Talks Like a Simile: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
{{quote|"And now we must duel, like two glimmering banjos on a moonlit stoop!"|'''Dimentio''', ''[[Super Paper Mario (Video Game)|Super Paper Mario]]''}}
 
A character who [[Title Drop|talks like a simile]] uses similes in their speech pattern the way a machine gun uses bullets: swiftly, mercilessly, and in quick succession, to the point where [[Metaphorgotten|this quality becomes a prominent character trait]]. In a lot of these cases, [[Self-Demonstrating Article|the similes they use will be about as unusual as a school of fish in the Sahara and more complex than space shuttle wiring]], but still the offender will churn them out as they talk, either in casual conversation or in the narration, as though coming up with them as they go along was as natural an act to them as picking on [[Acceptable Targets|acceptable targets]].
 
A staple of the [[Private Eye Monologue]] and of characters from the [[Deep South]]. Has some similarities with [[Dissimile]]. Also see [[Strange Syntax Speaker]], [[Like Is, Like, a Comma]].
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* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s [[Lemony Narrator|narration]]. ''[[Signature Style|Always]]''. But especially in [[Discworld]].
* ''[[The HitchhikersHitchhiker's Guide to Thethe Galaxy]]'' is chock full of them, particularly negative similes describing exactly what something is unlike:
{{quote| "(Vogons ships) hung in the sky, in much the same way that [[Dissimile|bricks don't]]"}}
* Eddie Valiant in ''[[Who Censored Roger Rabbit? (Literature)]]?'' by [[Gary Wolf|Gary K. Wolf]]. This quality did not carry over into [[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?|the movie.]]
* Eilonwy of ''[[Prydain Chronicles|The Prydain Chronicles]]'' seasons this with a heavy dash of [[Cloudcuckoolander]].
{{quote| "It's silly to worry because you can't do something you simply can't do. That's worse than trying to make yourself taller by standing on your head."}}
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{{quote| ''"All good feelin', sir--the wery best intentions, as the gen'l'm'n said ven he run away from his wife 'cos she seemed unhappy with him."''}}
* The narrator of Matthew F. Jones' novel ''The Cooter Farm'' includes at least one simile in almost every paragraph.
* [[PGP. WodehouseG. (Creator)Wodehouse|PG Wodehouse]] definitely deserves a place here, as both [[Douglas Adams]] and [[Stephen Fry]], who are both very adroit users of this trope, took their props from him.
{{quote| "At five minutes to eleven on the morning named he was at the station, a false beard and spectacles shielding his identity from the public eye. If you had asked him he would have said that he was a Scotch business man. As a matter a fact, he looked far more like a motor-car coming through a haystack."}}
* [[Homer]] is noted for [[wikipedia:Homeric simile|long similes]] that go on for several lines.
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** He could probably make good money selling a best hits compilation DVD of his similes over the years. "Tastes exactly [[Tastes Like Feet|like a hot Turkish urinal]]"?
*** In one interview, Clarkson actually attributed his success to this, saying that when he first became a motoring journalist, cars were more boringly samey than they had been for years, and he stuck out by his strategy of picking on something really minor and using an outrageous metaphor to describe it ("that rev counter looks like a woman's bits!")
* "[[Black AdderBlackadder|You really are as thick as clotted cream, that's been left out by some clot, and now the clots are so clotted, you couldn't unclot them with an electric de-clotter,]] [[Butt Monkey|aren't you, Baldrick?]]"
** "As cunning as fox that's been made Professor of Cunning at Cambridge University."
*** [[Up to Eleven|"... as cunning as a fox what used to be Professor of Cunning at Oxford University but has moved on, and is now working for the UN at the High Commission of International Cunning Planning..."]]
*** "The stickiest situation since Sticky the Stick Insect got stuck on a sticky bun."
*** Not a sticky stick? They missed one.
* Narrator [[Myth Busters (TV)|Robert Lee]] does this quite a bit, though it's often forgotten because he [[Pungeon Master|performs more wordplay than a British crossword]].
 
== Music ==
 
* This device is very widely used in rap and hiphop while comparatively nonexistant in other genres.
* [[Nightwish (Music)|Nightwish]]'s song 'whoever brings the night' begins with the line "We seduce the dark with pain and rapture, like two ships that pass in the night."
** That [[Dissimile|doesn't work]].
* Pete Wentz, lyricist of [[Fall Out Boy]] is fond of this trope, to the point where it's in almost every song.
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== Video Games ==
* The mysterious Dimentio in ''[[Super Paper Mario (Video Game)|Super Paper Mario]]''. See the page quote.
** [[Intentional Engrish for Funny]]-spewing Fawful in the handheld ''[[Mario and Luigi (Video Game)|Mario & Luigi]]'' games does it as well.
* This trope is invoked quite a bit in ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'', most notably by Queen Zeal.
* ''[[Max Payne (Video Gameseries)|Max Payne]]'' in spades. Also the [[Show Within a Show|in universe show]] [[Blaxploitation|Dick Justice]].
* Angel Starr from ''Phoenix Wright: [[Ace Attorney]]'' talks like this, and all the similes are about lunch. The metaphors are somewhat forced, though, as Phoenix [[First-Person Smartass|silently]] notes.
* The entire cast of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'', who [[Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic|all talk exactly like]] [[Hideo Kojima]].
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== Web Original ==
* [[Zero Punctuation|Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]] does this quite often, his similes being outrageous and bizarre, often to [[Accentuate the Negative|illustrate the negative aspect of the video games he reviews]]. He's mentioned insults being as offensive as "being smacked in the balls with your own dead dog," voice acting as unpleasant as "being raped in the ear by a man wearing a sandpaper condom," (but that was his roommate, and "not in those exact words, obviously") and [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]] as "as big a sellout as a character can get without turning tricks for a penny on the New Jersey turnpike."
* Outrageous like-simile-talking seems to be a favorite trait of comedic video game critics, seeing that [[The Angry Video Game Nerd (Web Video)|The Angry Video Game Nerd]] is also well known for his scatological similes regarding the shitty games he plays. Certainly you've heard about this business with diarrhea dumps in his ear and roadkilled skunks and the downing-with-beer thereof?
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* [[Everything Is Big in Texas|Sandy Cheeks]] from ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants (Animation)|SpongeBob SquarePants]]''. It comes standard with her stereotypical [[Deep South|Deep Southern]] drawl.
* The Script Assassin from ''[[Kappa Mikey]]''.
* [[The Tick]], moreso in the cartoon than the comic book series.
* Cathy from ''[[Monster Buster Club (Animation)|Monster Buster Club]]'' (usually in Gratuitous Rhapsodian)
* ''[[Drawn Together]]'' is extremely fond of these.
* [[Family Guy|This is just like that time that the writers of Family Guy referenced an eighties cultural phenomenon.]]
* Maguro of ''[[Sushi Pack]]'' has a tendency to do this.
* Periodically, Clover from ''[[Totally Spies (Animation)|Totally Spies]]'' talks like this.
* Rolf from ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy (Animation)|Ed, Edd n Eddy]]''.
* [[Foghorn Leghorn]]