Der Strauchaffe ist so intelligent wie ...

[St. Jarvitude]

For you non-German speakers:

The Bushmonkey is as smart as ...

I'm writing a little story for German and I'm racking my brain thinking of the perfect similie for Bushmonkey's intelligence. I was going to use "smart as a head of lettuce" but I'm having some difficulty translating that (just saying so intelligent wie ein Salat doesn't cut it I don't think ...)

[St. Jarvitude]

1. Oh, and I need an animal as a metaphor for Cheney

"Rat" is too obvious.

Maybe I should just go with der Marionettemeister :evilgrin:

[artfan]

2. how about

bush=turnip

cheney=eel

[ze_dscherman]

3. We prefer the "is as dumb as" version

Most common comparisons "as dumb as" in German would be:

Dumm wie Brot (dumb as bread)
Dumm wie Dosenbrot (dumb as canned bread)
Dumm wie Bohnenstroh (dumb as bean straw)
Dumm wie Schifferscheiße (dumb as a mariners shit)
Dumm wie 10 Meter Feldweg (dumb as ten meters of country road)

"Strauchaffe" is nice!

[St. Jarvitude]

5. Ahh... even better

I'm just a pitiful German III student in High School, so excuse my poor grammar.

[ze_dscherman]

7. Your grammar was not wrong!

It's just a matter of idioms - and in German the preference is "as dumb as". But your sentence makes perfect sense! Except that there is no "Strauchaffe" - but it sounds funny and anyhow, there's no "bush monkey" in English, either. BTW, you can also translate "bush" into "Busch".

Just keep on learning and playing with German. Learning languages takes patience and experience, but it is so much fun. Making mistakes is no problem - most people feel honored if you try to speak their language.

[Englander]

4. ..a turnip,maybe?

Cheney is the Lizard King..

[5thGenDemocrat]

6. My dad used to say "dumb as a box of rocks"

And I have no idea how that translates to German.
John
But it's a big world and many people in it do.