Making meaning clear through comparison of one thing to another

making meaning clear through comparison of one thing to another
Writing which contains unfamiliar words fails to call up complete and definite images. It is often difficult to form the correct mental picture, even though the words in themselves are familiar. Definitions, explanations, and Descriptions may cause us to understand correctly, but our understanding usually can be improved by means of a comparison. We can form an image of an object as soon as we know what it is like. 
If I wished you to form an image of an okapi, a lengthy Description would give you a less vivid picture than the statement that it was a horselike animal, having stripes similar to those of a zebra. If an okapi were as well known to you as is a horse, the name alone would call up the proper image, and no comparison would be necessary. By means of it we are enabled to picture the unfamiliar. In this case the comparison is literal. 
If the comparison is imaginative rather than literal, our language becomes figurative, and usually takes the form of a simile or metaphor. Similes and metaphors are of great value in rendering thought clear. They make language forceful and effective, and they may add much to the beauty of expression. 
We may speak of an object as being like another, or as acting like another. If the comparison is imaginative rather than literal, and is directly stated, the expression is a simile. Similes are introduced by like, as, etc. 
He fought like a lion. 
The river wound like a serpent around the mountains. 
If two things are essentially different, but yet have a common quality, their implied comparison is a metaphor. A metaphor takes the form of a statement that one is the other. 
"He was a lion in the fight. "
"The river wound its serpent course. "
Sometimes inanimate objects, abstract ideas, or the lower animals are given the attributes of human beings. Such a figure is called personification, and is in fact a modified metaphor, since it is based upon some resemblance of the lower to the higher. 
This music crept by me upon the waters. 
Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he is worth to season. 
Nay, he’s a thief, too; have you not heard men say, That time comes stealing on by night and day?
 Shakespeare. 
Use of Figures of Speech. 
The three figures of speech, simile, metaphor, and personification, are more frequently used than are the others. 
1.	Never write for the purpose of using figures of speech. Nearly everything that we need to say can be well expressed in plain, bare English, and the ability to express our thoughts in this way is the essential thing. If a figure that adds to the force and clearness of your expression occurs to you, use it without hesitation. A figure may also add to the beauty of our expression. The examples to be found in literature are largely of this character. If well used, they are effective, but the beginner should beware of a figure that is introduced for decorative purposes only. An attempt to find figures of speech in ordinary prose writing will show how rarely they are used.
2.	The figures should fit the subject in hand. Some comparisons are appropriate and some are not. If the writer is familiar with his subject and deeply in earnest, the appropriate figures will rise spontaneously in his mind. If they do not, little is gained by seeking for them.
3.	The effectiveness of a comparison, whether literal or figurative, depends upon the familiarity of the reader with one of the two things compared. To say that a petrel resembled a kite would be of no value to one who knew nothing of either bird. Similarly a figure is defective if neither element of the comparison is familiar to the readers.
4.	Suitable figures give picturesqueness and vivacity to language, but hackneyed figures are worse than none.
5.	Elaborate and long-drawn-out figures, or an overabundance of short ones, should be avoided.
6.	A figure must be consistent throughout. A comparison once begun must be carried through without change; mixing figures often produces results which are ridiculous. The "mixed metaphor" is a common blunder of beginners. This fault may arise either from confusing different metaphors in the same sentence, or from blending literal language with metaphorical. The following will serve to illustrate:
1.	[Confused metaphor. ] Let us pin our faith to the rock of perseverance and honest toil, where it may sail on to success on the wings of hope.
2.	[Literal and figurative blended. ] Washington was the father of his country and a surveyor of ability.
3.	When the last awful moment came, the star of liberty went down with all on board.
4.	The glorious work will never be accomplished until the good ship "Temperance" shall sail from one end of the land to the other, and with a cry of "Victory!" at each step she takes, shall plant her banner in every city, town, and village in the United States.
5.	All along the untrodden paths of the future we see the hidden footprints of an unseen hand.
6.	The British lion, whether it is roaming the deserts of India, or climbing the forests of Canada, will never draw in its horns nor retire into its shell.
7.	Young man, if you have the spark of genius in you, water it.
===EXERCISES===
Are the images which you form made more vivid by the use of the figures in the following selections?
1.	She began to screech as wild as ocean birds.
2.	And when its force expended,
The harmless storm was ended;
And as the sunrise splendid
Came blushing o’er the sea—
3.	As a demon is hurled by an angel’s spear,
Heels over head, to his proper sphere—
Heels over head and head over heels, 
Dizzily down the abyss he wheels, 
So fell Darius. 
 J. T. Trowbridge. 
4.	In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning point.
 Hawthorne. 
5.	Poverty, treading close at her heels for a lifetime, has come up with her at last.
 Hawthorne. 
6.	Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.
 George Eliot. 
7.	Nearing the end of the narrative, Ben paced up and down the narrow limits of the tent in great excitement, running his fingers through his hair, and barking out a question now and then.
8. A sky above, 
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 
 Lowell. 
9.	In days of public commotion every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp followers, a useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of march in the hope of picking up something under its protection, but desert it in the day of battle, and often join to exterminate it after a defeat.
 Macaulay. 
10.	It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery.
 Macaulay. 
11.	And close behind her stood
Eight daughters of the plow, stronger than men, 
Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain, 
And labor. Each was like a Druid rock, 
Or like a spire of land that stands apart
Cleft from the main and wall’d about with mews. 
 Tennyson. 
12.	But bland the smile that, like a wrinkling wind
On glassy water, drove his cheek in lines. 
 Tennyson. 
13.	The rush of affairs drifts words from their original meanings, as ships drag their anchors in a gale, but terms sheltered from common use hold to their moorings forever.
 Mill. 
Determination of Meaning Requires More than Image Making. 
The emphasis laid upon image making should not lead to the belief that this is all that is necessary in order to determine what is meant by the language we hear or read. Image making is important, but much of our language is concerned with presenting ideas of which no mental pictures can be formed. 
This very paragraph will serve as an illustration of such language. Our understanding of language of this kind depends upon our knowledge of the meanings of words, upon our understanding of the relations between word groups, or parts of sentences, and especially upon our appreciation of the relations in thought that sentences bear to one another. 
Category: Description