22 March 2007

It was funny, but it was fake

Thanks to a reader for pointing out that my post from January, which suggested that American high school pupils came up with silly analogies like "He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree", was based on a phoney piece of information.

Shame on The Week, or whichever broadsheet they digested this from, for claiming their source was "an American publisher" rather than the Washington Post website. Unless there really was an American publisher, and they were the ripoff culprit.

So these were not examples of bad writing produced by hapless students, they were intentional jokes entered for a competition. Anyway, they're still funny, so here are a few more.
He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

Even in his last years, grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

"Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.