It is often difficult to form the correct
mental picture, even though the words in themselves are familiar.
Definitions, explanations, and descriptions may cause us to understand
correctly, but our understanding usually can be improved by means of a
comparison. We can form an image of an object as soon as we know what it
is like.
If I wished you to form an image of an okapi, a lengthy description would
give you a less vivid picture than the statement that it was a horselike
animal, having stripes similar to those of a zebra. If an okapi were as
well known to you as is a horse, the name alone would call up the proper
image, and no comparison would be necessary. By means of it we are enabled
to picture the unfamiliar. In this case the comparison is literal.
If the comparison is imaginative rather than literal, our language becomes
figurative, and usually takes the form of a simile or metaphor. Similes
and metaphors are of great value in rendering thought clear. They make
language forceful and effective, and they may add much to the beauty of
expression.
We may speak of an object as being like another, or as acting like
another. If the comparison is imaginative rather than literal, and is
directly stated, the expression is a simile. Similes are introduced by
_like, as_, etc.
He fought like a lion.
The river wound like a serpent around the mountains.
If two things are essentially different, but yet have a common quality,
their _implied comparison_ is a metaphor.
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