Now, everyone who attended high school was taught about similes but the examples used were torturously as boring as watching paint dry. Most of those cited were written by the king of similes, Billy Shakespeare, and went something like this: “Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea” or, “They are as gentle as zephyrs blowing below the violet.”
Think about it. You are 16 years old and if you started spouting “hadsts” and “thous” in gym class you’d wind up stuffed in your locker like a sardine in a can. You’d definitively be spending prom night as lonely as a town crier, or with fewer people than are on Bernie Madoff’s Facebook friends list.
If high school English teachers truly wanted to see perfect scores on simile and metaphor tests, they’d forget about the Bard on the Avon and start using examples with which people are more familiar. Fortunately for teachers in these parts, finding them is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
One of the things I enjoy about Southern Illinois is the use of similes is as common as corn here. Of course, folks don’t call them “similes”; they are “sayings.”
Just why there are so many sayings used here is as perplexing as why anyone would want to receive Tweets from Mel Gibson, but my guess is because of the Appalachian influences on the region. The hill folk are known for banjo music, shine and sayings.
I have started a collection of sayings and need your help. They could be old ones like “colder than a creek rock” or modern like “stickier than Lindsay Lohan’s fingers.” Either way, let’s build something together. Here are a few I have. Post yours below.
- Raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock
- Shining like a diamond in a goat’s ass
- Sorer than a laying hen
- Finer than a frog’s hair split twice
- Bloodier than A Charlie Sheen hooker
- Busier than a one eyed cat watching nine mouse holes
- Busy as a farmer with one hoe and two rattlesnakes
- Beaten like a rented mule
- Off like a herd of turtles
- Prettier than a speckled pup in a red wagon
- As red as a beet
- As tight as Dick’s hat band
- Ugly as a mud fence
- Crooked as a barrel of fish hooks
- Dumb as a coal bucket
- As happy as a coon in the corn field with the dogs all tied
- Cold as a banker’s heart
