A simile is a comparison of things that are unlike but have something in common. Most similes involve the words "like" or "as." That makes them stated comparisons. Metaphors are implied comparisons of the same sort and do not employ the aforementioned preposition or conjunction. "My heart is like a violin and you are the bow that makes it sing." The heart/violin comparison is a simile; "you are the bow" is a metaphor.

Simile

Definitions of simile ordinarily restrict themselves to comparisons involving "like" or "as." For example,"That halfback runs like an antelope," and "I'm as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

I would expand the definition to include "than" and "so . . .that." Thus we could hang the simile label on "His writing is as smooth as warm butter" and "I was so skinny that I had to jump around in the shower to get wet." The latter is a simile that does not involve two objects or nouns but the adjective skinny and an exaggerated description of that body type.

We use similes to explain things, to express emotion, and to make writing more vivid and entertaining. Discovering fresh similes involves finding new ways to look at your subject matter.

For optimum effect, avoid stale and hackneyed comparisons. In the comparison of the football player's speed and shiftiness, most people will expect to hear "runs like a deer." The substitution of antelope is a bit more effective. Were the runner a big, bruising fulllback, one might compare him to a freight train. In the second example, smooth as silk would be less effective than smooth as warm butter because of overuse of the former simile.

Here's a clip from a Willard Espy poem titled A Tired Song of Tired Similes

. . .you, my own darling, the love of my life,

Are free as the wind, and as sharp as a knife;
As blind as a bat and as sly as a fox,
As pert as a sparrow, as dumb as an ox;
As plump as a partridge, as red as a rose,
As flat as a flounder, as plain as my nose.

Long ago I was acquainted with a Marine sergeant born in the Deep South. His language bubbled over with amusing similes most of which are unrepeatable. For instance, when driving on rainy streets he remarked, "These roads are slicker than possum puke on a hickory limb." Speaking of his boyhood, he said, "Times was so hard that even people who didn't intend to pay weren't buying." (I'm still pondering that one.)

Metaphor

Permit me to repeat that metaphors are implied comparisons. When Paul Simon wrote or sang, "I am a rock;

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