When I came across this in a recent Facebook post, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. If these analogies had been created deliberately, then they are brilliant. However, I fear that was not the case.

The wonder of words. I write about them a lot. But in response to these, I don’t exactly know what reaction is appropriate.

Decry the state of high school education? Argue forcefully for the continued inclusion of English language classes in all secondary schools? Or pack it in, move to a desert island, and accept that the future is doomed.

Or maybe have a laugh at these earnest and well-meaning if seriously off-the-mark young people’s attempts at expressing themselves.

You decide.

Actual Analogies Used by High School Students in English Essays

1. When she tried to sing, it sounded like a walrus giving birth to farm equipment.
   
2. Her eyes twinkled, like the mustache of a man with a cold.
   
3. She was like a magnet: attractive from the back, repulsive from the front.
   
4. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
   
5. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
   
6. She had him like a toenail stuck in a shag carpet.
   
7. The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.