Cliche of the Week 64 – Like a toy

Toys get tossed, hurled and swept away like matchsticks as the world pours wild weather on a broken land.

Every time there's a weather event – storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, floods – the might of nature creates an opportunity to describe its force.

'Like a toy' is used 20 times in a non disaster month and 80 during 'weather events', a phrase which in a normal month surfaces 40 times but up to 500 in a busy climate month.

" … washed-out roads, flooded fields, destroyed foundations and trees and boulders tossed like toys." (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News, September 3)

"He was driving to meet friends when the SUV smashed into him, hurling the man and machine aside like toys in the street." (Los Angeles Daily News, September 5)

"In the aftermath of Irene, in addition to the homes and streets underwater, covered bridges and cars carried away like toys, and downtowns awash in knee-high sludge, the arts also have an extreme and unfortunate amount of cleaning to do." (Rutland Herald, September 1)

"A week earlier, 300-kilometre-per-hour winds raged through Goderich, Ontario, ripping apart historic buildings, turning trees into matchsticks and tossing cars like toys." (Vancouver Sun, September 1)

Cliche of the Week appears in The Australian newspaper Mondays. The usage of cliches in the media is tracked across the world using Factiva and Dow Jones Insight.

 Chris Pash's book, The Last Whale, a true story set in the 1970s, was published by Fremantle Press in 2008