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by Kate Woodford

Two weeks ago, I published a blog post on the language of describing similarities, including words such as identikit and analogous. This week I’m looking at idioms and phrases in this area.

Let’s start with similarities between people. Someone who is a dead ringer for another person (often someone who is famous) looks exactly like them. We also say that someone is the spitting image of someone else, meaning they look very similar. This idiom is often used to describe family resemblances:

He’s a dead ringer for the Harry Potter actor.

She’s the spitting image of her mother at that age.

Two other idioms relate especially to similarities within families. If two people, especially siblings, are like two peas in a pod, they are extremely similar, especially in appearance. Someone who is described as a chip off the old block is very similar to one of their parents, either in appearance or behaviour:

As children, they were practically identical – like two peas in a pod.

Dan’s son is a chip off the old block, isn’t he?

If you say that someone or something is in a particular (UK) mould/(US) mold, you mean they have the same appearance or characteristics as that person or thing:

Of course, he was never a striker in the Ronaldo mould. / We needed a charismatic, dynamic personality, and she was very much in that mold.

Two people who are cut from the same cloth are very similar, especially in character or behaviour:

As far as the voters are concerned, the two candidates are cut from the same cloth.

In UK English, when we say that there is little (to choose) between two people or things, we mean they are very similar, especially in their abilities or qualities:

In terms of athleticism, there is little to choose between the two teams.

The saying Birds of a feather flock together is sometimes used to observe that people who are similar in character and attitudes are often found together. The shortened phrase birds of a feather is sometimes used to refer to people with similar character and attitudes:

Politically, they were birds of a feather.

Of course, we are sometimes making a negative observation when we say that people or things are similar. For example, in UK English, you can describe several similar people or things that you have to choose between as much of a muchness, especially when none of the options is interesting or exciting:

It’s hard to feel inspired by an election when the candidates are all much of a muchness.

Finally, someone or something that is similar to someone or something else but not as good as them is sometimes described as a pale imitation:

The remake is usually dismissed as a pale imitation of the original movie.

That concludes my two-part post on ways of describing similarities. Watch out for my next post which will look at the way we refer to differences.