Article: Mastery of the metaphor: David Bernstein puts you in the picture regarding the merits of metaphor and simile in the written language - and hopes that it's all now clear as day. (Private View).(marketing concepts)

ONE advantage we writers have over artists is that the pictures we draw are in the mind. The reader or listener participates in the creative process and tends to approve the execution since to do otherwise is to deny his or her own artistic ability. A picture may be worth a thousand words. A word, however, is worth just one mental picture, the one completed by the recipient.

The writer may use a word-picture to illustrate, illuminate or embellish a thought. Very often, though, it is used to express it more forcefully, setting an abstract thought in a concrete form.

The writer may use a simile when one thing is likened to another or, more dramatically, a ...

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