Language Stuff

Actual Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays...

• 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.
• 9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
• McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
• 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.
• Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
• 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 Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35mph.
• They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
• John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
• He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
• 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.
• Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
• The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law 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 college freshman on $1-a-beer 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.
• The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
• It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
• He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
• She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.
• Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.
• She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
• It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it.

Words That I Have Trouble Spelling

• embarrass - I always want to get rid of an "r" or an "s."
• occasionally - I always want to add another "s."
• possessive - are you starting to see a pattern?

Words That I Find Interesting

• rain;rein;reign - this is the best one of all. Three words, all fairly unique.
• fore;four;for - this one is good because "fore" has more than one meaning, so we're talking one sound with a lot of different meanings.
• to/too/two - this is probably the first three-member homonym I took note of. Lots of folks get "to" and "too" mixed up, although I classify that as an "honest" mistake (could happen to anyone).
• lead, led

Words That I Don't Like

• kudos - WTF is a kudo? It's a candy bar, right? I'm OK with it as a candy bar. I just don't like it when people say "kudos to so-and-so." I don't think that word was supposed to be made into a plural, I really don't. "Kudo" probably meant something a long time ago, but "kudos" just ills.

Words That People Skrew Up On All The Time

• loose - people are always writing "lose" when they really mean "loose."
• its versus it's - I was always terrible at this until my father explained it to me. It's is a contraction of "it is". "Its" is the possessive pronoun. Example sentences: a car is unique in that its power is derived from an internal combustion engine', versus 'It's clear that you know nothing about Hondas! If you have read this far, from now on you will see so many mistakes with this word it will boggle your mind (assuming you didn't know this already.)
• "Begging the question." People use this to mean "raises a question" and it drives me nuts. The two are not the same and why would you not use a perfectly good word like "raise" anyway? Here's an explanation of what is actually meant by "begging the question."

Adding Gender To English Nouns

• SWISS ARMY KNIFE - male. Even though it appears useful for a wide variety of work, it spends most of its time just opening bottles.
• TIRE - male. It goes bald and often is over-inflated.
• HOT AIR BALLOON - male. To get it to go anywhere, you have to light a fire under it.
• SPONGES - female. They are soft and squeezable, and they retain water. (Editor's note: men spend all their time opening bottles, using tired pickup lines, are lazy, bald, overinflated, drooling, transparent, and this is the best they could come up with for this noun? Sheesh.)
• WEB PAGE - female. It is always getting hit on.
• SHOE - male. It is usually unpolished, with its tongue hanging out.
• COPIER - female. Once turned off, it takes a while to warm up. It is an effective productive device when the right buttons are pushed. And it can wreak havoc when the wrong buttons are pushed.
• ZIPLOC BAGS - male. They hold everything in, but you can always see right through them.
• SUBWAY - male. It uses the same old lines to pick up people.
• HOURGLASS - female. Over time, the weight shifts to the bottom.
• HAMMER - male. It hasn't evolved much over the last 5,000 years, but it's handy to have around.
• REMOTE CONTROL- female. It gives men pleasure; they would be lost without it; and while they don't always know the right buttons to push, they keep trying and trying!

Palindromes

• "Lewd did I live, & evil I did dwel." -- John Taylor.
• "Cigar? Toss it in a can. It is so tragic." -- J.A. Lindon.
• "T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad. Id assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot toilet." -- Alastair Reid.
• "Able was I ere I saw Elba" -- 1860s, unknown.
• "Rise to vote, sir" -- 1925, unknown.
• "I roamed under it as a tired, nude Maori." -- 1970s, unknown.

Alternative Definitions

• Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.
• Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
• Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
• Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
• Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent
• Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie.
• Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
• Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.
• Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
• Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
• Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
• Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanour assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.
• Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.
• Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts.
• Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.
• Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.

Life in the 1500's

• Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."
• England is old and small, and they started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house and reuse the grave. In reopening these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listenfor the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead ringer."
• Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and were still smelling pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the b.o.
• Baths equaled a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."
• Houses had thatched roofs. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets... dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would >slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs,"
• There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. So, they found if they made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem. Hence those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopies. I wonder if this is where we get the saying "Good night and don't let the bed bugs bite"...
• The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors which would get slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they kept adding more thresh >until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a "thresh hold."
• They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been in there for a month. Hence the rhyme: peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."
• Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and that a man "could really bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."
• Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food. This happened most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes...for 400 years.
• Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers - a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy trenchers, they would get "trench mouth.
• Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of The loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust".

Life in the 1500's - The Real Deal

• The word shamefaced evolved from Middle English shamefast (meaning modest, or shy) and had nothing to do with face. The similarity of pronunciations of fast and faced made some mistake the sound and we got shamefaced.
• An interesting derivation by folk etymology is the term forlorn hope. It was transformed from the Dutch verloren hoop, literally, lost troop.
  Courtesy of wordsmith.org
  
• The word neighbor goes way back. I remember it being explained to me as "nearby farm." Here's the Merriam-Webster definition:

  Main Entry: 1neighˇbor 
  Pronunciation: 'nA-b&r
  Function: noun
  Etymology: Middle English, from Old English nEahgebur (akin to Old High 
  German nAhgibur); akin to Old English nEah near and Old English 
  gebur dweller -- more at NIGH, BOOR
  Date: before 12th century
  

  I can see where it came from. If you've ever been to Denmark and heard those folks speaking, then you can imagine how people used to speak back in caveman days.

Washington Post's Style Invitational

• Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
• Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
• Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
• Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
• Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
• Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
• Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
• Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (this one got extra credit)
• Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
• Glibido: All talk and no action.
• Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
• Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

English Declared The Official Language Of The EU

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the"k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to onderstand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen ve vil tak over ze world!

Who Says English Is Confusing?

• We polish the Polish furniture.
• He could lead if he would get the lead out.
• A farm can produce produce.
• The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
• The soldier decided to desert in the desert with the dessert.
• The present is a good time to present the present.
• At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
• The dove dove into the bushes.
• I did not object to the object.
• The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
• The bandage was wound around the wound.
• There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
• They were too close to the door to close it.
• The buck does funny things when the does are present.
• They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
• Needing help with the planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
• The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
• After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
• I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
• I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
• How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
• I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

Mangled English By Non-Speakers

English can be a difficult language to learn (and even harder when people in other countries try to make signs which their English-speaking visitors can read)
• The lift is being fixed for the day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable. (In a Bucharest hotel lobby)
• When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacle your passage, then tootle him with vigor. If honorable horse obstacle your path, pull over until he he pass away. (From a Japanese car-rental firm's informative brochure)
• To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order. (Inside an elevator in Yugoslavia)
• Please leave your values at the front desk. (At a Paris hotel)
• Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension. (At an Austrian ski lodge)
• Our wines leave you nothing to hope for. (On the menu of a Swiss restaurant)
• Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion. (On the menu of a Polish hotel's restaurant)
• For your convenience we recommend courteous, efficient self-service. (At a Hong Kong supermarket)
• Drop your trousers here for best results. (At a Taiwanese laundry)
• Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation. (At a Hong Kong tailor shop)
• There will be a Moscow Exhibition of the Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years. (In Soviet Weekly)
• A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers. (In an East African newspaper)
• Teeth extracted by the latest methodists. (Advertisement of a Hong Kong dentist)
• A lot of water has been passed under the bridge since this variation has been played. (In a Russian book on chess)
• Fur coats made for the ladies from their own skin. (In the window of a Swedish furrier)
• Stop -- Drive sideways. (Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan)
• Specialist in women and other diseases. (On the door of a Roman doctor's office)
• Cooles and heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself. (Instructions accompanying new Japanese air conditioners)
• English well talking. Here speeching American. (Signs at two Majorcan shops)
• Do not enter lift backwards, and only when lit up. (In a Paris hotel elevator)
• Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 a.m. daily. (In an Athens hotel)
• The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid. (In a Yugoslavian hotel)
• You are invited to take advantage of the women who are employed to clean the room. (In a Japanese hotel)
• You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists and writers are buried daily except Thursday. (At a Moscow hotel across the street from a Russian Orthodox monastery)
• Ladies may have a fit upstairs. (In a Hong Kong tailor shop)
• It is strictly forbidden on our Black Forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose. (At a German campground)
• Ladies, please leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time. (Outside a Rome laundry)
• Take one of our horse-drawn city tours. We guarantee no miscarriages. (Czech tourist agency brochure)
• Special Today -- NO ICE CREAM. (At a Swiss mountain inn)
• We take your bags and send them in all directions. (Slogan of a Dutch airline)
• If this is your first visit to the Soviet Union, you're welcome to it. (At a Moscow hotel)
• Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar. (Inside a Swedish lounge)
• We are pleased to announce that the manager has personally passed all the water served here. (At an Acapulco restaurant)
• Tokyo shop: Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find that they are best in the long run.
• Japanese instructions on an air conditioner: Cooles & Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.
• A sign on the lion cage at a zoo in the Czech Republic: No smoothen the lion.
• A Finnish hotel's instructions in case of fire: If you are unable to leave your room, expose yourself in the window.
• A notice in a Japanese hotel (ca. 1950): Please not to steal towels. If you are not person to do such, please not to read notice.

Bite The Wax Tadpole

• The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read "Are you lactating?"
• Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."
• Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
• Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "Manure Stick."
• When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels of what's inside, since many people can't read.
• Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
• An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I Saw the Potato" (la papa).
• Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese.
• The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "kokou kole", translating into "happiness in the mouth."
• Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."
• When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." The company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant!"
• When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish!

Writing Tips

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?