Teaching and learning during a pandemic is like...

I have mentioned Frank Bruni's weekly round up of great writing, and his most recent post featured a series of great sentences that all made use of similes.

In case we are a bit hazy on what a simile is, here is the quick definition: a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g. as brave as a lion, crazy like a fox). A quick clue is the use of "like" or "as" in the comparisons.

I copied four simile examples below.

Here’s the science writer Dennis Overbye on a special magnifying glass for the cosmos: “Sitting in a spaceport in French Guiana, wrapped like a butterfly in a chrysalis of technology, ambition, metal and wires, is the biggest, most powerful and, at $10 billion, most expensive telescope ever to be launched into space.”

This comparison of a telescope with a butterfly just before it emerges from its cocoon gets the reader "seeing" the device as about to make a big difference in science. There is no literal wrapping or protection, but that triplet of "ambition, metal, and wires" contains all sorts of information. BTW, who knew there was a spaceport in French Guiana?

Here’s David Segal describing one of the people in his article about a Dickensian workhouse in London becoming — of course! — luxury apartments: “Mr. Burroughs, a 77-year-old chartered accountant, speaks carefully and barely above a whisper, as if he were narrating a golf tournament.”

A comparison only works when readers comprehend both sides of the simile. Here the writer assumes the reader has watched some golf on TV and immediately conjures up the quiet voices (so as not to disturb the golfers and fans at the scene). There is also a sense of propriety and tradition in this comparison.

Here’s Gail Collins, from her weekly online “Conversation” with Bret Stephens: “Registering as an independent is like telling a charitable fund-raiser that you want to help by sending good thoughts.”

Ms. Collins represents the more progressive side in the weekly conversations she has with a fellow New York Times columnist. They like to keep things civil and a bit light, despite the often serious topics they discuss. Her point here is clearly that being a registered independent voter is an empty gesture.

Bret differed. “I’m happy as an independent,” he wrote. “It’s like getting to order à la carte, whereas everyone else is stuck with a bento box of things that don’t actually go together.”

Mr. Stephens represents a more conservative POV and a year or so ago he changed his affiliation from Republican to Independent. His point is that being an independent allows for more flexibility and choice and avoids being stuck with individual positions and policies he disagrees with. I had to look up what a "bento box" is, I blush to admit -- it is a multi-compartment box containing different courses of a (usually) Japanese lunch. 

But I got the gist of his simile from context, so his somewhat obscure reference didn't damage his simile too much. That reference was a great reminder that writers must always consider their readers and calculate just how far to push the diction and syntax.

A well-written simile can clarify things, ideas, and people and should become a tool to use (sparingly) in your own writing.