9/11 Figurative Language

As rain seeped from the heavens, the dreary charcoal buildings began to resemble grotesque tombstones. The rain swirled across the concrete road, past the abandoned basketball court haunted by the echoes of childhood and under the park benches where lovers had once met to profess their passion. The rain-soaked wind pushed the corroded swings, their eerie creaking harmonizing with the wind’s soft moans. In its wake, the rain left shallow ebony puddles doomed to virginity, forever untouched by the rubber soles of childrens’ rain boots. Raindrops tapped against dark window-panes, filling the street with a melancholy melody. Nobody peered from beneath a curtain or dared to don an umbrella and venture into the street. An eternal slumber seemed to consume the neighborhood as rain continued to batter the earth. Rain overran the town and thunder resonated through the paper-thin houses, but the town

It engenders the minute idiosyncrasies which can drive us crazy or make our day. Language is the fountainhead of individual identity, making each person as unique as zebra stripes. If dialects vanished from the world, we’d lose more than just linguistic variety: we’d lose ourselves. Unique expressions and idioms make communication intriguing; they add spice to what otherwise would be bland and boring. Dialects are like jelly beans; they come in a million different flavors, some bizarre like toothpaste and some refined like French vanilla, and when they are synthesized, they generate excitement and facilitate communication. Who would want to reach in a bag of jelly beans with only one flavor? Even the repugnant flavors are useful because they make the good flavors seem delicious by comparison. Without dialects people would sound like monotonous robots, enunciating each syllable with the precision of a sniper. Linguistic diversity is an art; it creates beauty out of contrast. Imagine how mechanical music would be if everyone sang with the same