Tag Archives: hyperbole

Don’t be misled or go awry

My latest article for The Week is about book words – words you’ve learned from a book without learning the pronunciation. We’ve all had them, and there’s no shame in it:

Don’t be misled or go awry with ‘book words’

And here’s my companion pronunciation tip video (also embedded in the article):

Can a metaphor be hyperbole too?

A colleague’s daughter is in a dispute with her teacher about whether a metaphor can also be a hyperbole. The daughter says yes. The teacher says no. I say the answer should be a raging, exploding elephant of obviousness with side-mounted machine guns. Continue reading