Post by : Published in 2005 as ‘Similes and
Sets: the English Preposition like’ in R. Blatná and V. Petkevič
(eds.): Jazyky a jazykovĕda
(Languages and Linguistics: Festschrift for Professor Fr. Čermák).
Prague: Philosophy Faculty of the Charles University
Author :
Patrick Hanks
Identitas :
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences1 and Brandeis University.
Title
:
Simile
Pages
: 15 Pages.
A simile is a figure of speech that makes a comparison, showing similarities between two different things. Unlike a metaphor, a simile draws resemblance with the help of the words “like” or “as”. Therefore, it is a direct comparison.
We can find simile examples in our daily speech. We often hear
comments like “John is as slow as a snail.” Snails are notorious for
their slow pace and here the slowness of John is compared to that of a
snail. The use of “as” in the example helps to draw the resemblance.
Some more examples of common similes are given below.
1.
Does the Preposition like always Signal a Simile?
Although
it may be true, as Davidson says, that “everything is like everything else”, it
is equally true that some things are more alike than others.
Truth-conditional semantics, with its simple true-false mechanism, does not
allow for this. In particular a language community relies on conventional beliefs
about likeness, beliefs which may or may not be true but which are certainly
meaningful and can be measured in terms of usage.
It
would be logical to suppose that, if someone says that A is like B,
then they are implying that A is not B. If B denotes a set (as
most common nouns do), then saying that A is like B might seem to imply that A
is not a member of the set denoted by B. However, common everyday usage of
English does not support this supposition. In some cases it is true and in
others not. Attempting to distinguish inclusion from non-inclusion misses the
point. For example, the expression “people like doctors and lawyers” is generally
used to pick out a set that includes doctors, lawyers, and other
middle-class professionals. On the other hand, the sentence “A banker without
money is like a doctor without pills” refers to a set of people (bankers) that does
not include doctors.
The
alternation is pervasive. On the one hand:
1.
“But
pharmacists, like doctors, have run out of vaccines”. Pharmacists are
not doctors.
2.
“A
sigh went through him like a wave”. A sigh is not a wave.
3.
“They
moved in white like doctors and nurses”. “They” are not doctors and nurses.
4.
“A
white BMW which looks more like a modern bathroom cabinet than a car.” A
BMW is not a bathroom cabinet.
5.
“Bruce
Davidson always sounded like a Speak Your Weight machine when he was
delivering a prepared statement.” Bruce Davidson is not a Speak Your Weight
machine
2.
The Appeal to Perceptions and Imagination
Like
is
often governed by a verb of perception
-
The flat smelled like the lair of a
strange animal.
-
In
the television debate Mr Goddard sounded like a petulant school master who was
sure that a pupil had done something wrong but could n't prove it.
-
When the last resonances of the symphony had died, all that was left was an electronic
whine. It sounded like an idiot child whistling.
With
verbs of perception (look like, sound like, taste like, smell like), like
often invokes an appeal to a cultural stereotype rather than to an
actual experience of reality. If a place smells like the lair of an animal, if
someone looks like a witch, if an adult behave likes a child, or if something
tastes like dry sherry, these statements rely on English speakers sharing
stereotypical beliefs about the appearance of lairs and witches, the behaviour
of children, and the flavour of dry sherry.
3.
Nouns typically used to make Similes
Conventional
similes are associated with particular verbs at different levels of generality.
Thus, at the most general level, a person may look like or behave
like any of various creatures or humans in particular roles – a rat, a
dragon, a witch, an old man – without being any of these things. Alternatively,
he/she may look like a doctor or an accountant and actually be a doctor or an
accountant. In both cases, the meaningfulness depends on recognition of a
cultural stereotype for the set of rats, dragons, witches, doctors, and accountants.
-
an outraged salmon leapt from the water and made off upstream like a rocket.
This
expression is just like that, used without an antecedent for the
demonstrative
pronoun
-
You can't change thoughts and beliefs just like that.
-
For
a long time I didn't want children, and then I wanted them. All of a sudden,
just like that.
A
parallel expression, like this, reminds us that not all thought
is necessarily verbal. It is sometimes used to accompany an explanation couched
in the form of an action rather than words
-
Now, hold your two hands forward in front of you like this, as if you
were going to dive.
4.
Using Similes to Talk about Personal Feelings
Similes,
more or less conventional, also play an important role in presenting the inner
and unknowable feelings of an individual to the outside world. This device is
especially popular among fiction writers, who of course have privileged access
to the feelings of the characters they create. Consider 30, for example.
-
He felt like a lame dog who had found a wonderful home.
The
author’s discussion of the simile makes it clear that it is intended to invoke
pathos rather than contempt, and that the emotive content is what matters, as
contrasted with, say, the finer points of vetinerary surgery.
-
He later complained he felt like a Spanish general without a horse.
In
conclusion, this journal have weakness and straighness.
The
weakness
-
So many term in this journal. So, the
reader can not understand about this journal.
-
Difficult to review this journal
The
straightness
-
This journal complete with material.
Bibliography
Black,
Max. 1962. Models and Metaphors. Cambridge University Press.
Black,
Max. 1979. ‘More about metaphor’ in Andrew Ortony (ed.): Metaphor and
Thought.
Cambridge
University Press.
Davidson,
Donald. 1978. ‘What Metaphors Mean’ in Critical Inquiry, vol. 5,
reprinted
1984
in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford University Press.
Glucksberg,
Sam. 2001. Understanding Figurative Language: from Metaphor to Idioms.
Oxford
University Press.
Hanks,
Patrick, 2004. ‘The Syntagmatics of Metaphor’ in International Journal of
Lexicography
17:3.
Lakoff,
George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we Live By. Chicago University
Press.
Miller,
George A. 1979. ‘Images and models, similes and metaphors’ in Andrew Ortony
(ed.):
Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge University Press.
