! I saw the trailer for the PHC movie and they have Kevin Kline playing him. I can't wait! (OK, so I am a fan of strange things even among strange people.)

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


[third try]

We went to see the film last night. It wasn't great but I found it well worth seeing. I am sure I will rent it and watch it multiple times. There are loads of brilliant scenes and performances, but somehow the whole was not as good as its parts for me. Still, I enjoyed it a lot and laughed louder than anyone in the theatre over and over. And Kevin Kline was FANTASTIC as Guy Noir.

From: [identity profile] elasg.livejournal.com


Those are PRICELESS! Omg, I couldn't stop giggling! I would pick a favorite, but they are all hysterical! No wonder the teachers collect them! LOL!

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


Weren't they a hoot? My jaw muscles literally ached by the time I got to the end.

From: [identity profile] maewyn-2.livejournal.com


I love these - especially 18 and 20. At a pinch, I think they could really work!

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


Heavens, I guffawed at nearly all of them. But, yes, some actually are quite insightful in their funny way.

From: [identity profile] aussiepeach.livejournal.com


They sound like entries in the Worst Opening Sentence (Bulwyer Lytton) comp to me.:D

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


Hey, Peachy! Are you emailing from air plane? Are you already there????

From: [identity profile] taerie.livejournal.com


I loved these!! Some of them must be by some very talented students who we MUST be going to hear more from professionally some day. Others are just adorable. When we owned a comic book store the teenaged boys would ask me to read their literary endeavors. This was sometimes challenging when they would be inadvertently hilarious.. but I always managed to read them with kind solemnity. It could be very difficult though.
I forwarded this to my husband. He loves these too.
I can see Frodo is being seized by the hobbit instinct to dig a hole in that sand hill and build a beach house. Should be a babe magnet for him.

From: [identity profile] mechtild.livejournal.com


This was sometimes challenging when they would be inadvertently hilarious.. but I always managed to read them with kind solemnity. It could be very difficult though.

You are a kind and self-disciplined woman, Taerie. :)

P.S. Are you going to post Dangerous When Wet in one of those sites? (hint, hint) I'll be happy to come and gush if you do.
.

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