Your Letters
16:31 UK time, Thursday, 3 July 2008
Is anybody else troubled by the tragic irony of , which informs us that the collection will be sold to raise money to create a museum to house the collection in? Isn't that a bit like selling the horse to buy it a stable?
PS, Newcastle, England
Poor Jacob (Wednesday's letters), it seems nobody's got back to him to put him straight... "The boy is a plank" is a metaphor. "The boy is as thick as two short planks" is a simile.
Maz, London
Jacob, London - you are as wrong as a Zimbabwean election result (simile). The letters' page is a stage (metaphor) and you are a player (extended metaphor) who has dropped the ball (mixed metaphor).
Mike Thomas, Wirral
Ooh dear Jacob. I'm afraid the setter was right: as cold as ice is a simile. Metaphor is (but not really), simile is like (really). Not that it says anything about how smart you are, intellectually or sartorially, just how you've been taught to analyse the language. It's not a terribly meaningful or useful distinction anyway.
Hugh, Coventry
As another Jacob from London, can I point out that I correctly guessed "simile" on the English test and do not wish to be tarred with the same brush as my namesake.
Jacob, London
What a waste of tax payers money; £3.2bn on a . Everyone knows that there is no such thing as a giant.
Colin Main, Berkhamsted, UK
Re Subbing Synchronicity (Paper Monitor), I once had what I thought was a unique and inspired idea for a headline should the esteemable Bill Nighy either regrettably pass on, or far more entertainingly find himself the vessel of all humanity's demise in some suitably apocalytpic manner, ie "The End is Nigh-y". Sadly, on searching Google-who-knows-all, I discovered several sub-editors had already had the same idea, including one from the delightfully titled Darlington and Stockton Times, which made me doubt my inspirational abilities just a little more. I, however, have little doubt that, should you print this, you will get at least one letter from someone declaring the Darlington and Stockton Times to be a thoroughly good and learned read, and that I should take my soft southern provincial preconceptions elsewhere.
Dylan, Reading, UK
?. Obviously .
Simon Robinson, Birmingham, UK
The 
