A simile is a rhetorical device that describes by comparing two different things or ideas using the word like or as. But what makes a good simile? The 1910 book Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases, by Yale public-speaking instructor Grenville Kleiser, offers a long list similes he’d collected for students to use as models, although some clearly work better than others. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Old Similes”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
In the early 1900s, a guy named Grenville Kleiser was an instructor in public speaking at Yale Divinity School, and he wrote a whole bunch of books on elocution, better speaking, better writing, how to win an argument, that kind of thing.
And one of his books was called 15,000 Useful Phrases, which is a pretty daunting title in and of itself.
And I didn’t count them all, but they’re probably about that many and sort of consistent with education in those days.
The book offered all of these models for people to imitate.
He encourages people in the book to take these phrases and say them aloud, read them aloud, write them out in order to become better writers.
And he’s got a whole chapter on similes, striking similes.
And they’re all gathered from some of the best poets and writers of the day.
And what I found in looking at an entire chapter of similes was that there’s sort of a fine line between genius when it comes to simile and similes that are completely dreadful.
Okay.
You’ve got examples of both.
I do.
How about this?
My head was like a great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper.
I love it.
You do?
Was that your bad one?
Yeah, that one.
I love that one.
Do you?
That’s outstanding.
I like absurd things like that.
Well, I do too.
What’s the good one?
Let’s hear the good one.
A good one.
I bet I hate it.
Okay.
I like this one.
Okay.
Like a summer dried fountain.
Oh, that’s nice.
That reminds me of one that I wanted to share with you.
Okay.
To mourn like the pines on an autumn night.
Oh, I like that very much.
You can hear the murmur of the pines in the dark, right?
I like that very much.
Yeah, so what makes a good one and what makes a bad one?
That’s what I’ve been wrestling with.
For me, it’s always been a little bit like poetry.
We’ve talked about this before, where I think that life experience informs poetry, and poetry is more interesting the older you are.
And perhaps it’s the same for similes and metaphor and that sort of thing, those other figures of speech.
Just a little more knowledge of life in general leads you to understand the implications, connotations, and denotations of a particular turn of phrase.
Really? You mean so when we’re younger, we appreciate ones that—
No, we appreciate them less.
Yeah, that’s what I mean, appreciate them less.
Like when we’re younger, we might be more impressed by one like incredible little white teeth like snow shut in a rose.
Maybe.
Or how about this one?
Moody as a poet.
I like moody as a poet.
But it’s really straightforward.
There’s no art to it, right?
Well, I think some of the ones that are more elaborate are the ones that I find the most irritating.
You know, something like he snatched furiously at breath like a tiger snatching at meat.
Yeah, that’s going to fail the writing contest pretty much.
Yeah, but then this one, like stepping out on summer evenings from the glaring ballroom.
There’s something so sensuous about that and simple.
Three of the ones we liked have to do with seasons.
Seasons.
Seasons, like summer.
Oh, yeah, interesting.
Well, we want to hear the similes that catch your ear.
Call us 877-929-9673 or let us know what makes a good simile in email.
The address is words@waywordradio.org.
