March 24th, 2011 / 12:56 pm
Random
Alec Niedenthal
Random
Analogous to what?
Via Adam Wilson‘s Facebook feed: a list of the “worst” analogies written by high school students, as selected by their teachers. As this blog post notes, the predicate of “worst” is an oversight, or at worst a condescending and misguided error–many of these analogies are sharp if not artful in what Adam, I think perceptively, called a “Lishian” way.
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.
“They mark time zones on a map with dashed lines, as if perforating the heart for a phone call never made.”
these are great; i’ve seen them before, and i remember reading somewhere that they’re “fake,” in that they weren’t really written by high school students, but i don’t know if that’s true, and in any event i agree that they’re lovely
It would show a real paucity of imagination to consider these ‘worst.’
Bad analogies are like lawnmowers for seaweed. Good analogies, too.
“Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever,” is particularly awesome.
Some of these are legitimately great sentences. Others are hilarious and the authors were clearly self-aware of the absurdity (“The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a .jpeg file at 10 percent cyan, 10 percent magenta, 60 percent yellow and 10 percent black.”)
“She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.” made me LOL. and “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.” is actually pretty profound.
alturl.com/q4f33