I'm not quite sure if it's my inner contrarian or my (largely unwarranted) linguistic snobbiness, but there are few platitudes that impress me. As a matter of fact, most of these cliche sayings/phrases irk me, paritcularly more so when they elicit "ooh"s and "aah"s from the rest of the conversation party. Chief among these is the phrase, "____ is so layered, like an onion."
Normally, my objection to such sayings revolves around a lack of originality. No matter how true/deep/accurate certain sayings/comparisons are, they really should lose their appeal by the millionth time they've been heard. And yet, these idiots (again, I understand that my snobbiness is unwarranted, but I can't help but feel this way) continue to fall prey to these unoriginal, second-hand sayings.
What makes "layered like an onion" even worse? Not only is this phrase used every single time to describe anything with more depth than a kiddie pool, but it is actually inaccurate. Take an onion and peel the first layer - it will be vastly different because you have removed the onion peel and hit the actual consumable portion of the onion. Good. However, take that onion and peel it again, and again, and again, and again. Sure, the onion might be a different "layer," but it is still a freaking onion. In actuality, an onion only really has 2 differentiated layers: the skin, and the onion.
This onion composition is in direct conflict with the common usage of the phrase "layered like an onion" because the phrase is often used to describe people/things that have a surprising, different quality. E.g.: Wow, I thought that guy was a complete a-hole, but then he turned out to be pretty nice. And then when I got to know him better, he actually was an a-hole. An onion would be wow, I thought that guy was nice, and when I got to know him, he was still nice. When I got to know him more deeply, he was still nice.
How ever are we going to move away from using this unoriginal, inaccurate phrase? What ever shall replace it? I'd like to suggest the phrase "layered like a multi-layered cake." The exact phrase/description is still in the works because I am not familiar enough with cakes to name a good cake and obviously using the word "multi-layered" as part of an anology about something actually multi-layered is just cheating.
But really, think about it. How many freaking layers are there in those multi-layered cakes? Even something like ice cream cake, we have the bread, the ice cream, the cream, the fruit, the cookie crumbs. My goodness, we can work out the details of an amazing cake for days. Not only that, but in its current form, the cake is so general/nondescript that we can customize the cake according to every minute detail to perfect the analogy.
Death to the onion, long live cake!
Disclaimer: In real, non-analogous life I prefer foods with onions over foods with cake.
