Picturesque Speech

Twists and turns of phrase

◆ She had a tongue that would clip a hedge.

◆ The clock-hands were closing like scissor blades on midnight, snipping off another day.

◆ She was throwing herself away, perhaps, but she was taking careful aim.

◆ They clucked over their grains of gossip.

◆

Restless as a windshield wiper.

◆ She listens to what you don’t say and never misses a word.

◆ Irrevocable as a haircut.

◆ Her hat always looked as if it had made a forced landing upon her head.

◆ The secret was hushed about from place to place.

◆ A famous politician trying to save both his faces.

◆ I won’t be highbrow beaten.

◆ The kind of man who remembers your age but forgets your birthday.

◆ As unplanned as a hiccup.

◆ He dresses like an unmade bed.

◆ As uncomfortable as an after-thought.

Her look hung a price tag on every object in the room. As hard to catch as a waiter’s eye.

◆ fire-flies The slow in punctuation of the garden. of

◆ He’s all sail and no anchor.

◆ Her hands dropped open, spilling dismay.

◆ He looked like an accident going somewhere to happen.

◆ The bureaucratic squanderlust of our times.

◆ He had a good memory and a tongue hung in the middle of it.

◆ The full moon pushed the clouds aside as if they were double doors.

◆ Genuine as a thumbprint.

◆ Her line of conversation was as interesting as a laundry list.

◆ The crowds coming from the subway oozed out just like toothpaste.

◆ Impressionable as a new sheet of carbon paper.

◆ Her voice stamped its foot just a little.

◆ fracture Suffering of the from illusions. a compound

◆ As new as a peeled egg.

◆ The softness of a kitten’s feet – like raspberries held in the hand.

◆ The women came to the picnic by hundreds, to get tired in a new spot.

◆ He received the news with his eyebrows.

◆ Those sweet uncomplaining women one knows who have seen trouble, and worn blinkers ever since.

◆ The town was so small that when the train stopped, the engine was out in the country.

◆

The rain came down with swift, slanting strokes, like the penmanship of an old schoolmaster.

◆ She has a small mind but knows it thoroughly.

◆ He felt like a wet towel flung into a corner of a bathroom.

She didn’t want advice: she only used you as a waste basket for her worries. He talks like a dictionary on its best behaviour.