Saturday, April 9, 2011

Hyperbole means gross exaggeration

When a person exaggerates a lot, we say a person is using hyperbole. For example, if I tell you that I ate a TON for lunch, that is a cliche form of hyperbole since you've heard it a million times and it's an exaggeration (though I did eat an individual gluten-free pizza and an organic ice cream bar and I am very over-full right now). It might feel like I ate a ton, but I certainly did not really do so! Hyperbole in this case does not do any damage to anyone; my using this sort of language is fine as long as I don't use it all the time; if I do, it will lose its effect and impact. However, some kinds of hyperbole or exaggeration can do damage to people. For example, when people associate certain physical or personality traits to a particular group of people, such as long noses to Jewish people or laziness to green people, prejudice can begin. Then, hyperbole can be a figure of speech that is dangerous and damaging. Please invent two examples of hyperbole. Make one be the beginning of a new form of prejudice that does not yet exist. Do not make the prejudice against a group of people but against something that you think is damaging such as excessive sugar or excess playing of games on the computer. Thanks.

8 comments:

  1. -Playing candyland is only unbearble torture chamber for the adult soul.
    - Reading about Picasso normal students death.

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  2. He smokes more trees than a forest fire.

    Her skull is as thick as an 80's platform heel.

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  3. her voice is as loud as the crack of thunder

    the make up on her face is extraterrestrial

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  4. Her hair is as dryer as tumbleweed

    I laughed so hard i almost died

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  5. Meghan dannenberg


    - Her nose is like a ski slope
    -she laughed so hard the nail went all the way through the plank

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  6. His eyebrows were thicker than a forest

    the sun shone so bright I thought I was going to go blind

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  7. 1. Her large smile makes her look like a horse.
    2. I laughed so hard, I began to cry.

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  8. his kiss was as soft as the softest rose in the world.
    her attitude was as annoying as nails on a chalk board.

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