Kaiser Chiefs

I’ve got a couple of questions about a song. Here is a link to it and the lyrics.

Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God - YouTube

Time on your side that will never end
The most beautiful thing you can ever spend
But you work in a shirt with your nametag on it
Drifting apart like a plate tectonic

It don't matter to me
It's all I wanted to be
It's a million miles from here
Somewhere more familiar

Too much time spent dragging the past up
I didn't see you not looking when I messed up
Settling down in your early twenties
Sucked more blood than a backstreet dentist

It don't matter to me
It's all I wanted to be
It's a million miles from here
Somewhere more familiar

Oh my God, I can't believe it
I've never been this far away from home

Great rulers make for greater glory
The only thing growing is on this story
Knock me down I'll get right back up again
It comes back stronger than a powered up Pac-Man

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I’m wondering if the words "drifting apart like a plate tectonic" are idiomatic or not.

And one question more. How could you comment on the word order "plate tectonic". A noun is known to be generally modified by attributes in pre-position while a postpositive attribute is mostly expressed not by a single word, but by a group of words. Is it possible that this word-order was only used for the sake of rhyming with "on it"?

Quote:

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I’m wondering if the words "drifting apart like a plate tectonic" are idiomatic or not.

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Lena, as far as i looked up, there wasn't any idiomatic meanings 4 it.
I think it's only a metaphor. However a native speaker knows better than me!:)

Hello Lena,

that sounds to me just like metaphor anod not like any idiom I've ever heard.
and the correct order is "tectonic plate" saying it the other way around its just for the sake of good music ^^

hope that helps!!

Thank you both very much. Those words being just a metaphor makes it even more difficult to understand their meaning. Something not good, I guess, like "getting more worn out" or "letting go in one’s dreams only". I wish I knew what feelings tectonic plates have as they drift apart. :)