Back in grade school, I have no doubt that you learned all about figurative language. You probably also remember the words, ‘simile’ and ‘metaphor’ but can you remember what they are? How they differ from one another?

And then the word ‘analogy’ gets thrown into the mix and it all becomes a whole heap of confusion.

You know that analogies are not just word pairs separated by a colon or a double colon.

You know that they have a little bit to do with logic but what on earth does all this have to do with similes and metaphors?

That is what this mini-series is all about because, as it turns out, all three are related. How? All of them are used for comparing things but in different ways. And that brings about a new question – just which one do you use and when? And how are they different from one another?

There is only one way to find out.

What is a Metaphor?

Metaphors are rhetorical constructions using one thing to mean something else. The idea is to get a reader to look at something in a different light.

One thing is called by the name of something else, both having something in common that makes the swap work but only in a figurative way.

Take ‘love is a battlefield’ – does it mean that guns and weapons are involved?

Other examples include:

HL Mencken – “Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.”

Truman Capote – “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”

Quite simply, you could express a metaphor as “A is B.”

What is an Analogy?

Analogies are rhetorical comparisons of two things or ideas that, in some ways, are similar. Analogies can come off metaphors and similes and carry on by telling you what the things or ideas have got in common.

An analogy can also take that similarity and exploit it as a better way of explaining something difficult or perhaps a bit too delicate for some discussions. One example would be, “politicians are like diapers” and would then go on to explain how politicians and diapers are similar.

The American SAT test uses analogies, as do other tests, using the following formula expressed with symbols and words:

A is to B as Y is to Z.

A : B :: Y : Z

An example of an analogy that isn’t quite complete would read like this:

The Dalai Lama is to Tibetan Buddhism as the Pope is to ______.

The Dalai Lama : Tibetan Buddhism :: the Pope : ______

This kind of analogy draws a parallel between relationships and, because we already know what part of that relationship is, it should be easy enough to complete the missing words – in this case, Roman Catholicism.

What is a Simile?

Similes are literary devices used to compare two things directly, using either ‘like’ or ‘as’ to link them together.

Some examples would be:

Marcus Tullius Cicero – “A room without books is like a body with no soul.”

A short story written by Ernest Hemingway – “Hills like elephants.”

We can express a simile as “A is as _____ as a B” or “A is like B.”

In part 2, we’ll look at the differences between the three.