Jan. 14-20 is Idiom Week, and today we thought we’d have a heart-to-heart about some strange phrases we use. Idioms, metaphors and similes are all types of figurative language. According to ...

Dependable as a dictionary, commentator Paula LaRocque explores the power of the simile. I recently read a simile that made me laugh aloud. A simile, as you know, is a comparison that uses the words ...

A simile describes something by comparing it to something else, using like or as. A simile is a useful way to describe something without using a long list of adjectives. It can create a vivid image in ...

Similes are like spices for writing: Used in the right proportion, they can add zest and verve to your prose. Once you're familiar with them, you'll likely notice that simile examples abound in ...

NEED to describe a hand-held mathematical calculator? Try “buggy whip.” A typewriter? A VCR? They’ve been called buggy whips, too. Even newspapers have received that label. (That one hurts.) Buggy ...

Source: Francesco Bini/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0 The most famous of all allegories is the Allegory of the Cave, in which Plato compares unphilosophical people to prisoners who, having spent their ...

"Narcissus" by Caravaggio (c. 1598). Source: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain What is an allegory? An allegory (Greek, "a speaking about something else") is a complete and cohesive narrative, for ...

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. By eight o'clock every Saturday morning in winter, there are boys strapping on their footy boots in ...