Came across a striking use of English on a forum the other day:

“You’ll have as much luck with this as trying to push butter up a porcupine’s arse with a red hot needle.”

Beat that for vividness, for impact, for memorability.

Not that you’d want to over-use it in business copy, but it did set me thinking about how dull and lifeless so much business communication has become, under the pressure of a determination to impress. Buzzword bingo, all of that.

Orwell famously said “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.” Keep an eye out for them. They are the mark of the dullard.

Aspire always to porcupinery. You may seldom achieve it, but, as Leo Burnett once said: “When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get them, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.”