Figurative language, or figures of speech, can paint pictures in a reader’s mind, allowing one to “see” a point readily and clearly. Far from being merely decorative, such language can be crucial to understanding.

Similes, metaphors, and analogies

Similes use like, as, as if, or as though to make explicit the similarity between two seemingly different things.

You can tell the graphic-novels section in a bookstore from afar, by the young bodies sprawled around it like casualties of a localized disaster.

– Peter Schjeldahl

The comb felt as if it was raking my skin off.

– Malcolm X, “My First Conk”

Metaphors are implicit comparisons, omitting the like, as, as if, or as though of similes.

The Internet is the new town square.

– Jeb Hensarling

Mixed metaphors make comparisons that are inconsistent.

The lectures were like brilliant comets streaking through the night sky,

The images of streaking light and heavy precipitation are inconsistent; in the revised sentence, all of the images relate to light.

Analogies compare similar features of two dissimilar things; they explain something unfamiliar by relating it to something familiar.

One way to establish that peace-preserving threat of mutual assured destruction is to commit yourself beforehand, which helps explain why so many retailers promise to match any competitor’s advertised price. Consumers view these guarantees as conducive to lower prices. But in fact offering a price-matching guarantee should make it less likely that competitors will slash prices, since they know that any cuts they make will immediately be matched. It’s the retail version of the doomsday machine.

– James Surowiecki

One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street was to Harlem what the Mississippi was to the South, a long traveling river always going somewhere, carrying something.

– Maya Angelou, The Heart of a Woman

Clichés

A cliché is a frequently used expression such as busy as a bee. By definition, we use clichés all the time, especially in speech, and many serve usefully as shorthand for familiar ideas or as a way of connecting to an audience. But if you use too many clichés in your writing, readers may conclude that what you are saying is not very new or interesting—or true. To check for clichés, use this rule of thumb: if you can predict exactly what the next word in a phrase will be, the phrase stands a good chance of being a cliché.