My 2009-2010 English 9 students were all asked to come up with their own, original, intentionally bad simile or metaphor. The full results are at the bottom of the page. I chose the top nine and allowed the entire Upper School community (students and faculty) at Collegiate to vote for the best of the top nine.
THE WINNER:
Liza Dent - The spaghetti sauce was red and gooey, just like a newborn child.
FIRST RUNNER-UP
Patrick Mosman - I’m as ADD as… whoah dude, whoah... that squirrel came out of nowhere.
SECOND RUNNER-UP
Matthew Hourigan - I procrastinate like a... well, I'll tell you about that later.
Fourth Place
Jordan Wrenn - Her face was as smooth as a toilet bowl.
Fifth Place
Will Dixon - The sunrise was very colorful, much like a sunset.
Sixth Place
Jeremy Sims - My mind was confused, like a thirty-year-old man lost in a maze on those restaurant kid menus.
Seventh Place
Rachel Barbieri - Like a sparrow singing and choking on a worm at the same time, the girl sang loudly and off key.
Eighth Place
MaryCameron Crowgey - Like the opposite of cheese, her behavior got worse with age.
Ninth Place
Woody Chapman - His teeth are as real as porcelain.
I contacted Pulitzer Prize-winning humor writer and renowned journalist Gene Weingarten, widely believed to be the original "Emperor" and editor/judge of the Post's Style Invitational, for his opinion of our contest. He is widely understood by many (including himself) to be an expert on humor and witty language usage.
Gene Weingarten:
"First Runner Up: 'The sunrise was very colorful, much like a sunset.' Winner: 'Her behavior got worse with age, like the opposite of cheese.' (I reordered this, which we were free to do, at the [Style] Invitational.) The best image is of the thirty year old not solving the kiddie menu maze, but the other half of that entry... needs something less generic to be compared to, as in: His logic was shamefully confused, like..."
Mr. Weingarten also contacted the current official judge of the Style Invitational, "The Empress," and she chose "The sunrise was very colorful, much like a sunset" as her favorite.
The full list of contest entries: