Similes and Metafors

One of the podcasts I have been listening to is Grammar Girl. Why?

When I was in college and trying to learn French, I contended that I couldn't learn a foreign language because I didn't know English well enough.

This podcast is a help! You can listen to the podcast I am blogging about here. This particular one is on Similes and Metafors. Within the podcast the speaker (not Grammar Girl this week) states:

People use these figures of speech when speaking romantically. “Dearest, your eyes sparkle as starlight in the water of a deep, cool well.” The speaker is drawing a parallel between his beloved’s eyes and starlight in a well. She doesn’t actually have wells for eyes; if she did, she would slosh when she walked. But her eyes do sparkle, and that is the connection he’s drawing.

I was amused to hear him say "She doesn't actually have wells for eyes; if she did, she would slosh when she walked."

Why are these important? We hear and use these language constructs all the time. Do we recognize them? Quite often not.