Flowers of Speech

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 27 March 1926, Page 11

Flowers of Speech

The industrious American , journalist who makes it his hobby to collect the best similes has now garnered liis harvest—or should it be woven his garland? —for 192 b.

Several of the specimens in liis list would have been unintelligible a few years ago. For instance. “As busy as a kiss-timer in a moving picture studio,” “As helpless as a crossword puzzle fiend without a pencil,” “As nervous as a man with a strange bootlegger,” “As red as a picture-house exit bulb,” and “As poular as a loudspeaker in a two-room flat.”

One lias to remember the location of Mr Henry Ford’s works before appreciating the point of “As useless as a curry-comb in Detroit.” “As optimistic as a seedsman’s catalogue” will be relished by a good many gardeners. “A costume like a siren’s whistle,” “.She was so thin that her full face looked like a profile,” “As unknown as if they lived in the next flat,” “As useless as a tyre pump in a canoe,” “A reputation as loose as a flapper’s galosh,” and “As mean as the barber who put hair-restorer in his shaving cream” are other analogies that do credit to the imagination of their inventors.