Diazeugma (di-a-zoog’-ma): The figure by which a single subject governs several verbs or verbal constructions (usually arranged in parallel fashion and expressing a similar idea); the opposite of zeugma.
The light was making a sound. Like the wind. A psycho-hurricane. A siren. A yacht horn.
I couldn’t think straight. Hearing a reflection. I shouldn’t have taken the little orange pill I found on the table by my bed. It was sitting on a note that said “Take Me.” So I did. I thought it was a complimentary vitamin—it looked just like my “Centrum” multivitamin.
So, I took off my pants and headed down to the lobby. I met an attractive woman in the elevator. She waved her room key at me and said, “I like a man with no pants.”
By this time colorful melting was starting. The sound had gone away. My name is “Grotesque” said the flashing diamond-coated woman as she held her hotel room’s rubbery door open for me. Her face was all puffed up, perfectly round, and covered with colored confetti-like flecks. She had a sort of aurora floating near the top of her head, changing colors from yellow, to red, to blue, to green. Suddenly, she picked up the room’s cordless phone and aimed it at me. I started whining “Please don’t shoot me.”
She said, “I got a busboy to put the pill by your bed. I’ve been on your trail since you left Clinton on Monday. Don’t you remember me from high school? You told me you would marry me if we had sex. Well, you didn’t marry me. Nobody’s married me. Soon, I will be too old to bear your baby. This is Vegas. We can get married now.”
My hands turned into bowls of granola as I tried to figure out what to say.
Definition courtesy of Silva Rhetoricae (rhetoric.byu.edu)
A paper edition of The Daily Trope, entitled The Book of Tropes, is available for purchase on Amazon for $9.99 USD. It contains over 200 schemes and tropes with definitions and examples. There is also a Kindle edition available for $5.99.
The Daily Trope 