Monday, May 3, 2010
Expression Explained: “Kurt Browning is the Wayne Gretzky of Figure Skating”
This is a very common way of comparing things in English. I describe Kurt Browning and his importance in the figure skating world by comparing him to someone with similar qualities.
The form of the metaphor is:
A and C are related. A is being compared to B to show how important or how special A is in the field or area of C.
This way of comparing people or things relies on knowledge or information that people already have.
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Who is Wayne Gretzky? In Canada, Gretzky is extremely popular. He is the greatest hockey player in history. He is loved and respected across Canada, not only because he is a great hockey player but also because he is a good person. In addition to playing and coaching hockey, he also does a lot of charity work.
Wayne Gretzky is not a figure skater, Kurt Browning is. Gretzky has been around longer than Browning, so I used him as the point of reference. Kurt Browning is also the best in his sport. He has achieved great things and done a lot to promote figure skating in Canada. He is popular and well-loved. He also does a lot of good work outside of figure skating. By comparing him to Gretzky, people can understand his importance to figure skating.
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Let’s look at some other examples:
Amsterdam is the Venice of northern Europe.
Venice is a city in Italy that is well-known for its canals. Most people don’t know that Amsterdam is also made up of canals. Amsterdam is a city in the Netherlands in northern Europe. This comparison tells people that Amsterdam is actually quite similar to Venice.
The Twilight Saga is the Harry Potter of the 2000s.
J.K. Rowling introduced Harry Potter to the world in 1997. The books became wildly popular in the late 1990s and encouraged many young people to start reading. The Twilight Saga was first introduced to the world in 2005. The Twilight books appealed to a smaller audience than the Harry Potter books, but they still became wildly popular and also encouraged young people to read.
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Have you ever seen or heard of this kind of metaphor before? Can you think of another example?
7 comments:
always_sunshine said…
Hello, Melanie!
The expression has been interesting to learn.
Thank you.
I think your site can already be useful and will stay that way on-stream.
* I’m not a native English speaker so I’ve had a hesitation how to express exact idea 🙂 I hope you understand and wish you all the best in your teaching and its development!
Best regards from Odessa, Ukraine
Teacher Melanie said…
Hello “always_sunshine”!
Thank you kindly for your lovely comment : )
I think you wanted to say something like “I think your site is very useful & it will stay that way in the future.”
shiunkle said…
I am a new listener on your blog. Thank you for introducing the great people to me when I am listening your teaching materials.
Teacher Melanie said…
Welcome to my blog Shiunkle! Thanks for all your comments : ) I’m glad you enjoyed the listening lesson!
Cristian said…
Hi Melanie,
first of all thanks!!! Your lessons are very good.
Another methapor may be this:
He is the Albert Einstain of the situation.
You know Einstein… everybody know him…
In this case I mean that he finds ideas and solutions like Einstein, he is a little genius.
Is it correct?
Thank you.
Bye.
Cristian
RED RADUS said…
have you misspelled the word skating as skaing? or it is right in the title.
Melanie said…
Wow! This post has been up for over a year and nobody noticed the spelling mistake – including me! Thank you for letting me know Red Radus!
It seems that I never answered Cristian’s question. It’s strange that I didn’t see his comment before. Yes, Cristian, your sentence is correct!
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