Exercise I. Find metaphor and personification.

1. She looked down on Gopher Prairie. The snow stretching without break
from street to devouring prairie beyond, wiped out the town's pretence
of being a shelter. The houses were black specks on a white sheet.
2. And the skirts! What a sight were those skirts! They were nothing but vast
decorated pyramids; on the summit of each was stuck the upper half of a princess.
3. I was staring directly in front of me, at the back of the driver's neck,
which was a relief map of boil scars.
4. She was handsome in a rather leonine way. Where this girl was a lioness,
the other was a panther-lithe and quick.
5. His voice was a dagger of corroded brass.
6. Wisdom has reference only to the past. The future remains for ever an
infinite field for mistakes. You can't know beforehand.
7. He felt the first watery eggs of sweat moistening the palms of his hands.
8. At the last moment before the windy collapse of the day, I myself took the road
down.
9. The man stood there in the middle of the street with the deserted dawnlit
boulevard telescoping out behind him.
10. Leaving Daniel to his fate, she was conscious of joy springing in her heart.
11. He smelled the ever-beautiful smell of coffee imprisoned in the can.
12. We talked and talked and talked, easily, sympathetically,
w e d d i n g h e r e x p e r i e n c e w i t h m y articulation.
13. "We need you so much here. It's a dear old town, but it's a rough
diamond, and we need you for the polishing, and we're ever so humble...".
14. They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling, unable to
communicate.
15. Geneva, mother of the Red Cross, hostess of humanitarian congresses
for the civilizing of warfare!
16. She and the kids have filled his sister's house and their welcome is wearing
thinner and thinner.
17. Notre Dame squats in the dusk.
18. I am the new year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time. I am
your next chance at the art of living. I am your opportunity to practice what you
have learned during the last twelve months about life. All that you sought the past
year and failed to find is hidden in me; I am waiting for you to search it out again
and with more determination. All the good that you tried to do for others and
didn't achieve last year is mine to grant - providing you have fewer selfish
and conflicting desires. In me lies the potential of all that you dreamed
but didn't dare to do, all that you hoped but did not perform, all you
prayed for but did not yet experience. These dreams slumber lightly, waiting
to be awakened by the touch of an enduring purpose. I am your opportunity.
19. Autumn comes
And trees are shedding their leaves,
And Mother Nature blushes
Before disrobing.
20. He had hoped that Sally would laugh at this, and she did, and in a
sudden mutual gush they cashed into the silver of laughter all the sad" secrets
they could find in their pockets.

Exercise II. Indicate metonymy and synecdoche

1. He went about her room, after his introduction, looking at her pictures,
her bronzes and clays, asking after the creator of this, the painter of that, where a
third thing came from.
2. She wanted to have a lot of children, and she was glad that things
were that way, that the Chu rch approved. Then the little girl died. Nancy
broke with Rome the day her baby died. It was a secret break, but no
Catholic breaks with Rome casually.
3. "Evelyn Glasgow, get up out of that chair this minute." The girl looked up from
her book. "What's the matter?" "Your satin. The skit will be a mass of wrinkles in
the back."
4. Except for a lack of youth, the guests had no common theme, they seemed
strangers among strangers; indeed, each face, on entering, had straggled to conceal
dismay at seeing others there.
5. She saw around her, clustered about the white tables, multitudes of
violently red lips, powdered cheeks, cold, hard eyes, self-possessed arrogant
faces, and insolent bosoms.
6. Dinah, a slim, fresh, pale eighteen, was pliant and yet fragile.
7. The man looked a rather old forty-five, for he was already going grey.
8. The delicatessen owner was a spry and jolly fifty.
9. "It was easier to assume a character without having to tell too many lies
and you brought a fresh eye and mind to the job."
10. "Some remarkable pictures in this room, gentlemen. A Holbein, two Van
Dycks and if I am not mistaken, a Velasquez. I am interested in pictures."
11. You have nobody to blame but yourself. The saddest words of tongue or pen.
12. For several days he took an hour after his work to make inquiry taking
with him some examples of his pen and inks.
13. There you are at your tricks again. The rest of them do earn their bread;
you live on my charity.
14. I crossed a high toll bridge and negotiated a no man's land and came to the
place where the Stars and Stripes stood shoulder to shoulder with the Union Jack.
15. The praise was enthusiastic enough to have delighted any common writer who
earns his living by his pen.
16. He made his way through the perfume and conversation.
17. His mind was alert and people asked him to dinner not for old times' sake, but
because he was worth his salt.
18. Up the Square, from the corner of King Street, passed a woman in a new
bonnet with pink strings, and a new blue dress that sloped at the shoulders
and grew to a vast circumference at the hem. Through the silent sunlit
solitude of the Square this bonnet and this dress floated northwards in search of
romance.
19. The Department of Education announced new plans for the education reform.
20. Two men in uniforms were running heavily to the Administration
building. As they ran, Christian saw them throw away their rifles. They
were portly men who looked like advertisements for Munich beer, and
running came hard to them. The first prisoner stopped and picked up one of the
discarded rifles. He did not fire it, but carried it, as he chased the guards. He
swung the rifle like a club, and one of the beer advertisements went down.
21. Take thy face hence!
22. A boy has been admitted to the hospital. The nurse says, “He’s in good hands.”
23. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.“