Figurative Language about Lazy Students

1.      Metaphor

a.       Lazy students are collegiate sloths

b.      The student is not literally a sloth, but sloths are often used to represent something that is sluggish or lazy – like the students being described.

2.      Paronomasia

a.       For extra motivation, I slugged the sluggish student.           

b.      I’m saying that I hit the lazy student to motivate him to do something. In the example, “slugged” is the past tense of “to hit” and “sluggish” is a modifier that indicates slow or lethargic in movement.

3.      Anthimeria

a.       He once was a lazy student then he got Mark Zuckerberged and now he’s a millionaire.

b.      Mark Zuckerberg is a young billionaire CEO who with his own initiative founded Facebook. If a student was lazy than became like Mark Zuckerberg (or was “Zuckerberged”) then it would mean he became a lot more motivated.

4.      Hyberbole

a.       The lazy student will be the death of American universities everyone

b.      This is a gross over-exaggeration. There is absolutely no way that some lazy students will result in a nationwide failure in the university system

5.      Oxymoron

a.       I saw the lazy student napping avidly during class.

b.      The word “avid” means “showing keen interest or enthusiasm” which is not possible to do while asleep. By using this word in this context, the reader sees a person who really enjoys napping during class and likely does so often and therefore never pays attention

6.      Paralellism

a.       The lazy student slept his way through class and gamed his way by homework.

b.      The above parallelism of phrase uses the phrases “slept his way through class” and “gamed his way by homework” to jointly relate the way the lazy student wasted time in college doing things he should not have.

7.      Anastrophe

a.       Soberly and morosely, the lazy student watched his friends graduate.

b.      Usually these adverbs would be closer to the verb they are modified (how he watched the graduation) but by pulling them to the front of the sentence we draw attention to the way the lazy student felt as his friends graduated.

8.      Ellipsis

a.       A responsible student works his way through college, a lazy student sleeps.

b.      By omitting what the lazy student sleeps his way through extra attention is drawn to the fact that this sentence expressing the thing that was passed (either actively or lazily).

9.      Alliteration

a.       The lazy student lumbered along the lengthy, testing line lingering for a moment to lackadaisically look at the liberated students who left the testing center loving life.

b.      Hopefully the alliteration of the words that begin with “l” makes the sentence a little more interesting to read.

don't be lazy :)