Simile Generator

Variables and Values

In Python, we have variables and values. Think of a variable as a box, and a value as something that goes inside the box. Here is an example of a variable and its value:

animal = “cat”

In this case, animal is the variable, and “cat” is its value. In fact, it is a specific type of value--a string. A value that has letters or characters and no numbers is a string type value. We put strings inside quotation marks. When we write a variable, we are declaring the variable.

In this case, we can say that we are assigning the value of “cat” to the variable animal. The = is called the assignment operator. It’s not an “equals” sign in the sense that 2 = 2, but it does convey a relationship. We are basically saying that animal represents “cat”. That means that when we do something with animal, we are doing something with “cat”.

For example, look at this code:
print(animal)

The print function tells the program to print, or display, something in the output area of our code editor. (A function is an action that we can do in Python.) Keeping in mind that animal represents “cat”, what do you think we’ll see if we print the value of animal?

Try it yourself: In the code editor on the right, declare a variable called animal. Then assign it a value, like “cat” (or another animal, if you’re not a cat person). Then tell the program to print the variable. Click the large gray triangle button at the top of the editor to run your program and see the results!

You can also have multiple words as part of a single value. For example:

favorite_song = “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”

Try typing the above code in the editor and then printing favorite_song.

Note that variable names are lowercase. Use underscores when you need to include multiple words, as in favorite_song, cat_name, and so on.

Sometimes we might want to have more than one value assigned to a variable. We might want to have a list of values, for instance. In Python, we can make a list, also called an array. For example:

animal = [“cat”, “dog”, “bird”, “fish”]

“Cat”, “dog”, “bird”, and “fish” are all values in the array. In this example, they are all single-word strings. But you can have multiple-word strings as values in an array, as well:

favorite_songs = [“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, “Happy Birthday”, “Imagine”]

What do you think would be the result if you typed the above line of code in your code editor and then printed favorite_songs? Try it and see!

Now that you know about variables and values, let’s create some for our simile generator. A simile is a comparison of two nouns. To make our simile generator, we need to have two lists of nouns that we can compare.

First, let’s create two new variables. Each one is the name of a list. If we want to have two lists, list 1 and list 2, how would we format those as variable names? Type the variable names on lines 4 and 5 of your code editor.

Now we need some values to assign to our variables. Let’s take a look at our similes:

The horse was strutting like a prizefighter.
The miners spilled out of warehouses with their lunch pails toward the mouth of the elevator like insects toward a lighted trap.
Her breath is like frozen air.

We need to split each of these similes so that the first noun phrase of each simile is in the first list, and the second noun phrase of each simile is in the second list. A noun phrase contains a noun (person, place, thing) and words that accompany it, such as articles (a/an/the), adjectives, verbs, and other parts of speech.

Look at the similes again:

The horse was strutting like a prizefighter.

The miners spilled out of warehouses with their lunch pails toward the mouth of the elevator like insects toward a lighted trap.

Her breath is like frozen air.

Let’s take the noun phrases on the left of "like" and assign them as values to our first variable. Here’s a hint as to how to format these:

list_1 = [“ ” , “ ”, “ ” ]

We also need to assign values to our second list variable. Take the noun phrases on the right of "like" and assign them as list items to the second list variable. Use the same formatting as you did for list_1 to create your second list.

Now that we have our two lists, with each list containing simile components, we need to tell our program to randomly pull an item from each list. We do this by using Python’s random module.

On lines 7 and 8, we are going to make two new variables. Each variable is going to contain just one item, or value. Type the following code on lines 7 and 8:

part_1 = random.choice(list_1)
part_2 = random.choice(list_2)

The random.choice you see above is randomly pulling an item from the list in parentheses next to it and assigning that value to the new variable. So, the variable part_1 will have a value of an item from list_1 and the variable part_2 will have a value of an item pulled from list_2.

This is where the “scrambling” happens--we won’t know what items the code assigned to part_1 and part_2 until the program runs!

A basic simile follows this formula:

simile = noun phrase 1 + “like” + noun phrase 2

We want to teach this formula to our program. How might we do that, using what we know about variables and values? On line 10 try turning this formula into code.

Then, on line 12, tell the program to print your simile. Then run your program and see what happens!

Now your simile generator is all set up and ready to use. All you have to do is run your program as many times as you want to see different similes. You may even end up seeing the original, unscrambled similes! It all depends on what values the program chooses to randomly pull from list_1 and list_2.