In the book I’m currently reading:

The basement club was as well ventilated as the inside of a jet engine

Reading on, it’s clear the author makes this comment because the club was very hot presumably due to poor ventilation – the inside of a jet engine is hot, but very well ventilated.

That’s a shocking simile.

I hope you’re not going to read any more of the book.

What about that song that goes ‘I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain’
Do deserts miss rain? surely if they got rain they wouldn’t be deserts.

“Quantum Leap” when used to describe a massive change in situation / way of thinking. It’s all about tiny wee stuff isn’t it?

I actually read the thread title as “Incorrect and dodgy smilies”, as in emoticons, so don’t listen to me 8)

Oh boy.

Do deserts miss rain? surely if they got rain they wouldn’t be deserts.

It rains in most deserts at sometime, hence the corny line.

My favourite one which is bizarre was the description in a newspaper describing a specific player on a baseball team as “fitting in like a pork chop on a wedding cake”

The Atacama desert is the driest place in the world allegedly, where some areas have had no recorded rainfall, and there is evidence that there was no rain between 1570 to 1971.

So that proves Drac’s point – even there, there is some rain, but you just need to consider the time period. So I suppose – given that caveat – Tracy and Ben were right in their line.

But the OP’s example is truly horrendous and meaningless. Agree that you should have put it down there and then and backed away slowly.

I was expecting sone inappropriate smilies! 😳 😛 8)

“Quantum Leap” when used to describe a massive change in situation / way of thinking. It’s all about tiny wee stuff isn’t it?

The size is irrelevant. Quantum refers to a discrete quantity that cannot (is not) continuous – eg how many bikes you have rather than how much water you carry on a ride (yes, I know we talk about having partial bikes 🙂 )

Quantum leap suggests a step change rather than a gradual one.

What about Toto’s soft-rock anthem ‘Africa’, with the classic line

“Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti”

So a mountain rises like, well, another mountain. Great simile, good work fellas.

Carole Similie, earlier;

‘Went down like a lead balloon’

What, so it went down really well then?

No, everyone knows that heavier things fall faster 🙄

I’ve always been genuinely concerned about Otters and their ‘pocket’

“Wet as an otters pocket” has to be a Northern thing, one does wonder how Northern folk find stuff like this out, then again it could be the Cornish they aint all there either..

Then ‘Mad as a bag of frogs?’

Who does stuff like this?

MrsBouy uses “Wetter than an Otters pocket”

I asked her how she knew..

Do Otters have pockets? Do they wear twed whilst out in the hills and valleys, possibly a deerstalker too.. and Hunters.. but they’re a bit chavlike.. Dunlops then, yeah they’re better.

I always thought, surely if anything has a waterproof pocket, it’d be an otter. Keep it’s stuff dry.

The basement club was as well ventilated as the inside of a jet engine

Name and shame…

Smart as a carrot.
Job’s a fish.
Like a wizards sleeve.

Smells fishier than a mermaid’s ****

Do deserts miss rain? surely if they got rain they wouldn’t be deserts.
It rains in most deserts at sometime, hence the corny line.

Yeah and then when it does rain, life blooms! I saw it on David Attenborough

Flatter than a witches tit…..

derekrides….box of frogs…was an old blackadder one?

Dull as my arse….rough as a bears arse….cheers for those grandad 😆

Father in law uses “thicker than a Ghurkas foreskin”…frightened to ask why 😯

“Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.”

Ok, so it is intentionally bad, but still brilliant. There’s actually competitions to see who can write the worst;

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

And sorry if it’s slightly OT, but I’ve ever really understood ‘it would be cheap at half the price’. Well yeah, but it isn’t half the price is it?

What about that song that goes ‘I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain’ Do deserts miss rain? surely if they got rain they wouldn’t be deserts.

If they had a lot of rain, they probably wouldn’t be deserts.

The song is about an intense friendship or love affair that ended some time ago but is still fondly recalled despite the passage of time. Rain in the desert is relatively unusual but often intense and produces a significant change in the appearance/smell/feeling of the flora and fauna that around to experience it. The simile is apposite.

It still sounds clunky, though.

As an aside, if there was ever a band that tried harder to shun success than EBTG, I’m not sure I’ve heard of them. They alienated their original fan base by getting into electronica and adopting D&B sounds, and they alienated their new-found audience by waiting ages before the next release, didn’t bother updating their website, having a dispute with their old label which led to them slagging off their own greatest hits releases and eventually just not bothering to tell anyone they’d probably split up. And for that I quite respect them…

Oh boy.

I got it pook – even if nobody else did.

No, everyone knows that heavier things fall faster

So you do or do not think that lead balloons fall faster than rubbery ones you’ve inflated with air?

As an aside, if there was ever a band that tried harder to shun success than EBTG, I’m not sure I’ve heard of them.

That just shows how hard they’ve tried!

But actually if you like EBTG, you might try Eg and Alice

in fact, have this one
http://www.amazon.co.uk/24-Years-Hunger-Eg-Alice/dp/B000006YFD/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322051271&sr=8-1

[pedantry] Many of the later examples are metaphors not similies…[/pedantry]

[Further pedantry] And a desert is usually described in terms of a moisture deficit; i.e. more moisture can potentially be lost (through drainage, evaporation) than gained (through precipitation). There are some “deserts” where they actually have quite a lot of rain. [/Further pedantry]

Poor writing by a professional writers is inexcusable but increasingly common.

Surely they’re only professional writers if people read their stuff ? In which case, they are excused.

How can this be one for the pedants, yet no one’s pointed out that the plural of simile is “similes” ???

Standards today…..

Dont just sit there like me.

mudshark – Member

No, everyone knows that heavier things fall faster

So you do or do not think that lead balloons fall faster than rubbery ones you’ve inflated with air?

I just knew that someone would get all physics geek 🙂 I’m well aware of the correct answer. 😉

AlexSimon – Member

Oh boy.

I got it pook – even if nobody else did.

Please explain

And sorry if it’s slightly OT, but I’ve ever really understood ‘it would be cheap at half the price’. Well yeah, but it isn’t half the price is it?

Because the correct phrase is “cheap at twice the price,” only it’s being spoken by gibbons. See also, “I could care less.”

Please explain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Leap_%28TV_series%29

“near miss” is another.

I’m going to start a campaign…

He whisked off her shoes and panties in one movement, wild like an enraged shark, his bulky totem beating a seductive rhythm. Mary’s body felt like it was burning, even though the room was properly air-conditioned. They tried all the positions: on top, doggy, and normal. Exhausted, they collapsed on to the recently extended sofa bed. Then a hellbeast ate them.

Garth Marenghi

slightly OT but…

any superlative followed by ‘unique’ really gets my goat.

As does the now common usage of ‘exception proves the rule’ when any fool knows that the ‘prove’ in this case refers to testing, not providing proof.

‘Sweating like a badger in a sack’ is fairly unpleasant.

Near miss is okay. It was a miss, but the two parties were very near to each other. Simple.

And deserts miss rain. The rain mostly goes somewhere else, hence they miss it.