....whilst you try to put as much spin on it as a Pakistani fast bowler - this is a similie, right?

[Doodlez]

I'm in the middle of a row else where on tinternet.

I need clarification:-

Is it a similie or is it called summat else?

...whilst you try to put as much spin on it as a Pakistani fast bowler....

The use of as or like usually indicates a simile yes.

I wonder if perhaps it's a bit more complicated than saying it's a simile. Definitely the use of as indicates a simile in most circustance. But it's an interesting mixture of figurative language, partly hyperbolic, partly metonymic.

It could be a structural metaphor with the abstract compared to the literal. It's also a mixed metaphor with the spin of the discussion being an abstract metonymic concept but the comparison to cricket being a concrete and yet creative metaphor.

Except that FAST bowlers don't use spin. That would be a SPIN bowler.

ROAR at niggle wiggle
SO SO right

speed as a fast bowler?

or spittle

Thanks girls - long story but basically, I've locked horns with a right tw$T and I've buggered it up, so now I look a right T*T!!! But I've used nigglewiggles info and THINK I've managed to walk away with some decorum in tact. Not much mind

You've posted in pedant's corner with a spelling mistake in the title?!!

Are you INSANE????

And that singular apostrophe was intended!

Kick me when I'm already down, clam why don't you!!!???

I'm a thicko! I only ever venture in here to be corrected

Glad my geeky cricketing knowledge was of some help. Less embarrassed now .

'Like' or 'as' usually makes a simile. Non?

Hey, this message just got a spell check, what's going on?

LOTMW is right. And very eloquent.

I'm just holding fire on cutting and pasting LastOfTheMulledWine post. Partly because I think he may have just shot himself in the foot and partly because I've got no feckin' idea what she's said

She means if you say that "you spin things like a spin bowler", or it was "as spinny(?) as a spin bowler" then it is a simile.

The other possibility is that it is a metphor. That is where you refer to the subject as if it were the descriptive item. So to use your example "the spinning ball curved its way around the argument."

Does this help?

We had to make sure DD knew her similes from her metaphors and her antonyms from her synonyms prior to her 11+ a couple of months ago.

But only last week was I able to give her the correct Uxbridge English Dictionary definition of onomatopoeia:

When you don't quite make it to the loo in time.