Thread: Bad Metaphors

Ever hear a bad metaphor that just sticks with you? And by bad, I don't mean to say it's terrible, but too funny to forget? With a huge Thank-you to our new member "jax", his description of his first shave gave me a new bad metaphor I don't think I'll ever forget:


"I'm generally a pretty level guy, but my hands were shaking like a boy touching his first boob."

Another bad metaphor that has stuck with me since I first heard it comes from "Throw Momma from the Train" is when Larry tells Owen his metaphors are a tad harsh citing:

"His guts oozed nice, like a melted malted."


Got any favorite bad metaphors or similes (Thanks ScoutHikerDad ), let's hear them!

Originally Posted by ReardenSteel

"I'm generally a pretty level guy, but my hands were shaking like a boy touching his first boob."

That is hysterical! Can't think of any great metaphors right now, but as a high school English teacher I sometimes torture my students with English teacher humor. For instance, I tell them "oxymoron" is zit cream for stupid people-cue the groans. Oh, and the two above are technically similes, but still awesome!

Man, when I have to think of one my mind is blank.

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

Oh, and the two above are technically similes, but still awesome!

I knew we had an English teacher in our midst! I know they're similes, however, the title "Bad Metaphors" sounded better than "Bad Similes". Kind of a rip on Bon Jovi's "Bad Medicine."

Never watch a movie with an English teacher-seriously, most of us are insufferable. "Hey, that rainstorm is symbolically washing away everyone's sins."-Jeez, somebody shut him up already.

Okay, I found these old gems:

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 grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first- generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

All from this site: Apocryphal Metaphors

Okay, now I've stirred my own memory banks. Here are a few remembered gems from my own actual students' essays:

-A girl writing about The Scarlet Letter wrote of the Reverend Dimmesdale "standing in the pulpit in a puddle of his own sin."

-Another girl in a research paper on AIDS, stating that "the best method of prevention is absence" (which also works!)

-A boy was once writing about Arthur Miller's play The Crucible. In discussing the scene where John Proctor is asked in court where he had the dalliance with their young housekeeper Abigail, the boy misquoted John as saying "where my breasts were bedded." (the actual word was beasts).

In class one day, a young man asked me to keep the other kids quiet, as "I'm trying to constipate on my work."-No kidding.

One day a fellow teacher yawned and stretched his arms back. A young woman said to him, "Oooh, Mr._______, you popped your scrotum." (she obviously meant sternum).

One day in class, as we were discussing Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the church door at Bittenburg to start the Reformation, a girl (classic blonde) gave me a really troubled look. She thought we were speaking of feces!

Kids do indeed say the darndest things. Aaron/SHD

I'm a big Tom Waits fan and I've always loved this gem from "Step Right Up."

"I'm getting harder than Chinese algebra."

Originally Posted by Supernats

I'm a big Tom Waits fan and I've always loved this gem from "Step Right Up."

"I'm getting harder than Chinese algebra."

That's a great song. Tom Waits is the man. If you want to talk great metaphors, have a listen to Emotional Weather Report off of Nighthawks at the Diner.

Probably a bit off topic but if similies and metaphors are your thing, Richard Brautigan is the absolute master. Trout Fishing in America, Confederate General from Big Sur, all his stuff is absolutely amazing. He was a hippy poet of the 60's and a master of just playing with words and making it work.