Help please! What's the difference between a similie and a metaphor?

[Carla]

Dear friend's round, and we don't know! Could you define it in a 13 year old's understanding?

TIA.

a simile usually contains 'like' or 'as', eg he ran like the wind, or he was as fast as the wind. a metaphor is more difficult to use and more difficult to explain imo.... it would (in this example) make the boy sound as if he was the wind iyswim...

oh, too late!

Oh, eff, I know I'm completely thick ....

But how is a bear with a sore head different from children who are monsters?

A bear may have a sore head, but our children aren't monsters. ??????

Carla, because the children aren't monsters!

Doh! > but how do you know the bear has a sore head????

Because it is taking paracetemol?

I know I'm missing the point, but I still don't understand.

Glad I left school when I did .... but would still be grateful for all other explanations. Blimey, if I can't grasp it ......

LOL beansprout!!!

Carla, I have no idea how you know if a bear has a sore head. I think I'd have to be filled in on more the details of this assignment. (Is it a school assignment?)

But to make you (or the 13-year-old) feel better. . .I'm in my mid 30's and still getting them mixed up. I was at a dinner with a bunch of poets a couple of years ago and I complimented one of them on the rapid-fire metaphors in a poem he read us. . .But a know-it-all & highly competitive woman in the group arched her eyebrows and said, "I believe you mean SIMILES!" (No irony whatever.) FGS.

So what is an analogy then?

Oh, I see, you were referring to Trefussis's simile/metaphor pair.

The bear having a sore head is beside the point. The reason it's a simile is because Trefussis used the word "like." I am LIKE a bear with a sore head.

There is no use of the word "like" or "as" in her second example, a METAPHOR. My children ARE monsters. Note she didn't say My children are LIKE monsters. If she had, that would have been a simile and not a metaphor.

Similes use "like" or "as." Metaphors do not. Simple.

Cam, I think what I meant to say is that I don't know any bears, and I especially wouldn't know if they had a sore head.

Now, my children are monsters, sometimes, but not literally. But who meets a bear with a sore head in Sainsbury's? ... Is it the literal thing? God, I'm losing my brain .... or even my brians ...... but I still don't understand the difference

Medea, x posts. Thank you!! I think I've got it now!

Yes, Medea's wonderfully clear explanation hits the spot