Oh No! It's Bad Metaphors and Similes!

Posted February 1, 2010

"All the world's a stage," mused Shakespeare as he finished watching Jersey Shore, "and all the men and women merely players." But wait! Don’t look around for a stage director or worry that you've apparently forgotten your lines; this was merely a metaphor, a device smart people use to compare two separate ideas in order to win over the ladies.

You can do this too, as long as you're careful—whether you're using so-called dead metaphors (clichés like, "It's raining cats and dogs!") or constructing baffling similes ("The raindrops plopped heavily to the ground, like an inexplicable downpour of wet falling cats,") comparative language has its dangers. Dodge the following dangers like an agile Simile Fox, and the world is your oyster. (Metaphorically.)

1.) Over-Accuracy
Example: "Our love is like the human desire to procreate, because of the serotonin in our brains!"
Though technically correct, this simile will probably not work the way you intend it to, unless you follow it with "Ha ha, just kidding, our love is like the sunrise or whatever." Any too-literal description of anything romantic is always going to suck. If you don't believe us, try saying "Hey, sweetness, you're like a skeleton with organs and skin and hot parts attached!" and see where that gets you.

2.) Under-Accuracy
Example: "Our love is elephants!"
Okay, maybe you have some point you're getting at here, like how you both never forget things and are afraid of mice, but you're going to have to be more artful and explicit. Of course, you're also kinda comparing your significant other to a notoriously fat and wrinkled monster, which brings us to…

3.) Unsuitability
Example: "Our love is hot and volatile, like a fatal grease fire!"
In one of the earliest recorded similes (see the Epic of Gilgamesh), Gilgamesh compares his friend favorably to a mule. This does not give you license to tell your girlfriend that she is swift and spunky, like a mule. Well, you can, if you really want to, but it's going to go over as badly as anything else that fails the Unsuitability Test (e.g. "You're really hot, just like your hot mom!").

4.) Convolution
Example: "Our love is like the Byzantine Accords of 814 A.D., whereby two disparate factions ceded sovereignty over blah blah blurgh (the subject is absolutely not listening at this point)."
Whatever comparison you're making must be blatant and straightforward, like a flashing neon sign that says "HERE IS THE RELATIONSHIP." (See what we did there?) If your comparison contains ancient civilizations or references to old episodes of ALF, then the trains have gone off the rails in SimileTown.