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March 23, 2006

Analogies from the Plum

Many folks are already familiar with the Worst Analogies Ever Written in a High School Essay contest that was hosted by the Washington Post Style Invitational a few years ago. I love that list of analogies. I read it whenever I'm feeling a bit blue.

On particularly desolate days, I need something a bit stronger. Or, rather, someone. There are times when only a Wodehousian analogy from the Plum himself will suffice. Observe, in no particular order:

  1. She now looked like a tomato struggling for self expression.
  2. The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotton to say 'When'! -- Very Good, Jeeves
  3. I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanor was rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in the small of the back.
  4. Her laugh was like the Scotch express entering a tunnel.
  5. She gave a sort of despairing gesture, like a vicar’s daughter who has discovered Erastianism in the village. -- Laughing Gas
  6. Freddie experianced the sort of abysmal soul sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy's peasents when, after putting in a heavy days work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city resorvoir, he turns to the cupboard, only to find the vodka bottle empty.
  7. In repose, it has a sort of meditative expression, as if she were a pure white soul thinking beautiful thoughts, and, when animated, so dashed animated that it boosts the morale to just look at her. Her eyes are a kind of browny-hazel and her hair rather along the same lines. The general effect is of an angel who eats a lot of yeast. -- The Mating Season

Lovely. Is PG Wodehouse in the canon?

(Even more fun can be found in this alt.wodehouse list appendix.)

Writing | By elissa | 03:36 PM

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Comments

One of my faves:
"Having an aura of menace is like having a pet weasel, because you rarely meet someone who has one, and when you do it makes you want to hide under the coffee table." --Lemony Snicket, The Slippery Slope

Posted by: Jeannette at March 24, 2006 08:15 AM

P. G.'s in the canon, and considered to be the lighter counterpart to Waugh and Greene.

Posted by: mesh at March 29, 2006 12:24 PM

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