Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

I thought it fitting to write about a funny little website, which I have stumbled across only now. It is Help.com’s list of funny metaphors used in high school essays across America.

Technically, I suppose, a lot of them are similes rather than metaphors, but they are nonetheless hilarious, and really brightened up my evening.

I particularly like this one: “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.”

But, equally, they are all funny. And some of them are wonderfully accurate and concise: “The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.” You would struggle to write something better than that.

In a way, it is a sort of revolution: a complete disregard for everything that is pretentious and uptight about writing. Sometimes, through using simple images, and uncomplicated sentences, you can create something truly brilliant. And, in this case, routinely funny.

I think that I might take one of these lines as inspiration for a story or something. Or, at the very least, come up with some of my own similes and metaphors along the same lines.

What a brilliant little website.