Homoiopoton

Homoioptoton (ho-mee-op-to’-ton): The repetition of similar case endings in adjacent words or in words in parallel position.

Note: Since this figure only works with inflected languages, it has often been conflated with homoioteleuton and (at least in English) has sometimes become equivalent to simple rhyme: “To no avail, I ate a snail.”

I was having hopes where I was a superhero. Not just any superhero fighting villains or saving the world. No! I was Reduplicative Man. I knew the way to San Jose. I was wise for my size. I can do tricks with sticks. It’s not nice to have lice—to have a crotch cricket in your thicket.

Eventually, I was commissioned as Reduplicator Man. My mentor’s name was Strapsky. He had taught hundreds of Reduplicators since his induction and early career partnering with Hetch to help people get their lives back on track. They roamed the cosmos in their red and white Black Hole Cabriolet until they crashed in San Fransisco, Earth. Hetch was seriously injured and had to be star-lifted home. Strapsky stayed behind and obtained a red and white Corvette that he was going to drive across the USA on Route 66–back to Chicago. But he needed a partner. I was summoned, and we met in a bar in North Beach and knew immediately that we were meant to be.

Meant to be what?

I was a novice, and Strapsky filled me in: When people think straight thoughts, they get stuck in rationality’s dead end. They “therefore” their lives away. They use “seeing” as a metaphor for thinking. They think with their eyes, as in, “I see your point of view.” we Reduplicators teach people to think with their ears. The struggle to rhyme adjacent words enables lines of thought to emerge that would otherwise go unknown. As rhyming alternatives to linear ways of thinking emerge, people may be liberated from conclusions that are dysfunctional. Once liberated, they are free to cascade—to free-fall into universes of meaning and revel in the options they poetically invite. When they make negative or horrendous rhymes, they realize they made them, and accordingly, can unmake them.

Strapsky’s greatest success was Lao Tzu who found enlightenment in his ear. He never wrote down his rhymes. Instead, he recorded what they yielded. For example: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” He told Strapsky it was in his ear as “My knee makes me free.” He massaged his rhyme and came up with his wise saying.

The first stop on our trip was Los Angeles where we knew there were a lot of disturbed people aching for us to give it to them in the ear. We put an ad in the personals section of the LA Times: “Need help? Give us a yelp.” We included our motel’s phone number in the ad. We quickly found out the ad was too vague: we got hundreds phone calls seeking help for everything from obtaining a fake I.D., to a problem with chronic constipation. We held a “Rhymorama” together in our room and came up with: “Broken love? We are your dove.”

The next morning we got one response. It was a women who was frantic. Her husband was a professional blackmailer. He had most recently blackmailed Tommy Lasorda, who was the Manger of the L.A Dodgers at the time. Her husband Gill had obtained a photo of Mr. Lasorda wearing a Yankees hat. She was disgusted, but couldn’t get it, or her husband, out of her mind. We took her phone number and began a “Rhymarama” out by the motel swimming pool. We went around and around for at least an hour, drinking gin and tonics and smoking Cuban cigars—Cohibas. Then, we heard it. Neither of us could take complete credit, but there it was: “Turn him pink whenever you think.” We called her immediately. We put it in her ear and she started laughing. We decided that laughing was better than crying, so our job was done.

Similar things happened 100s of times as we made our way to Chicago. When we got to Chicago Strapsky was summoned back home. He left me with the Corvette, a Bank of America credit card, and a load of fond memories.

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