When I read a good analogy I feel a warm glow like when you leave the kettle boiling for too long and the water evaporates and the kettle burns your house down. However, if there’s one thing I like more than a good analogy it is to look at some of the worst analogies ever.
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever
Most of the bad analogies we will look at here are from real student exams. This beauty was written by an unknown poetic genius. I think you’ll agree that we’ll be hearing a lot more from this young star in years to come.
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met
We can thank a student called Russell, from Springfield, for this piece of sparkling prose. It brings to mind the beautiful image of, err, a couple of small birds flapping about madly in different places. Come to think of it, am I the only person to find hummingbirds mildly annoying? They get me all nervous and uptight with all their hyperactive wing flapping and stuff.
The little boat drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t
This is another classy analogy credited as coming from the inspired pen of Russell in Springfield. Who is that analogy creating monster? If you have ever seen a bowling ball not floating across a pond then this stunning analogy will bring the memories flooding back.
I slept like a log
This isn’t one that was written by a student but you’ve probably heard it countless times in your life. You might even have used it at some point, you crazy fool. So, if you slept like a log how exactly did you sleep? Like an inanimate piece of timber that doesn’t actually sleep?
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease
Gary from Silver Spring brings us the next joyous analogy. I don’t know anything about this guy but it seems safe to suggest that he has some less than wholesome pastimes.
It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall
The best analogies are the ones that transport you to another time and place with their timeless grace and beauty. In this case, the unknown author makes us recall those crazy, hazy days when we carried out popular hobbies such as accidentally stapling our tongues to the wall.
I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don’t speak German. Anyway, it’s a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don’t know the name for those either
This is just sheer poetry and it makes us know exactly what kind of fear the writer felt. I don’t know what the little plastic gizmos are called either.
Like is like a box of chocolates
This is, of course, a quote from Forrest Gump and you might argue that it is a metaphor rather than an analogy but I don’t care; I just hate the damned thing. Life is resolutely not like a box of chocolates in any way. It’s more like one of those mystery pizzas you order at midnight when you’re drunk and then in the morning you can’t work out what is even on it. Actually, it’s not like that at all, either.