An actual writing thread... Dated metaphores and similes.

[big_cane_sugar]

when does a metaphor or simile become too dated to use

Never. Hardly any of our readers have plowed a field or spun a thread or rubbed sticks together to start a fire or pounded hot iron into a useful shape or broken a horse or felt our sails catch the wind and so on, but I advocate using all kinds of things like this.

We all know that once upon a time life felt real.

 

[TheLobster]

One I heard recently was “a few sandwiches short of a picnic,” and I think it’s wonderful.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

"Hang up", to end a phone call.
"Dial" a phone number.

Presumably apocryphal and a visual metaphor but: the young people who see a floppy disk and say, "Cool, somebody 3D printed the Save icon."