14 Sound Similes Evaluating Figurative Comparisons

In writing thats cluttered with clichà ©s, loud noises predictably sound like thunder, while sweet voices are likened to honey, angels, or bells. But in writing thats fresh and daring, unfamiliar comparisons may sometimes surprise, delight, or enlighten us. This doesnt mean that all original similes are effective. A far-fetched comparison may strike some readers as more distracting than revealing, more puzzling than entertaining. Ultimately, of course, how we respond to a figure of speech is largely a matter of taste. Drawn from recent works of fiction and nonfiction, these 14 similes about sounds should help you determine your taste in figurative language. Read each passage aloud, and then identify the similes that you think are particularly creative, insightful, or humorous. In contrast, which ones leave you bored, annoyed, or confused? Be prepared to compare your responses with those of your friends or classmates. 14 Sound Similes to Discover   Welshmen SingingWelshmen like Mr. Davis put great stock in Welsh singing, but to my Irish ears it sounds like men jumping off chairs into a bathtub full of frogs.(P.J. ORourke, The Welsh National Combined Mud Wrestling and Spelling Bee Championship. Age and Guile, Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995)Branches Scratching Against a WindowThe floorboards creaked in the room where Rain used to be, and the branches of the cherry tree in the front yard near Edgar Allan Poes grave swayed in the wind. They scratched against the glass with a soft tap, tap, tap. It sounded like a lizards paws. Then it sounded like a serpents tongue. Then it sounded like five weak fingers rapping on the windowpane, the same gentle fingers that used to comb and braid Alices hair.(Lisa Dierbeck, One Pill Makes You Smaller. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003)The Winner of the Eurovision Song ContestNobody knows what Edward II sounded like when he sang, but now the whole world knows w hat Conchita sounds like. She, or he, sounds like incoming artillery. One hundred and eighty million people in 45 countries were blown sideways by the uproar emanating from a young woman pretending to be Russell Brand, or perhaps it was Russell Brand pretending to be a young woman.(Clive James, Conchitas Voice Sounded Like Incoming Artillery. The Telegraph, May 17, 2014)A SneezeWithout warning, Lionel gave one of his tight little sneezes: it sounded like a bullet fired through a silencer.(Martin Amis, Lionel Asbo: State of England. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012)A BoyFor all his roughness and arrogance, the boy was transformed when he was in the presence of girls. He spoke in a voice as soft as the silken filaments that float out of a cocoon.(Carol Field, Mangoes and Quince. Bloomsbury, 2001)The Invisible NoiseDuring other sessions, Ive told her about the noise. The invisible noise that only I can hear—a noise that sounds like the mumbling of a million broken voices saying nothing at all or the hum of the wind through an open car window at seventy miles per hour. I can even see the noise sometimes. It circles above people like a clear vulture with sparks of electricity in its wings—hovering dangerously above their heads before swooping down.(Brian James, Life Is But a Dream. Feiwel Friends, 2012)Hoofbeats, Sabers, and ShotsThe street was alive with them, hollow-eyed and faceless astride coal-black horses, their muffled hoofbeats sounding like rapid shots miles away. Only these sounds were right here and I was in the midst of them. Sabers whistled. Once I heard a noise like a cooks cleaver striking half-boiled meat, a nauseating sound. Then there were real shots, hard and sharp, like derisive coughs, and metal-gray smoke that mingled with the white vapor exhaled by the horses.(Loren D. Estleman, Murdocks Law, 1982)Bob DylanEveryone who heard it—even the people who said that Dylan sounded like a dog with his leg trapped in barbed wire—knew Bo b Dylan was a phenomenon.(Lewis Macadams, Birth Of The Cool. The Free Press, 2001)Leonard CohenIt is a penitents voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toast--spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love.(Tom Robbins, Leonard Cohen. Wild Ducks Flying Backward. Bantam, 2005)The Reverberations of Train HornsWhen the train horns sounded and then were quiet, there were pure reverberations up and down the river that sounded like a plucked harp string or a piano note sustained by holding down a pedal.(Mark Knudsen, Old Man River and Me: One Mans Journey Down the Mighty Mississippi. Thomas Nelson, 1999)Cello MusicIt isnt music Louise has ever heard before. It sounds like a lullaby, and then it sounds like a pack of wolves, and then it sounds like a slaughterhouse, and then it sounds like a motel room and a married man saying I love you and the shower is running at the same time. It makes her tee th ache and her heart rattle.(Kelly Link, Louises Ghost. Poes Children: The New Horror, ed. by Peter Straub. Doubleday, 2008)Lyle FilbenderI took a deep breath and started to speak. I cant remember half of what I said, but I do know that I was at least a million times more inspiring than Lyle Filbender. He sounded like a defective robot in need of a battery change and had to be reprimanded twice for calling the Missions clients bums.(Maureen Fergus, Exploits of a Reluctant (but Extremely Goodlooking) Hero. Kids Can Press, 2007)A Voice on the PhoneCarl reached for the phone, his gut tightening. Even before he heard the voice on the other end, he suspected—no, knew—it would be him. You did real well, the voice said, a voice like dry leaves rustling down a sidewalk.(J. Michael Straczynski, We Killed Them in the Ratings. Blowout in Little Man Flats, ed. by Billie Sue Mosiman and Martin Greenberg. Rutledge Hill, 1998)Chains at the ForgeRails suspended overhead, from which b lack chains hung like jungle vines that clattered through their blocks, making a tooth-rattling noise, a noise like the jabbering of a thousand jawbones in a thousand skulls.(John Griesemer, Signal and Noise. Hutchinson, 2004)