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Chan-Seung Lee
Joined: 03 Dec 2005
Posts: 1032
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 Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:46 am Post subject: 'like a knife' |
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| 1.The wind is like a knife. |
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| 2.The wind cut like a knife. |
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| 3.They will do it like a knife through butter. |
What do the above sentences mean?
If they make sense, I wonder if they are useful in America now.
Espescially, I want to know if they are old-fashioned and not available in modern English.
Thnaks. |
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ichini-san
Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 14
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| Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 3:07 pm Post subject: Re: 'like a knife' |
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| Quote: |
| 1.The wind is like a knife. |
I think this means the same as #2 only I think #2 is used more frequently because I have never heard of this expression.
but you could say: the wind hurts like a knive (for the reason I gave at #2)
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| 2.The wind cut like a knife. |
It should be 'cuts like a knive' this means that the wind is very cold and hurts you're skin when you walk outside
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| 3.They will do it like a knife through butter. |
I am from the Netherlands and we use a similar expression
"het snijdt als een warm mes door de boter"
This means: It cuts Like a hot knive through butter
And this means the whatever you are doing goes really easy
(please correct me if I'm wrong) |
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LucentShade
Joined: 30 Dec 2003
Posts: 542
Location: Nebraska, USA
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| Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:22 am Post subject: |
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You could say "the wind cut like a knife" if you're talking in the past tense, as in "It was snowing heavily and the wind cut like a knife." (By the way "knife" is singular, and "knives" is the plural.
In general, you may see sharp objects being used as metaphors for cold weather or other cold experiences, as in "When I fell through the ice, the cold water stung me like a thousand needles."
The expression in #3 is usually "like a hot knife through butter," similar to what ichini-san wrote. |
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KazAV
Joined: 11 Feb 2006
Posts: 151
Location: Brit in Bonn, Germany
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| Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2006 9:08 am Post subject: |
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| The knife here is being used as a simile. To say anything is like or as something else is a simile. To be used as a metaphor, you would have to say that the wind was a knife. |
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