Striking Similes
" Easy as a poet's dream "
Once upon a time, in my 69th column for PCW Plus magazine, I commended Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1917) by Grenville Kleiser (1868-1953) as a never-failing source of inspiration for writers. Some people thought I must be making it all up. To give the flavour of the book and silence unbelievers, I have scanned Mr Kleiser's rigorously alphabetized "Section VIII: Striking Similes" (pp225-278). Some of them are curiously familiar. Others, culled from contemporary novels or our mentor's own fevered imagination, are not. The conger-eel simile remains my favourite. Please use this literary resource with caution, and for good purposes only.
I'm not sure whether the world is ready for a similar transcription of "Section VII: Literary Expressions". If I uploaded this too, would it be regarded as "A book to beguile the tedious hours" or "A dire monotony of bookish idiom", bringing "A daily avalanche of vituperation" to the hapless Langford ("A callow and conscienceless brute")?
David Langford
Enjoy
http://www.ansible.co.uk/misc/striking.html
Love Always
mudra
" Easy as a poet's dream "
Once upon a time, in my 69th column for PCW Plus magazine, I commended Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1917) by Grenville Kleiser (1868-1953) as a never-failing source of inspiration for writers. Some people thought I must be making it all up. To give the flavour of the book and silence unbelievers, I have scanned Mr Kleiser's rigorously alphabetized "Section VIII: Striking Similes" (pp225-278). Some of them are curiously familiar. Others, culled from contemporary novels or our mentor's own fevered imagination, are not. The conger-eel simile remains my favourite. Please use this literary resource with caution, and for good purposes only.
I'm not sure whether the world is ready for a similar transcription of "Section VII: Literary Expressions". If I uploaded this too, would it be regarded as "A book to beguile the tedious hours" or "A dire monotony of bookish idiom", bringing "A daily avalanche of vituperation" to the hapless Langford ("A callow and conscienceless brute")?
David Langford
Enjoy
http://www.ansible.co.uk/misc/striking.html Love Always
mudra
