the other day Matt shared a story with me. It went like this:
"I was teaching kids in my writing class about metaphors and similes, and I wanted them to make a simile describing how cute a baby panda is. I started the sentence for them: 'a baby panda is as cute as a __________.' After much hesitation, someone ventured a word: 'baby.' Having an idea of what might come next, I pushed the question--'a baby...what?' Another student volunteered then now inevitable answer: 'a baby panda.' This seems like an inevitable mixup in an English learning environment, but I prefer to think that these students simply couldn't conceive of something else that could compare in cuteness to a baby panda. In fact, the cuteness of a baby panda could only be described by the words "as cute as a baby panda," and those words could only be applied to a baby panda. Baby pandas are really cute.
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