Metaphor thread

What happened to the metaphor thread?

dont know , but i love this , from the album"Transatlanticism" by Death Cab For Cutie "new Year"

"...i wish the world was flat like the old days

then i could travel just by folding a map

no more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways

there'd be no distance that can hold us back..."

In other words: "the world is flat like a map".

Cool lyrics... but that's a simile, not a metaphor.

Err.... wait a minute. He's not saying "the world is flat like a map". He's saying he wishes the world were flat like it used to be so he could "travel by folding it up like a map".

Hmmm... I guess that would be a metaphor.

Dang it! My attmepts to appear intelligent have failed again.

A

One of my all-time favorite similes is from Sting:

Two priests came 'round the house tonight

To offer prayers for the dying, to serve the final rights.

One to learn, one to teach

Which way the cold wind blows.

Fussing and flapping in priestly black like a murder of crows.

Just FYI: a group of crows is called a "murder", similar to a "flock" of seagulls or a "pack" of wolves or a "pod" of whales or a "troop" of kangaroos or an "exaltation" of larks.

A

Originally posted by Aaron Cheney Just FYI: a group of crows is called a "murder", similar to a "flock" of seagulls or a "pack" of wolves or a "pod" of whales or a "troop" of kangaroos or an "exaltation" of larks. A

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Hell, I never knew that. Just goes to show that learning the (ever-growing) English language is no pic-nic. Regardless, one will never hear me exclaim: "Hey look, there's a murder of crows!". Birds, for me in my comfortable ignorance, will remain a flock regardless of their heinous crimes or bestowed exaltations.

Originally posted by Aaron Cheney One of my all-time favorite similes is from Sting: Two priests came 'round the house tonight To offer prayers for the dying, to serve the final rights. One to learn, one to teach Which way the cold wind blows. Fussing and flapping in priestly black like a murder of crows. Just FYI: a group of crows is called a "murder", similar to a "flock" of seagulls or a "pack" of wolves or a "pod" of whales or a "troop" of kangaroos or an "exaltation" of larks. A

Yes, but the two priests don't murder anyone in the song. So I'm not sure how that would qualify as a metaphor. It is actually just a plain, grammatically correct description, isn't it?

I was wondering that myself. I wrote a long response detailing literary devices etc. and now it's all gone.

I've noticed this happen before with other threads. One day they're there and the next they're not. You can't even do a search for key words. It won't bring up anything!

It's a conspiracy I tell you....

You know what's even weirder? When I entered the "Songwriting Forum" I saw that your post wasn't credited as the "last post" in this thread (mine was) even though you posted after me.

The mystery continues...

Anytime you see two things connected by "like a", "as a", or "than a", that's a simile. Examples:

tight as a drum

quick as a bunny

busy as a bee

folded like a house of cards

big as a house

harder than a rock

-or-

flapping in priestly black like a murder of crow.

That's an absolutely great simile becuase you immediately see two priests with their black robes whipping and dancing around in the wind like so many crows fluttering about. Very powerful and descriptive. "Murder" has nothing to do with anything. It is simply the proper name for a group of crows.

Here's a quick bit of info on similes and metaphors:

Similes and metaphors are simply comparisons between two apparently dissimilar things that have been connected by some third thing. THe more unexpected or interesting the third thing is, the more effective the comparison.

For example:

an SUV and an improper fraction

What could they possibly have in common? What's the third thing? How about this: they are both top-heavy. So here's the simile:

SUV's are as top heavy as an improper fraction.

Here's another: an old man's face and a trombone player's sleeve. What's the third thing? Both are wrinkled.

His old face was as wrinkled as a trombone player's sleeve.

You can tell the difference between similes and metaphors by the tell-tale "as a" or "like a". Anytime those words appear the comparison is a simile. But for songwriters there is a more important functional difference: similies always appear literally true. Metaphors do not. For that reason, similes are more appropriate for one time use. Metaphors, on the other hand, require some explanation to justity them since they are untrue, and often entire songs aer based around them, e.g. Dust in the Wind.

Here's are some interesting metaphors. Notice that they are not literally true and beg further explanation:

The oceans of my mind.

I am a prisoner in the chamber of your heart.

His love was a freight train.

One last thing: there a lots of metaphors and similes out there that have been so overused that they have lost all their descriptive power. I won't beat a dead horse by going over all of them. (See... did you actually picture a pony express rider on top of a dead horse, trying to spur it on? Nope, because you've heard it so many times that it's descriptive power is as dead as the horse it describes!)

This book goes into all this is greater detail.

A

A quick Google search will net you a list of hundreds of animal group names. Some of them are pretty frikkin' cool!

A