Simile (pronounced sim-uh-lee)
(1)
A figure of speech expressing the resemblance of one thing to another of a
different category usually introduced by as or like.
(2)
An instance of such a figure of speech or a use of words exemplifying it.
1393:
From the Middle English simile, from
the Latin simile (a like thing; a
comparison, likeness, parallel), neuter of similis
(like, resembling, of the same kind).
The antonym is dissimile and the plural similes or similia although the
latter, the original Latin form, is now so rare its use would probably only
confuse. Apart from its use as a
literary device, the word was one most familiar as the source of the “fax”
machine, originally the telefacsimile and there was a “radio facsimile” service
as early as the 1920s whereby images could be transmitted over long-distance
using radio waves, the early adopters newspapers and the military.
The
simile is figure of speech in which one thing is explicitly compared to
another, usually using “like” or “as”; both things must be mentioned and the
comparison directly stated. For literary
effect, the two things compared should be thought so different as to not
usually appear in the same sentence and the comparison must directly be
stated. Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) thought a simile “…to be perfect,
must both illustrate and ennoble the subject." but many long ago became clichéd and far removed from nobility.
It went through
me like an armor-piercing shell.
Slept like a log.
Storm in a tea
cup.
Blind as a bat.
Dead as a dodo.
Deaf as a post.
Metaphor (pronounced met-uh-fawr)
(1)
A figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which
it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance.
(2) Something used, or
regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.
1525-1535: From the Middle French métaphore & the (thirteenth century) Old French metafore from the Latin metaphora, from the Ancient Greek μεταφορά (metaphorá) (a transfer, especially of the sense of one word to a different word; literally "a carrying over”), from μεταφέρω (metaphérō) (I transfer; I apply; I carry over; change, alter; to use a word in a strange sense), the construct being μετά (metá) (with; across; after; over) + φέρω (phérō, pherein) (to carry, bear) from the primitive Indo-European root bher- (to carry; to bear children). The plural was methaphoris. In Antiquity, for a writer to be described in Greek as metaphorikos meant they were "apt at metaphors”, a skill highly regarded: “It is a great thing, indeed, to make a proper use of the poetical forms, as also of compounds and strange words. But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars" (Aristotle (384-322 BC), Poetics (circa 335 BC)).
The words metaphor, simile and analogy are often used interchangeably and, at the margins, there is a bit of overlap, a simile being a type of metaphor but the distinctions exist. A metaphor is a figure of figure of speech by which a characteristic of one object is assigned to another, different but resembling it or analogous to it; comparison by transference of a descriptive word or phrase. It’s important to note a metaphor is technically not an element or argument, merely a device to make a point more effective or better understood. It’s the use of a word or phrase to refer to something other than its literal meaning, invoking an implicit similarity between the thing described and what is denoted by the word or phrase. It has certain technical uses too such as the recycling or trashcan icons in the graphical user interfaces (GUI) on computer desktops (a metaphor in itself). The most commonly used derivatives are metaphorically & metaphorical but in literary criticism and the weird world of deconstructionism, there’s the dead metaphor, the extended metaphor, the metaphorical extension, the mysterious conceptual metaphor and the odd references to metaphoricians and their metaphorization. Within the discipline, the sub-field of categorization is metaphorology, the body of work of those who metaphorize.
This royal
throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of
majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden,
demi-paradise,
This fortress
built by Nature for herself
Against
infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed
of men, this little world,
This precious
stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it
in the office of a wall
Or as a moat
defensive to a house,
Against the envy
of less happier lands,--
This blessed
plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Richard
II (circa 1594), Act 2 scene 1.
Analogy (pronounced uh-nal-uh-jee)
(1)
A similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be
based:
(2)
A similarity or comparability.
(3)
In biology, an analogous relationship; a relationship of resemblance or
equivalence between two situations, people, or objects, especially when used as
a basis for explanation or extrapolation.
(4)
In linguistics, the process by which words or phrases are created or re-formed
according to existing patterns in the language.
(5)
In logic a form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be similar to
another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity
between the things in other respects.
(6)
In geometry, the proportion or the equality of ratios.
(7)
In grammar, the correspondence of a word or phrase with the genius of a
language, as learned from the manner in which its words and phrases are
ordinarily formed; similarity of derivative or inflectional processes.
1530-1540:
From the Old French analogie, from
the Latin analogia, from the Ancient
Greek ἀναλογία (analogía), (ratio or proportion) the construct being ἀνά
(aná) (upon; according to) + λόγος (logos) (ratio; word; speech, reckoning),
from the primitive Indo-European root leg-
(to collect, to gather (with derivatives meaning “to speak; to pick out words”). It was originally a term from mathematics
given a wider sense by Plato who extended it to logic (which became essentially
“an argument from the similarity of
things in some ways inferring their similarity in others”. The meaning “partial agreement, likeness or
proportion between things” fates from the 1540s and by the 1580s was common in
mathematics; by the early seventeenth century it was in general English
use. The plural is analogies and the
derived forms include the adjective analogical and the verbs analogize &
analogized. In critical discourse
there’s the “false analogy” and the rare disanalogy.
An
analogy is a comparison in which an idea or a thing is compared to another
thing that is quite different from it, aiming to explain the idea or thing by
comparing it to something that is familiar.
Further to confuse, metaphors and similes are tools used to draw an
analogy so an analogy can be more extensive and elaborate than either a simile
or a metaphor.
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), The Day Is Done (1844).
“They crowded very
close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip,
as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men
handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water.”
George
Orwell (1903-1950), A Hanging (1931).
The Mean Girls mall scene, at the water hole in the jungle clearing where the “animals gather
when on heat”.
Similes,
metaphors & analogies are used frequently as devices in fiction including
in Paramount Production’s Mean Girls
(2004) and the similes were quite brutish including “You smell like a baby prostitute”; “She's like a Martian”; & “Your
face smells like peppermint”. The
metaphors were obvious (this was a teen comedy) but worked well. The “Plastics”
implied the notion of things artificial, superficial, and shiny on the outside
but hollow inside while “Social Suicide”
would to the audience have been more familiar still. The idea of the “Queen Bee” (a metaphorical position of one individual as the centre
of the hive (school) around which all dynamics and activities revolve) was one
of several zoological references. The
idea of it being “…like a jungle in here”
was a variation of the familiar metaphorical device of comparing modern urban
environments (the “concrete jungle”
the best known) with a jungle and in Mean Girls stylized depictions of wild
animals do appear, the school’s mascot a lion, a link to the protagonist having
come from the African savanna. There
was also the use of a malapropism in the analogy “It's like I have ESPN or something”, the novelty being it used an
incorrect abbreviation rather than a word.
The Mean Girls script is not the place to search for literary
subtleties.
Of
Pluto
The
New Zealand physicist Lord Rutherford (1871-1937), who first split the atom
(1932), explained its structure by drawing an analogy with our solar
system. Rutherford always regarded
physics as the “only true, pure science”
while other disciplines were just expressions of the properties or applications
of the theories of physics. In 1908, he
was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “…for his investigations into the disintegration of the
elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances.” It was said he was amused by the joke.
This
image includes Pluto as a planet.
Historically, the Galileian satellites of Jupiter were initially called
satellite planets but were later reclassified along with the Moon. The first observed asteroids were also
considered planets, but were reclassified when became apparent how many there
were, crossing each other's orbits, in a zone where only a single planet had
been expected. Pluto was found where an
outer planet had been expected but doubts were soon raised about its status
because (1) it was found to cross Neptune's orbit and (2) was much smaller than
had been the expectation. The debate
about the status of Pluto went on for decades after its discovery in 1930 and
the pro-planet faction may have become complacent, thinking that because Pluto
had always been a planet, it would forever be thus but, after seventy-six years
in the textbooks as a planet, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in
2006 voted to re-classify Pluto as a dwarf planet on the basis that the icy orb
failed to meet a set of criteria which the IAU claimed had for decades been
accepted science.
To
be a planet, the IAU noted, the body must (1) orbit a star, (2) be sufficiently
massive to it pull itself into a sphere under its own gravity and (3), “clear its neighbourhood”
of debris and other celestial bodies, proving it has gravitational dominance (cosmic
hegemony in its sphere of influence by political analogy) in its little bit of
the solar system. Pluto fails the third
test. Because it orbits in the Kuiper
Belt (a massive ring of asteroids and planetoids that stretches beyond the
orbit of Neptune), Pluto is surrounded by thousands of other celestial bodies
and chunks of debris, each exerting its own gravity. Pluto is thus not the gravitationally dominant
object in its neighborhood and therefore, not a planet and but a dwarf (a sort
of better class of asteroid). The IAU’s
action had been prompted by the discovery in the Kuiper Belt of a body larger
than Pluto yet still not meeting the criteria for planethood. Feeling the need to draw a line in the sky, the
IAU dumped Pluto.
However
#plutoisaplanet is a thing and Pluto’s supporters have a website, arguing that
while it’s universally accepted a planet should be spherical and orbit the Sun,
the “clearing the neighbourhood” rule
is arbitrary, having appeared only in a single paper published in 1801. The history is certainly muddied, Galileo
having described the moons of Jupiter as planets and there are plenty of other
more recent precedents to suggest the definitional consensus has bounced around
a bit and there are even extremists really to accept the implications of
loosening the rules such as the moons of Earth, Jupiter and Saturn becoming
planets. Most however just want Pluto
restored.
The most compelling
argument however is that the IAU are a bunch of humorless cosmological clerks,
something like the Vogons (“…not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic,
officious and callous.”) in Douglas Adams' (1952–2001) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979-1992) and
that Pluto should be restored to planethood because of the romance of the tale. Although lacking the lovely rings of Saturn
(a feature shared on a smaller scale by Jupiter, Uranus & Neptune), Pluto
is the most charming of all because it’s so far away; desolate, lonely and
cold, it's the solar system’s emo. If
for no other reason, it should be a planet in tribute to the scientists who,
for decades during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
calculated possible positions and hunted for the elusive orb. In an example of Donald Rumsfeld's
(1932–2021; US secretary of defense 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) “unknown knowns”,
the proof was actually obtained as early as 1915 but it wasn’t until 1930 that
was realized. In an indication of just
how far away Pluto lies, since the 1840s when equations based on Newtonian
mechanics were first used to predict the position of the then “undiscovered”
planet, it has yet to complete even one orbit of the Sun, one Plutonian year
being 247.68 years long.
