Meaning of “handsome as hell”
What is beautiful as hell? I heard it in her song Wildest Dreams. Watch if anyone has heard it. What is the lyrics to “He’s tall
and handsome as hell” by RCA Soft Company? He is so bad but he does it so
well Is this phrase good to use?
I’m still frustrated. Why not?
For example, your particular example is a simile combined with a bit of alliteration. Is he as handsome as hell and hot? A persons name ‘hot’ alone is used to refer to a physically attractive person (sitting person, that is that person)?
The rest of the lyric plays with the idea that hell is where sinners go, but sin can be fun.
Then it’s perfect for a casual language. To some people, “hell” is considered profanity, so it is not always appropriate.
Which basic construction as adjective adjective extends more literal / transparently metaphorical usages such as as good as gold, as hard as nails, as nice as pie.
Additional to OP’s cited hell usage there’s the slightly more euphemistic…
He’s as mad as hell…and
the more explicitly coarse… He’s
angry as fuck (It
was as) dark as buggery (this one’s far from common, particularly in AmE) But
note that not many adjectives can be used in this way. Despite what the prudes say, people who swear a lot don’t necessarily do this because they have limited command of the language. The “rules” of swearing are often very precise – unsurprisingly, since one of its more important functions is to easily distinguish “in-group” speakers from “out-group” speakers.
In the coarser version, there’s usually no specific semantic content to the particular expletive. Is there a precise way in which “words” in OP’s are used to convey the word “or”my”?
Where can I find some short and easy expletives for this pattern?