Grammar Refresher

Cecilia used the following memorable phrase in her speech tonight: "Compare words of a language to bricks of a house."

And Ai Ai used this piece of language to comment on the speed of the meeting: "Went like a whirlwind."

In grammatical terms these are known as a similes.

A simile is defined in project 4 of the Competent Communicator(CC) manual as: "a comparison that uses the words like or as", and it goes on to give us an example: "If we deny our children an education, ignorance will grow like a cancer"

A simile is one of a group of grammatical devices known as rhetorical devices. What exactly is a rhetorical device? The definition in the CC manual is pretty good: "Rhetorical devices are special ways of arranging words to make an idea or thought sound more pleasing and easier for listeners to remember."

Here's another definition and some more examples of similes on englishclub.com

Here are a few good similes I can recall from past meetings;

Bo when discussing dot com companies: "rising up like bamboo shoots in spring"

Christina at the Japanese Club dinner: "playing around like naughty monkeys"

Laurent when discussing a networking event: "Felt like a vegetarian in a meat market"

Can you recall any good use of similes? Perhaps you can post them as comments.