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Reader question: Please explain “stick out like a sore thumb” in this sentence: Several buildings of seventeen storeys or more will stick out like a sore thumb on the local skyline. My comments: Obviously, buildings in this area are predominantly flat houses or low rises, buildings with only a few storeys. Hence, amongst these, buildings of seventeen storeys or more will stand out, i.e. become outstanding looking in an odd and incongruous way. They will be too conspicuous to ignore while at the same time contrast sharply with the local skyline – in an unpleasant way. Anyways, that’s why the said several buildings are described that way, that they “will stick out like a sore thumb”. If you play basketball regularly, you’ll have no problem understanding what a sore thumb, or for that matter a middle finger, feels like. Your get a thumb injured by inadvertently having it hit straight on by the ball, of course. The resulting pain can be excruciating and unbearable, and that’s what a sore thumb feels like, literally. Now that the thumb is injured and sore, you have to protect it from being re-injured. Therefore, you begin to favor other fingers, making sure the injured thumb, from now on, makes as little contact with the basketball as possible. And that feels awkward. Hence and therefore, metaphorically speaking, if something feels like a sore thumb sticking out, it is, for starters, obvious for everyone to see. For another, it feels awkward and out of place. It is prominent and attracts attention in a negative way. Like a real sore thumb, it is really unpleasant. | 
