A Gem for Every Occasion

If stirring words help make your point, ponder the impact of powerful phrases. They’ve helped politicians get elected (“Read my lips: no new taxes.”) and defendants get acquitted (“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”).

If George H. W. Bush had said, “I promise not to raise taxes,” or Johnny Cochran, during O. J. Simpson’s criminal trial, had said, “If the glove doesn’t fit, he must be innocent,” their bulky sentences would have slipped in and out of the voter’s or juror’s consciousness. As every politician and trial lawyer knows, neat phrases make powerful weapons. (If you’re not careful, your enemies will later use them against you—read my lips!)

One of my favorite speakers is a radio broadcaster named Barry Farber who brightens up late-night radio with sparkling similes. Barry would never use a cliche like “nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof.” He’d describe being nervous about losing his job as “I felt like an elephant dangling over a cliff with his tail tied to a daisy.” Instead of saying he looked at a pretty woman, he’d say, “My eyeballs popped out and dangled by the optic nerve.”

When I first met him, I asked, “Mr. Farber, how do you come up with these phrases?”

“My daddy’s Mr. Farber. I’m Barry,” he chided (his way of saying, “Call me Barry”). He then candidly admitted, although some of his phrases are original, many are borrowed. (Elvis Presley used to say, “My daddy’s Mr. Presley. Call me Elvis.”) Like all professional speakers, Barry spends several hours a week gleaning through books of quotations and humor. All professional speakers do. They collect bon mots they can use in a variety of situations— most especially to scrape egg off their faces when something unexpected happens.

Many speakers use author’s and speaker’s agent Lilly Walters’s face-saver lines from her book, What to Say When You’re Dying on the Platform.16 If you tell a joke and no one laughs, try “That joke was designed to get a silent laugh—and it worked.” If the microphone lets out an agonizing howl, look at it and say, “I don’t understand. I brushed my teeth this morning.” If someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, “Could you save that question until I’m finished—and well on my way home?” All pros think of holes they might fall into and then memorize great escape lines. You can do the same.

Look through books of similes to enrich your day-to-day conversations. Instead of “happy as a lark” try “happy as a lottery winner” or “happy as a baby with its first ice cream cone.” Instead of “bald as an eagle,” try “bald as a new marine” or “bald as a bullfrog’s belly.” Instead of “quiet as a mouse,” try “quiet as an eel swimming in oil” or “quiet as a fly lighting on a feather duster.”

Find phrases that have visual impact. Instead of a cliche like “sure as death and taxes,” try “as certain as beach traffic in July” or “as sure as your shadow will follow you.” Your listeners can’t see death or taxes. But they sure can see beach traffic in July or their shadow following them down the street.

Try to make your similes relate to the situation. If you’re riding in a taxi with someone, “as sure as that taxi meter will rise” has immediate impact. If you’re talking with a man walking his dog, “as sure as your dog is thinking about that tree” adds a touch of humor.