Apple founder Steve Jobs illustrated the value of an iPod by saying it would let you take your whole music library with you in your pocket. He was both a tech visionary and brilliant at using expressive language that gives readers or listeners an “aha!” moment of understanding.
Inspired by that thought, an issue of my newsletter, Wordnerdery, included some great examples. They include similes, which compare one thing to an other using the words “like” or “as,” and metaphors, which do the same using those words:
“Insight is like a cat. You can’t order it to appear. You can coax it. But you can’t command it.” – John Kounios quoted by Brigid Schulte in The Washington Post
“The Drake 150’s oven is so fancy compared to mine that I may as well be cooking food with a magnifying glass and sunlight… At home, I make do with my Eaton Viking, which is less fancy in the way that walking is less fancy than driving a Ferrari.” – Corey Mintz in the Toronto Star
“Leafless, branchless, barkless, they are reduced to their trunks and worn to a smooth silver-gray, as if they had always carried their own tombstones inside them.” – Kathryn Schulz in The New Yorker
“They weren’t staring at a postcard of a fire; they had their eyebrows singed by the heat.” – Craig Bowron in The Washington Post
“I imagine summer in Arizona can be challenging the way living in a frying pan would test anyone’s patience, but it is gloriously bright and easy in March.”
– David McGimpsey in En Route magazine
What great expressive writing have you seen? Do share!