Apocope

Apocope (a-pok’-o-pe): Omitting a letter or syllable at the end of a word. A kind of metaplasm.

I’m endin’ this thing right now! We have been goin’ steady since high school. I just turned 32 and that’s too old for goin’ steady. I don’t care if your mother went steady with your father until she got pregnant when she was 36. You are not your mother!

So, it’s been great goin’ with you, and here’s hopin’ you’ll find somebody else who’s weird like you—maybe one of those creeps who hangs out at the gas station. What about Gomer Yanket? Remember him? He was home-schooled by his anarchist father and spent 6 years in prison for blowing up a shoe store. He’s sewn his wild oats and is probably ready to go steady! He’s got a job at the landfill stomping on cans, and he knows how to cook.

I’ll put in a good word for you with Gomer and you’ll be havin’ a new steady beau before you know it. Goodbye.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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