Apostrophe (a-pos’-tro-phe): Turning one’s speech from one audience to another. Most often, apostrophe occurs when one addresses oneself to an abstraction, to an inanimate object, or to the absent.
Thank you for coming.
Isn’t it strange how attached we become to our cars and trucks? You’ve probably noticed the bare spot on my lawn where I have parked my old rusted truck for the past fifteen years. Since my truck is gone, now, I’d like to say a few words marking his passing.
Buck the Truck. Were you my friend? We rode the open roads with my daughter strapped into her car seat. We got speeding tickets. We got warnings. Your brakes failed coming down a hill with my daughter by my side. We were almost killed as we rolled across a major highway in Massachusetts, unable to stop at the intersection. Then your driveshaft fell off 2 days later, and then the muffler. I’ve always fixed you Buck, but now Buck, we’ve reached the end of the road. When the battery bracket rusted and fell into your engine, spraying battery acid all over the place under the hood, and a little bit on the windshield, that was it for me.
Public Radio’s tow truck has taken you to your next incarnation: a junkyard. Accordingly, you have become a tax deductible $200 donation. Crushed into a cube of steel, you will swing in the air, embraced by a giant magnet and destined to reincarnate as a part of a kitchen appliance, another car or truck, or a girder at a construction site—maybe a college or university. Although I am sad, for safety’s sake, I had to let you go, my friend. If it’s any solace, I’ve gotten a tattoo of you on my right calf. Likewise, my daughter has done so too.
Thank-you again for coming.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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