Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[hiromichi]

I cannot understand the metaphor below. Would you explain it to me?

A barrage of big words is impressive the way a mesomorph bench pressing six hundred pounds is impressive.
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Hiromichi

[SimpleEnglishBlogger]

You can't understand it because it's a terrible analogy. LOL (Not a metaphor, by the way.)

I believe the author is trying to express that a barrage of big words is NOT impressive but like I said, the analogy is terrible.

A mesomorph is someone with a body that naturally tends to be muscular. (Endomorphs tend to be fat and ectomorphs tend to be skinny.) However, bench pressing 600lbs is impressive, I'd say! Also, the author fails to understand that mesomorph is a body type - one that TENDS to be muscular. If the guy doesn't train, he'll never get that strong (but will still look a lot more muscular than his endomorph neighbor).

Also, while he points out that it's not impressive (to him) that a mesomorph can press 600lbs, he doesn't mention WHO is uttering the big words. It would not be impressive for an academic to say them but for a 12-year-old, yeah, I'd say it is. In normal conversation though, most people aren't impressed with unnecessarily difficult vocabulary.

It's just overall a big fail on the author's part.
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[hiromichi]

SimpleEnglishBlogger:
Thank you very much for your comments.
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Hiromichi