Monthly Archives: October 2023

Asphalia

Posted on October 31, 2023 | Leave a comment

Asphalia (as-fay’-li-a): Offering oneself as a guarantee, usually for another.

I am a professional witness, but not in courts of law. I specialize in backing up people’s lies. I make people believe I’m a close friend of the accused. I have a stock list of characteristics. For example, we grew up together, we went to school together, we served in the Army together. Then there’s the things the accused has done proving their character. Here I use made-up stories about “the time they. . .” Like saving me from drowning, telling the truth even if they suffered, never taking opportunities to cheat.

I back everything up with vivid stories if I have to give evidence. We also make up a story of how we know each other and why their partner has never met me before, or even heard about me. We talk about the falling out we had, that had kept us apart for awhile. I have to make sure that the falling out does not reflect badly on my client—it is a challenge. I usually summon a third person who was to blame, lying to both of us about each other, making us angry at each other. The story that supports the legitimacy of our mutual anger is that it was induced by the third party stealing our TV and then blaming each of us separately for stealing it. We believed them, blaming each other, and ended our friendship. Then the person who had stolen our TV invited us to dinner. There was our Tv sitting in the livingroom. We beat them to a pulp, took our TV back, and became friends again.

My current client is a real challenge. I have to convince his accuser that the sexually explicit videoclip is inconsequential, based on my good character—on what I have to say on their behalf. Pretty much every road was closed to me. So, I went with the “it’s normal” rationale—that it isn’t such a bad thing to cheat, especially if it does not happen too often. Then, I took a turn down “Revenge Road.” I told her that cheating with his best friend (aka me) would anger him and then humble him, while at the same time affording her the opportunity to taste forbidden fruit and get even. Once they got even with each other, they could go back to their relationship on an equal footing. She thought it was a good idea. We slept together. She told him.

I underestimated the depth of his double standard. He went berserk. I’m in the hospital with three broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. The girlfriend has been missing for 2 weeks. The police found traces of her blood in the boyfriend’s apartment along with a recently fired Glock. The boyfriend is being held on suspicion of murder. I’m not being held for anything yet.

I’ve given up my witness business. I’m thinking of becoming a life coach.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Assonance

Posted on October 30, 2023 | Leave a comment

Assonance (ass’-o-nance): Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words

I shot my snot across the room, sticking to my mother’s tomb it swung in the candlelight, I didn’t handle it well. Visiting my mother’s tomb has become a funny thing. The family stands there feeling no remorse for letting her die in pain, of neglect in her room, alone. In fact, we often break out in laughter.

This is a lesson for those who would be hated.

Mother was a horror. All three of us children were beaten every day with a length of lead pipe, three hard whacks per day. One on the butt and two on the back of the legs. She fed us four slices of baloney, with mustard once a week—on Sundays. In addition, we would have a mug of hot lemon water. I considered this my dessert.

For clothing, she knitted us “sheaths” out of wool. We were all boys—the three of us. The wool sheaths were very embarrassing to wear. They looked like dresses. The wool was undyed, so we looked like sheep. Mother would “herd” us around the house barking like a sheep dog and making us “bleat” by poking us with her crook and snagging us around the neck. Then, before bed, we had to line up in front of our bedroom door and recite “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

We had no idea where mother’s obsession with sheep came from. My brother Teddy, who was the littlest, loved being a sheep. He loved saying “What’s so baaad about this?” Well, it was pretty bad. At school we were mercilessly teased. The principal did nothing. He loved my mother, and rightfully so: she was beautiful. Then it happened. We found a copy of “The Three Little Pigs” by accident in a cardboard box in the garage. Although the story didn’t perfectly fit our predicament, it was close enough. The biggest one of us, Carl, would pound on the door in the middle the night and yell “I am the big bad wolf and I’m going knock the door down and eat you.” We hadn’t thought beyond that, but we did it. When Carl yelled, Mother came running out of her room yelling, “Eat the three little sheep!” She slipped and fell down the stairs. She was unconscious. With much effort, we dragged he back to her room and tied her to her bed. That’s where she died one year later, it was disgusting, but necessary. The coroner determined that she died from an eating disorder. We were free!

Before we left the tomb, we recited “Mary Had a Little” and and each threw a rock at mother’s crypt.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Assumptio

Posted on October 29, 2023 | Leave a comment

Assumptio (as-sump’-ti’o): The introduction of a point to be considered, especially an extraneous argument.

See proslepsis (When paralipsis [stating and drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over] is taken to its extreme. The speaker provides full details.)

A: I don’t understand your obsession with “Oh Susana.” You don’t even own a banjo and never travel anywhere. But most important: you don’t know anybody named Susana who is your “true love.” I don’t think you even know what a true love is. The closest you come is petting the dog. So, next time you’re taking a shower why not sing “The Who” song about rain? It will help preserve my sanity.

B: Well, I’m not going to respond to your criticism, but you don’t know very much about music, “Oh Susana” was number one on the “Freaky 50 Song List” for 70 years. It was knocked off by “Incense and Peppermint” in the late 1960s. The line “the sun was so hot I froze to death” is a definitive piece of psychedelia, fascinating trippers for 100s of years. The band “Cream” claimed it as their primary inspiration with its spaced-out lyrics and wah wah banjo—an innovation rivaling the fuzz box and the pedal steel guitar. Little Stevie Foster, who wrote the song, was known for his use of controlled substances. He would sit down by the Swanee River with his minstrel buddies smoking pot and fishing for catfish. It is said he wrote “Hard Times Come No More” after he caught a 50 pound catfish on a trot line. He also coined “wow man” as a response to things that moved him. In fact, he died at his desk composing a song titled “Wow Man.” From what we can gather, and what musicologists assert, the song was inspired by a ladybug that had crawled up Little Stevie’s pant leg when he was reading the Bible as he sat on a log in the woods.

Well, there you have it. There is no good reason to criticize my frequent singing of “Oh Susana.” It is a classic. It has mind-bending psychedelic overtones. And, I did’t go into depth on the exemplary image of love it portrays, which alone should give you pause and open your heart.

A. I never realized how mentally disturbed you are. Your rationale for singing “Oh Susana” all the time is grounded in looney musings that completely evade the facts. You defame Stephen Foster. I don’t know what to do.

B: Let’s sing “Oh Susana.”

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Asteismus

Posted on October 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

Asteismus (as-te-is’-mus): Polite or genteel mockery. More specifically, a figure of reply in which the answerer catches a certain word and throws it back to the first speaker with an unexpected twist. Less frequently, a witty use of allegory or comparison, such as when a literal and an allegorical meaning are both implied.

He: What time is it?

She: I don’t know but I use it a lot in my cooking. Thyme and time.

He: You’re so damn witty, but I get tired of not getting straight answers to almost all of my questions.

She: I’ll try and curtail my crooked answers. Do you still want to go rock climbing? I found a new place to go out by the old coal mine.

He agreed. They got their equipment, threw it in the back of his truck and took off. It was a two-hour drive so they decided to stop for lunch. They saw a place and pulled over. It was called “Clacky’s Lunch.” It was pretty run down, but they didn’t care. Inside, it was decorated in a coal mining motif—pick axes and the walls, minecarts with plywood boards on top for tables, and miner’s lamps on the tables along with miner’s hard hats holding napkins and salt and pepper shakers.

A woman with coal dust her face poured our water and gave them their menus. She said, “Today’s special is the Mine Shafter sandwich —baloney and mustard on white, with chips and an iced tea for $12.00.”

He: We’re in a bit of a hurry, so, even though it seems a little expensive, we’ll take two of the specials.

They heard laughter in the kitchen.

When the waitress returned to the table she was carrying two plates of coal. She said: “Santa doesn’t like you. That’ll be $24.00. .”

He: What the hell is this bullshit?”

Five men came out of the kitchen carrying pickaxes. They looked ready to kill.

She: What did we do to make you so mad? Please don’t hurt us.

Man: Sorry, but this is what we do. We kill a customer every ten days and grind them up for burgers, meat sauce, meatballs, meatloaf and more. We’ll take you down to the mine and kill you and bring your bodies back up here for grinding. Come on, let’s go.

They were dragged fighting and kicking to the mine where they each took a pickaxe to the head. They were carried back up to the restaurant where they were dismembered, filleted and run through the meat grinder. Then, one of the men looked at the calendar hanging on the wall: “Jeez we’re one day off—today is only 9 days.”

The five of them laughed and continued taking turns washing their pickaxes off in the kitchen sink. They had been working as a team since high school when they killed their friends’ pets for fun. They really lucked out finding their waitress, a psycho killer they met at the bus station who was returning to town after 15 years in prison for “mutilating” her next door neighbor. Eating customers was her idea. It had increased their profit margin, and improved the quality of their lives. She could hardly wait for the next ten days to pass.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Astrothesia

Posted on October 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

Astrothesia (as-tro-the’-si-a): A vivid description of stars. One type of enargia.

It’s August in Maine. I’m outside. It’s 11.00pm. I look up. There is no moon. The sky is glowing with starlight. The dark black sky contrasts with the with the stars, or do the stars contrast with the dark black sky? Forever they’ve held the night, present since the beginning of time. They guide us. They delight us. They inspire us. We wish “upon” them.

That’s why I’m out here by the ocean tonight—I hear the waves. I see the stars piled together in the Milky Way. From the vast twinkling sky full of blinking stars, I must choose one to wish upon. When I look up, it has to be the first star I see. That will be my wishing Star. I look up and make my wish:

Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have this wish I wish tonight.

“Dear Star, I want a chainsaw.”

There, it’s done. Maybe I should’ve been more specific with a brand name, size, or color. I was hoping for a Poulin or Craftsman big enough to cut down the giant oak tree that was going to land on my parents’ house in the next big storm. I had worked one summer for a tree service “Sawdust Saviors.” So, I could handle the cutting. What was going to be really hard to handle is our neighbor. He owns the tree and he refuses to have it removed.

Two days later, a chainsaw showed up on the front porch. It was my “Plan B.” I was almost certain my star wish for a chainsaw wouldn’t work, so I had ordered a Poulin from Amazon. Two days after that an empty box with a note in it showed up on the porch. The note accused me of “double dipping” and I was prohibited from Star-wishing forever. I thought it was some kind of joke. Then I saw a garden gnome across the street giving me the finger. He disappeared in a puff of green smoke when I started to cross the street to talk to him.

I had seen him before, I had a history of mental illness, marked by hallucinations. I must’ve forgotten to take my medication. The last time I saw that Garden Gnome was when I had stolen my parent’s car. The gnome was riding in the passenger seat egging me on. I didn’t know how to drive (I was twelve) and crashed into the mailbox as I backed out of the driveway. There were other incidents, so my parents sent me to “The Parkdale Home for Wayward Lads.” I had just gotten home after being released and going to Maine.

I got up at 4.00am to prepare to cut down my neighbor’s tree. I waited until he went to work so he wouldn’t try to stop me. I put on my ear protectors and cranked up the saw. saw dust flew. The saw cut through the tree trunk like butter.

I miscalculated. The tree fell on my house, crushing the roof. I broke the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom and water was spraying all over. I heard laughter behind me and turned to see who it was. There was nobody there.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Asyndeton

Posted on October 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

Asyndeton (a-syn’-de-ton): The omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect. [Compare brachylogia. Opposite of polysyndeton.]

It was raining like crazy: slip, slop, slip, slop, slip slop my windshield wipers said as I splashed through puddles driving too fast. My mother was taking care of my dog Roofrack. If I was late she would yell at me like I was a bad dog, which actually, was Roofrack’s role in life. He specialized in peeing on chair legs and eating shoes. I thought of having him euthanized, but aside from his two bad habits, he was fun to spend time with. So, I got him his own pair of shoes and his own chair that I keep in the bathtub. When he stays with my mother, I bring along his shoes and chair.

I snapped out of my reverie when I noticed I was skidding off the side of the road into a cornfield. When my car came to rest, I was surrounded by cornstalks loaded with corn. Despite the rain, I decided to pick some—maybe fill the car’s trunk. I got out of the car, opened the trunk and started picking and pitching corn in the trunk. I was soaked, but I didn’t care.

I jumped in my car, started it up, and put it in gear. The tires spun in the mud. I kept pressing on the gas and the car sunk deeper and deeper in the mud. Suddenly, the car just started to sink on its own. It was engulfed by a cloud red smoke. I was totally panic stricken—my cell phone stopped working and I could feel it getting warmer and warmer inside my car. Suddenly, I fell out of the sky and landed softly on a giant paved parking lot extending for miles in every direction.

A scarecrow slowly rose from underground. He said, “What do you have in your trunk? Open it!” I opened it, and there it was full of stolen corn. He said, “Look around you. Miles, miles, miles, miles of paved- over earth, suffocating everything underneath it: no corn, no fields of green. Stealing corn is a start in that direction. Now, get out of here!”

My car rose like an express elevator. I emerged, on the highway like nothing had happened. I looked in my rear view mirror and got a glimpse of the Scarecrow standing in the rain, shaking his straw fist at me. A shiver went down my spine.

I pulled up to my mom’s and got out to pick up Roofrack. Mom opened the door, and there was Roofrack! After peeing on my mother’s leg, he came running to me. After all that happened, I didn’t feel up to admonishing him. I just said “Bad dog” and tried to apologize to my mother. She slammed the door.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Auxesis

Posted on October 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

Auxesis (ok-see’-sis): (1) Arranging words or clauses in a sequence of increasing force. In this sense, auxesis is comparable to climax and has sometimes been called incrementum. (2) A figure of speech in which something is referred to in terms disproportionately large (a kind of exaggeration or hyperbole). (3) Amplification in general.

When is big too big? It was like my nose. I made Pinocchio look like one of those pug-nose dogs from China. It was six inches long and shaped like a broomstick. It was hereditary.

10 centuries ago it had a purpose, when the world was a magical place and there were strange creatures populating the land. Among others, there were princely frogs, cats in boots, and mermaids in the sea, in rivers, in lakes. People were on an equal footing with other creatures—helping each other and sharing the land and waters and not eating each other.

My ancestors were “Transporters.” They used their noses to provide a sort of taxi service for imps, sprites, and other tiny creatures. My ancestors wore small saddles on their noses and provided tiny umbrellas when it rained.

Sadly, all this came to an end when the Huns murdered the remnant of magical creatures who survived the plague. It was a sad day for my family. They lost some of their best friends, and their taxi-noses were no longer needed. They discovered that their ample noses were good at picking up scents. Some joined packs of hounds chasing game (often fox hunting) and others went into law enforcement sniffing out fugitives. Still others went into the perfume business ensuring the consistency of the perfumes’ scents. My most famous ancestor was Gilbert Bear. He was a wine taster. His huge nose magnified his palette’s unerring discernment of excellence in every vintage imaginable. He had a special wine glass to accommodate his nose, custom made by Venetian glass lowers from glass so clear it is nearly invisible. Truly, a priceless work of art.

Tomorrow, I’m getting my nose shortened 5 inches, down to one inch. Its dowel-like shape is being sculpted into a normal-looking nose bridge.

I arrived at “Nu-Nose” at 8:00am. There was a woman sitting there with a nose exactly like mine! My heart skipped a beat. My God! She was beautiful. I asked if she was descended from the Gascoins, drivers of nose taxis. She said no, but her ancestors, the Crompers, were nose taxi drivers too. There was a warmth between us. It was like we were meant to meet at a nose-job clinic. We had our nose-jobs, dated and got married. We have just had a baby, Mildred. She has inherited her ancestors’ noses. Already at six months it’s 2 inches long. We can’t wait to get her a nose job.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Tagged definitions, elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Bdelygmia

Posted on October 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

Bdelygmia (del-ig’-mi-a): Expressing hatred and abhorrence of a person, word, or deed.

I hate Santa Claus. I hate the Easter Bunny. I hate Cupid. I hate the Tooth Fairy. I hate them all from the drunken “Ho, Ho, Ho!” to the tinkling bells and the hands rummaging around under my pillow—waking me up in the middle of the night to leave me a dime—a stinking dime after my father pulled out my tooth with a pair of pliers, because he got sick of waiting for it to fall out on its own. I bled all over my pillow and flushed my dime down the toilet.

Then there’s Santa in his big fake red suit, with a giant white beard made of acrylic. A complete hoax. I had to sit on his lap and tell him what I wanted for Christmas. I was so nervous I peed all over him. He yelled “Goddamn you, you little shit—what, do I look like a f***ing urinal?” Then he shoved me onto the floor and pushed me away with his foot. He threw a candy cane at me as I crawled toward the door and yelled “Get out of my house dickhead and never come back, or if you do, wear a diaper!”

Then there was the Easter Egg hunt. We held it in the back yard. I couldn’t wait to find a couple of eggs. I loved to peel them and sprinkle on a little salt. It was fun dying them too, but this year for some reason, my father took over the dying. I wasn’t even allowed to watch. I looked for eggs for two hours and couldn’t find any. Our yard was small, so basically, I covered every inch of it. I was confused.

My dad walked up to me with an egg and handed it to me: “Here. You’ve learned your lesson, Chip. I read an article in “Mental Illness” magazine about how dashing our children’s expectations prepares them for the rigors of life and the vale of disappointments it consists of—where happiness is fleeting and depression is the norm.” I was 6 years old and his “lesson” has scared me for life. I mistrust everybody and cry a lot.

Cupid! Spawn on the Devil, lording it over Valentine’s Day—with the wimpy heart candies inscribed with asinine sayings suited for saps and idiots—low-level puns and sappy cliches: “Way 2 Go” sounds like something somebody in a coma would say if they could speak. Then there were the cards—the goddamn cards. The only one I ever got was from my teacher, after I stayed up late making them for my classmates. My teacher took me aside and told me she liked me a lot, and maybe, when I turned 18 we could go to the movies together. That would be in 8 years. I thought she was making fun of me, so I demanded my card back. She picked up a pair of pointed scissors and lunged at me. I jumped out of the way and she stumbled over her wastepaper basket and fell on the scissors. She bled to death while the class watched.

The school psychologist found out what my teacher had said to me, and I was put into counselling. It was group counselling. It was one hour of nutsarama per week. I think the other three kids were psychotic and should’ve been taking medication. Elton thought he was a frog and would answer any question with “Ribit.” He had a piece of cardboard shaped like a lily pad that he sat on. Mary would answer “Who the hell do you think you are?” to anything anybody said. Carl would make a gun with his finger and go “Bang!” every five minutes. I had to spend one month meeting with these people because of goddamn Valentine’s Day and my idiot teacher’s accident. What was the result?

I have a name for my illness: Heortophobia (from the Greek heortḗ, “holiday”): fear of holidays. I’ve set up a blog where I pretend to be a psychologist specializing in heortophobia. I give advice like “Change your religion” or “Eat one rabbit every week” or “Take up archery.” The “Tooth Fairy” is a challenge. Technically, it is instrumental in celebrating tooth loss as a right of passage. but what’s a five- or six-year old kid going to do? Suck it up, but demand a higher per-tooth payout!

My greatest success in maneuvering through the hell of my malady is to celebrate holidays from other cultures. I am looking forward to traveling to Sweden in November to celebrate “Gullight Absukte” {Sweet Face) where everybody wears blond wigs and blue contact lenses, juggles little meatballs, and tells jokes about Danish people.

Last, I don’t why, but Thanksgiving doesn’t scare me. Maybe it’s the tryptophan.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Bomphiologia

Posted on October 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

Bomphiologia (bom-phi-o-lo’-gi-a): Exaggeration done in a self-aggrandizing manner, as a braggart.

I am the greatest—that’s what Muhhamid Ali said, and it was true. I guess it was bragging, but I loved it as a kid. I remember watching him box. His hands were so fast that he could knock out an opponent and you wouldn’t even see him throw the punch. It was like magic.—brutal magic. He inspired me to become a fighter—ultra pinfeather weight. I weighed 96.5 lbs. my punch was more like a pat. I stood 5’9” tall. Ultra pinfeather weight class was created for vegetarians, in the wake of the social reforms undertaken in the 1960s. Many of my fellow boxers were anorexic as well and felt they had found their niche in the boxing ring,

I was knocked out 11 times in my first 12 fights. The fight I won was against I guy with terminal lung cancer, he was close to the end. All I had to do was bump into him and he went down for the count and died in the hospital at 10.00pm that night. I felt bad, so I went to the hospital to see if any of his family was there so I could apologize for contributing to his death. There he was, laying in the hospital bed still wearing his boxing gloves. A fat woman came into the room and handed me her business card: “Stormy Weather, Gymnast, Ultimate Porka-Cise, Tenafly, NJ.” She said: “You killed my son Flip. You took him over the finish line. For that, I’m grateful. You saved me thousands of dollars in medical bills. Now, he’s swinging his mitts up there among the stars. I can see his special twinkle out there—whoops no, it’s a plane coming into Newark Airport.”

She was clearly crazy. I told her I was giving up boxing. She said, “Oh, why don’t you come to work for me? “Porka-Cise” is a growing vibrant business with a bright future.” I hesitated for a minute, but I took her up on her offer. You had to weigh a minimum of 300lbs to join Porka-Cise. I didn’t know why, but you also had to have documented heart and blood pressure problems.

The next day, I learned why. Stormy had a 400 pounder on the treadmill going as slowly as it could go. Suddenly it ramped up to 60 degrees and 40 MPH. The client, who could barely walk anyway, kept up for about 5 seconds, screamed, clutched her chest and flew into the wall, dead. The other clients mocked her—sarcastically calling her “Treadmill Terror” and “Loser.”

Two days later the dead client’s husband came by with a gym bag with $110,000 cash stuffed in it. He handed it over to Stormy and said, “Thanks for helping me get rid of her. Now I can have my ice cream again without it being gone ten minutes after I bring it home.”

I was reeling! I was ready to go to the police. Stormy held up the bag and said: “This is half of the life insurance payout on old fat-ass Nelly. Your share is half.” I rethought my moral indignation and saw how we are providing a service to people who are burdened by other people, who are weighing them down. Ha ha! “Weighing them down.” Ha-ha.

This was the best job I ever had, until I fell in love with Carol, a 320 pounder with black hair and green eyes. When it came time to crank her up. I couldn’t do it. Carol’s mother was getting restless, she needed the insurance money to get out of debt and start over. At that point I had killed 11 clients. I couldn’t understand what it was about Carol that made me want to let her live..

I couldn’t stand the pressure from Carol’s mother. So, I put Carol in the back of my pickup truck and we took off for Arizona, where she could blend in with the other fat wives of the retirees. I had saved a ton of money, so that wasn’t a problem. The problem was Carol. I couldn’t stand taking care of her. I told her if she didn’t lose 160lbs I would leave her out on the desert. She laughed at me, so I left her out on the desert with enough water to keep her alive. I went back one month later and she was still alive. She had lost a bunch of weight and looked great! She thanked me and we went back home.

That night, she cleaned out the refrigerator.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Brachylogia

Posted on October 22, 2023 | Leave a comment

Brachylogia (brach-y-lo’-gi-a): The absence of conjunctions between single words. Compare asyndeton. The effect of brachylogia is a broken, hurried delivery.

Big, huge, gigantic, humongous, gigundo, massive, gargantuan, enormous, immense, massive, mammoth. I wish I wasn’t talking about my credit card bill. I wish I was talking about my apartment or TV, but I’m not. I owe $123,000 dollars on my credit card with 19% interest. My friend Eddy told me about the card and talked me into applying for it. Eddy’s not my friend any more.

I should have known something was amiss when I filled out the application for my “Sheister Card.” You apply for a $150,000 line of credit with no background check. I was making $300.00 per week towel- drying cars at the car wash.

The card came two days after I mailed the application. I signed the back and went shopping. The mall was packed as usual, and as usual, people were “just looking” or hanging out. Since the Lucky Whip whipped cream factory had closed, nobody had any money and almost everybody was on welfare. I went into Dick’s—it was one of the giant Dick’s from the 1980s. A crowd of people followed me in, eager to see a purchase take place. They saw my card in my hand and smelled a “buy” coming on. They followed be around as I looked for something to buy. The crown chanted “Corn Hole, Corn Hole, Corn Hole.” I pulled a Corn Hole off the stack and hoisted it onto my cart. When I handed my credit card to the cashier, she held it up and looked at it and handed it back and told me just tap it on the credit card reader. The transaction went through.

When I got home, I set the corn hole up in my living room and called up some friends for a Corn Hole party. I bought 20 bottles of Don Perignon, five pounds of caviar, and a two-pound wheel of Winnimere cheese. Once I started buying crap, I couldn’t stop. I had a fan club at the mall who got a vicarious thrill watching me buy stuff. I kept going to Dick’s working my way through the aisles until I came to the firearms counter. I bought 3 assault rifles and, 20 magazines, and 500 rounds of ammo. My fans cheered—and that’s what I lived for!

When I reached 3 months behind on my credit card payments, there was a loud knock at my door. It was the salesgirl from Dick’s. She told me my credit card is a scam run by organized crime to draw me into debt and extort everything I own, and blackmail me into doing their bidding. She told me she took one look at me and knew I was a sucker and I would be burned. She told me her father ran the scam and she would get me off the hook. I was so shocked and grateful that I told her I loved her & we went into the next room, where we played a few rounds of Corn Hole.

POSTSCRIPT

She got him a job working for her father. She bought him a set of brass knuckles, and had them engraved: “My Midnight Rambler.” They teamed up, “retired” her father, and took over the business. They retired when they made their first billion. They moved to Las Vegas were, as a hobby, they took up managing the grandchildren of famous singers. Wayne Newton’s grandson, Duane, was their greatest success.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Cacozelia

Posted on October 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

Cacozelia (ka-ko-zeel’-i-a): 1. A stylistic affectation of diction, such as throwing in foreign words to appear learned. 2. Bad taste in words or selection of metaphor, either to make the facts appear worse or to disgust the auditors.

Novitiate: Your sobriquet manifests a quality of veritas-inducing pathos, bathos and credence in the sincerity of your verbalizations. You are known as Father Potato—your soul is wedded to the earth, with many eyes you survey your manse, and you would be ready to be whipped or mashed in service of the Lord. Not to mention, scalloped or fried in oil—to a crisp beige hue, and liberally salted, or soaked with ketchup, or even mayonnaise, if visiting Holland. We know these are all metaphors Father Potato, but they provide us with an orientation to what we can only trust as we wander this vale of tears, forgetful of where we come from. Am I right Father Potato?

Father Potato: No, you are completely wrong. Your musings about me and everything else, are like “a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan, a rider on the storm.” Thus spake Saint James of the leather pants, who died in Paris and ascended to Montmarte, to sit at the left hand of Baudelaire on Saturdays, and his right hand the rest of the week. Saint James can’t speak French, so he just nods his head when Baudelaire reads “Paris Spleen” out loud. “I woke up this morning and had myself a beer, the future’s uncertain and the end is always near.” Thus spake St. James. Accordingly, I have begun drinking beer and letting it roll all night long, as should you, my son. Instead of a beer, you should have a glass of orange juice when you wake up in the morning, before school. Now, please go away. I have to work on this Sunday’s sermon. It is about a man who becomes locked in a coal cellar and eats a piece of coal. The coal poisons him and he dies a slow agonizing death and goes to hell. It is an allegory.

Novitiate: Oh Father potato! I am up to my ankles in the wisdom overflowing from your words. I can’t think of enough cliches to encompass the truth you purvey—like a ladle filled with the broth of prayerful uplift on the wings of a great big white dove, soaring above the Sea of Galilee, crapping on sinners hauling their nets filled with great flopping lies, inducing vile uncharitable thoughts suited for cackling imps and howling demons. There is so much I have to learn—that I want to learn—“about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees, and a little thing called love.” Thus spoke Jewel Akens. I am overwhelmed. I am going to pass out!

POSTSCRIPT

The novitiate passed out, rolling down the stairs in an ecstatic revelry—including a vivid vision of his high school English teacher, Miss Carnaletti. When he awoke, Father Potato was dragging him under the altar. He left the boy there and went to Pop’s Bar and Grill to let it roll all night long, and to ride the coin-operated pony in the back room.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Catachresis

Posted on October 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Catachresis (kat-a-kree’-sis): The use of a word in a context that differs from its proper application. This figure is generally considered a vice; however, Quintilian defends its use as a way by which one adapts existing terms to applications where a proper term does not exist.

I was reticent to jump out the window. It was three feet to the ground where mother’s beloved flower bed was filled with color, the result of years of hard labor, and the consequence of an unhealthy rivalry with Mrs. Better across the street. But why the hell was I even hesitating? Grandpa was in flames in his living room chair and he was headed toward lighting the entire living room on fire. “Everclear” and a “Swisher Sweet” cigar were a bad combination. It was inevitable, but I didn’t think it would be today. I felt the heat of the flames, and I jumped, landing in the rich well-turned loam and crushing four different-colored tulips.

The fire department came and they quickly put the fire out—it didn’t spread much from Grandpa, scorching the carpet and chair and burning up the table by the chair with Grandpa’s medication and where his Rubic’s cube usually was. He loved that Rubic’s cube. He never solved it, but he said it kept his wrists limber. Where was it?

He was put in a black rubber bag and and zipped it up. I couldn’t watch him being bagged. Suddenly there was movement inside the bag. The EMT unzipped it and there was dead Grandpa holding his Rubic’s cube with his hand twitching in post-morten convulsions. In death, he had nearly solved the puzzle, but his convulsions stopped before he could finish. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. The EMTs zipped Grandpa’s bag back up and wheeled him out the door.

My mother came storming in holding the tulips I had crushed. “What were you thinking stupid boy? These tulips came straight from Amsterdam. A client gave them to me as a special bonus. You know that’s where I met your father when I put my butt up to the glass and he licked it, winning my heart and making me his wife. So, you should know how much pain you’ve caused by crushing them!” With that, she started slapping me across the face with them until they turned to juice. I reminded Mom that the tulip bulbs were unharmed and the tulips would come back next year. She didn’t care. She started throwing dirt balls at me. One hit me in the eye and enraged me. I wanted to kill her. I threw Grandpa’s “Everclear” bottle at her and hit het a glancing blow to the head. The rubber mask flew off. Holy shit! It was Grandpa. “Jesus Grandpa! Who was that in your chair?” Grandpa said, “My twin brother Florio. I didn’t know he existed. He showed up here 3 months ago and tied me up in the bomb shelter in the basement. He has been collecting my Social Security checks and stole your poor dead dad’s coin collection and guns and sold them for half of what they’re worth,”

I was shocked: “God Grandpa! Where the hell is Mom?” Where did you get the Mom mask? Grandpa said, “Mom lives next door and visits every day. Up until my twin brother showed up, everything worked fine. He is dangerous a kept one of your dad’s guns in the chair with him. I got loose from the bomb shelter, but was afraid to confront him or contact the police. I have 100s of parking tickets. So, I resurrected the Mom mask I had made so your mother could cheat on your father. I disguised myself as her and pretended to be her when she went next door for her trysts. There’s more to the story, but enough is enough.”

“Are you sure you’re my real grandpa?” I asked. “Grandpa” looked at me and headed for the door. He pulled the Mom mask back on and said he was going to buy a new Rubic’s cube at the toy store.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Catacosmesis

Posted on October 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

Catacosmesis (kat-a-kos-mees’-is): Ordering words from greatest to least in dignity, or in correct order of time.

Heaven and earth! Spirit and matter! We are born, we live, we die. Some people live their entire lives enamored with heaven, their spirt or soul, and their death, putting them out of the here and now. Sometimes I wish I could put the here and now out of play and focus my thoughts and feelings on the Great Beyond. Out of curiosity, I’ve tried, and I am trying, three time-tested methods.

Self-flagellation: Whacking your naked back with a leather metal-studded thong, has a sort of appeal, not unlike masturbation—it is self inflicted and it is supposed to result in some kind epiphany. But as much as I try when I beat my back, I can’t get there. I just yell “Ow!” and keep on slamming. Whoever invented flagellation as a spiritual exercise was a little creepy. There were people like St. Fleshrip, who had stand-ins to keep whipping him when his arm got tired. He died from an exposed backbone and ascended directly to Heaven, where he sits behind God, holding his scourge to hand off to God if he should need it. Martin Luther was also a notorious self-whacker, as was Sarah Osborn, who strangely enough, practiced self-flagellation to improve her tennis swing, while at the same time contemplating her sinfulness, a feat that won her a place in the “Guinness Book of World Records” under the category of “multitasking.”

Hair Shirt: When I was a little boy, my mother purchased me a pair of goat fur underpants from the St. Thomas More website. I was having trouble in school, and they were supposed to be a remedy for poor study habits. My mother made me wear them when I was doing my homework, but the itching was more of a hindrance than a help. I spent half my time scratching my crotch, like I had jock itch from poor hygiene. So, I kept a tube of Cortisone in my desk. When mother left the room to use the toilet or make a cup of tea, I jammed a glob of Cortisone down my goat hair underpants and found almost instant relief from the itching. I excused my behavior by claiming to myself that my itchy underpants had prompted me to be creative, and I would give thanks: “Thank-You God for the itch-relieving balm of Cortisone.”

Fasting: Another body-bending adventure in self-torture! It’s easy! You just stop eating, and go for non-chewable commestibles, which in this case, are liquids. No more cheeseburgers. No more jelly donuts. No more sushi. When I last fasted, I drank strawberry Kool-Aid. My teeth became stained red from the Kool-Aid. I looked like I had a fatal case of gingivitis, The major benefit of fasting is getting out of cooking. If you’re smart, you’ll choose water as your fasting liquid of choice. All you have to do is turn on a faucet and fill up a glass! Convenient! Quick! No mixing! Totally liquid!

I’m fasting right now. I stopped pooping a week ago and my urethra is burning from the nearly endless stream of pee. Writing all this has been extremely difficult. I am dizzy and have had several visions. The best vision so far has been the red Cadillac in my driveway. I think the Lord has traded out my Subaru. Although I loved my Subaru, I am grateful for the Cadillac. Praise the Lord.

I’m thinking of dragging myself to the refrigerator in the kitchen and grabbing a tub of cheese dip and eating it with my finger. I hope I can reach the refrigerator handle. I hope I can reach the cheese dip. I hope I can reach the kitchen.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Cataphasis

Posted on October 18, 2023 | Leave a comment

Cataphasis (kat-af’-a-sis): A kind of paralipsis in which one explicitly affirms the negative qualities that one then passes over.

You are a selfish, close-minded, prejudiced ass. But, I’m not going to waste your time telling you what you already know, instead, I want to talk about the asinine bullshit you fill my children’s heads with when they come over to play with Dick and Jane. I’m on the verge of not letting them over to your house any more. You’re an adult, Jim, so they believe you.

First: Betty and I are not space aliens and we did not steal them and our twins from a family in England and transport them here by matter exchange, a common means of travel, you allege, on our plant. Sure, the kids have a slight British accent, but that’s from watching Masterpiece Mysteries on PBS.

Our cat-like eyes are the result of drinking too much catnip tea. It is quite normal and has been documented in “Scientific Italian Magazine,” The condition has become permanent, but we don’t care because we love our catnip tea!

Second: you told my kids I don’t have a job because I don’t leave the house every morning clutching a briefcase like all the other Bozos on the block. Well, I’ll tell you! I work at night in the surrounding towns collecting donations door to door—mostly jewelry,, cash, and small appliances. People leave their doors open as a signal to me, and I quietly bag what they’ve left sitting out. Believe it or not, I have my own charity, “Golden Nest.” Most of what I collect goes to a family right here on our street, and the rest goes to the Police Vice Fund (PVF). PVF studies vice in the field, risking seduction and corruption, and getting caught with pants down or a slot machine handle in their hand. You poor deluded creep! Stop filling my kids’ heads with total nonsense!

Third: you told our kids we used to have four children and two of them (the twins) are dead: murdered. God, what a terrible thing to tell our kids! You made them fearful of us. They lock their bedroom doors at night and test their food for poison on Arfo, the family dog. If we wanted to kill them, we certainly wouldn’t poison them. We would probably drown them in the bathtub, hang them, or push them out an upstairs window. But we didn’t, Damn you!

We sent the twins, Kiki and Karl, to Ukraine, where they are listed as missing! Missing! Not dead! Their surrogate grandparents were taking care of them, but they’ve disappeared too, along with the kids’ passports and any signs that they were ever there. There’s no record of their plane tickets, which we bought online from Orbitz. We think maybe they cashed in their tickets and went to Disneyland. We’re checking on this theory. In the meantime we do not consider them dead because we have solid theories. So, shut up about “dead children.” They’re missing!

So, that’s it for now. Let’s try to be friends. After all, we’re neighbors.

Let’s get together on Friday. Bring your little wife Honey. Tonight, I have to work on the big silver thing in my garage. One of its parts has become defective, but I can replace it with any small appliance Tonight, I’ll be trying out a toaster.

Now, Carl, I’m going to make you forget this conversation and all suspicions about our family, my job, and where we come from. When I clap my hands, all that you will remember is our Friday dinner date. Clap!

POSTSCRIPT

Carl had his own secrets to keep and pretended to be affected by the spell. Carl was a Space Ranger and had had his eye on his neighbors, from the planet Tylenoll, where Carl came from too. He’d been surveilling them for nearly a year. He was getting ready to bring them in. He hoped he could unload the two brats when they stopped at Uturn. They didn’t deserve the same fate as their depraved parents, as required by Tylenollian law.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Cataplexis

Posted on October 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

Cataplexis (kat-a-pleex’-is): Threatening or prophesying payback for ill doing.

May your nose fall off and land on the floor. You, Carl Peek, have wronged me, Ned Aiken, super-beloved middle school teacher.

You have slighted me. You have dragged me through the mud, by the feet, on a freezing day. You scoundrel! You skunk! You rotten banana! You unlaundered garments! You basket of moldy bread! You dead battery in a power outage! Your guts stink. Your soul is ashen. I will redeem myself, inflicting you with horrendous painful, torturous, retribution!

I will tie you to an uncomfortable wooden chair. I will fill your mouth with ping-pong balls and force you to watch pre-recorded episodes of “The View” until you recant every evil thing you ever said or wrote about me.

I wouldn’t be so mad if nobody had believed your slanders. I have never, never, never read “Grapes of Wrath.” In an act on consummate cruelty and deception you stuffed a copy in my book bag when I was distracted, looking at Ms. Carver’s rear side in the lunch line, which in itself is harmless, and permitted if not accompanied by catcalls. I did not utter a single catcall, at least, so nobody could hear me.

Then, you told the whole school I said “woke” contrary to the recently imposed censored speech regulations. I really don’t care about the First Amendment and its so-called “freedom of speech.” I don’t mind having a dictator for governor, what I do mind is getting me in trouble with his henchmen. See my nose? Does it look happy to you? All I did was say, “I woke up a little late this morning.” You recorded me, cut the “woke” and pasted it in sound clip where it played over and over and sounded like a chant. You Rat! I got my ass kicked on my way home from Plantation Way Middle School by a gang of sweaty beer-drinking old men.

Well guess what, Mr. Horseshit? I got your sister pregnant. She doesn’t want the baby. Given your finances, she’s gonna’ have to walk a thousand miles to NY to terminate her pregnancy. Ha ha!

POSTSCRIPT

This story is filled with idiots, letting their freedom slip away disguised as educational reform and trampling on women’s reproductive rights. After the blood test, it was determined that Ned was the baby’s father and he is responsible for providing child support. He asked Carl’s sister, Nareen, to marry him and she hit him in the face with a hardcover edition of “Grapes of Wrath.” Noreen held a fundraiser in the Barn Door Mall parking lot and raised enough to fly to New York. She had to lie about why she was going to New York.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Charientismus

Posted on October 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

Charientismus (kar-i-en-tia’-mus): Mollifying harsh words by answering them with a smooth and appeasing mock.

Joe: You’re the laziest person in the universe.

Nick: I’m resting. I don’t need a wake-up call from you Mr. 6:00 am.

These two guys didn’t get along with each other. Their conversations consisted mainly of insults and almost every week they’d end up fighting—wrestling on the kitchen floor. But times were tough and they needed each other to cover the rent. Then, they decided to sublet the hallway closet—it was big enough for a single bed and it had shelves and plenty of room to hang things. All it needed was an extension cord and it was good to go, New York style.

They put an ad on sublet.com. They were renting the closet for $500 per month. Joe and Nick hoped the extra money would get them off the edge, and give them a modicum of financial stability. They got over 200 responses to their ad. They were overwhelmed. They decided to close their eyes and randomly point to an application from the ones scattered on the kitchen island, and see what they got.

They hit the application on the top of the pile: a veterinarian. They thought they couldn’t go wrong subletting to an animal doctor—he probably made good money and wouldn’t stiff them on the rent. So, he moved in. His name was Dr. Doolittle. One night Joe heard rustling around in the kitchen. Dr. Doolittle was drinking a martini a with a large chimpanzee in pajamas.

Dr. Doolittle introduced the chimp—its name was Cheetah III and his great-grandfather had appeared in numerous Tarzan films. Dr. Doolittle had rescued Cheetah from a factory in Thailand where he worked assembling iPhones, seven days a week, with no vacation.

Joe called Nick into the kitchen and they told Dr. Doolittle to get rid of the chimp or move out. Dr. Doolittle finished his martini, put down the glass and said “No.” Cheetah stood in front of the doctor with his fists raised. Dr. Doolittle said, “You know, Cheetah cooks, does laundry and dishes, cleans bathrooms, and vacuums.” Joe and Nick looked at each other and nodded their heads.

Dr. Doolittle taught Joe and Nick how to speak Chimpanese, and Cheetah would tell them chimpanzee folktales while he washed the dinner dishes. Their favorite tale was “Charlie the Hairless Chimp.” It was about a bald chimp that was relentlessly teased by his peers. A female chimp named Rosie took pity on him. Although they had poor hygiene, the local sloths shed a lot of fur in the spring. Rosie made Charlie a sloth fur sweater. It covered most of his nakedness and the teasing stopped. Charlie founded a foundation for bald chimps, collecting sloth fur and knitting sloth fur sweaters for needy chimps. Charlie and Rosie got married and lived happily ever after. Charlie invented a sloth fur sweater shampoo called “Bubble Slow” and made one-million banana bucks, most of which he donated to his foundation.

Joe and Nick were inspired by Cheetah’s stories and stopped wrestling with each other on the kitchen floor. For some reason now, Nick would say “Me Tarzan, who you?” when he was trying meet a woman in a bar. One night he struck gold when a woman replied “I Jane.” They’ve been dating for a month.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Chiasmus

Posted on October 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

Chiasmus (ki-az’-mus): 1. Repetition of ideas in inverted order. 2. Repetition of grammatical structures in inverted order (not to be mistaken with antimetabole, in which identical words are repeated and inverted).

Hi! My name’s Bill! “I’d rather die eating meat than live as a vegetarian.” My father worked at a meat packing plant. He made up the saying. Sometimes he would stand at the dinner table and hold up a piece of bacon or a pork chop when he said it. He saw more blood in a day than a hospital emergency room in a month. As foreman, each year he was given a dead cow as a gift. He’d borrow our neighbor’s pickup truck and we’d drive to the slaughterhouse to pick up the cow. It was hell loading the cow. We would pour Mazola Oil in the truck bed, rest the cow’s head on the tailgate, jack up the cow’s hindquarters with the truck’s jack, and slide the cow forward on the oily truck bed. When we got home, we’d tie a rope around the cow’s neck and drive the truck under a tree limb and hang it up in the front yard. People would drive by and take pictures. Sometimes me and Dad would pose for pictures, standing in front of the cow shaking hands. One year PETA tried to “rescue” the dead cow. We fought them off with a garden hose and cubes of raw liver.

We let the cow hang in the front yard for about a week. Then, we’d yank off the skin and put on green surgical gowns to butcher the cow. We wear mirror gizmos on our foreheads with little holes in them like real doctors. We thought it was funny. My little sister would play nurse, wiping our brows and handing us stuff. We used a battery-powered hedge trimmer and a chainsaw to dismember the cow, then hacksaws, meat cleavers and knives to produce the cuts of meat. My favorite was the loins or “blackstraps” running along either side of the cow’s backbone. There were no bones, just solid meat! I used my “Bovine Butcher Blade” to cut out the loins—moving through the raw meat like it’s melted butter. I love making a meat turban out of one the loins, putting it on my head, and crossing my arms like a wise man, and saying: “I am the Meatman, ooo-kooka-too.” The cow’s tongue is fun to retrieve too. It’s slippery, but if you wear gloves you can get a good grip, pull, and slice. Once it’s tongue helped the cow to “moo,” now it’s headed for the pickle jar. Sliced thin, it makes a great sandwich—sprinkled with A-1 steak sauce, topped with two pieces of American cheese on white bread and, fried in butter, cut in half and served with potato chips and a glass of milk. Mooove over and give me a bite of that!

We have two freezers in the basement where we keep the meat. That’s where we keep the meat grinder too—in the basement—we grind up scraps and cuts of meat that are best for meatballs, etc. Mostly, it is meat off the cow’s neck. But that’s not all. We make flower pots out of hollowed out cow’s hooves and give them as Christmas gifts with dwarf poinsettias planted in them, with tiny little ornaments decorating them. Very festive!

“From cow to now” is what I think when I bite into a slice of steak and the juice runs down my chin, and I wipe it off with a paper towel, and quietly. burp, and sometimes go “bow, wow, wow” like my uncle Dave used to do. This year I made my little brother Dexter a cow suit for Halloween. It’s genuine cowhide skinned off this year’s cow, and I must say, it looks real good—it even has horns and a tail. It moos too from a recording I made on Dexter’s phone. He’s going to wear it today in the annual school Halloween parade. Maybe he’ll win the best costume prize. He’s such a good boy.

So, if you’re not doing anything tonight, “meat” me at the “Blue Coyote” and we can have a couple a beers and some all-beef Slim Jims. I ‘m buyin.’

POSTSCRIPT

While taking the shortcut to school through the woods in his cow suit, little Dexter was shot by a deer hunter, who had left his glasses in his truck and thought Dexter was a deer. Luckily, little Dexter was only nicked the ear. He was able to beat the crap out of his assailant with a tree branch, kick him a few times in the stomach, and then, continue on to school. He won the Halloween costume prize and then went home for a hamburger, medium rare.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Chronographia

Posted on October 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

Chronographia (chro-no-graph’-i-a): Vivid representation of a certain historical or recurring time (such as a season) to create an illusion of reality. A kind of enargia: [the] generic name for a group of figures aiming at vivid, lively description.

I have had numerous conversations with people regarding my favorite time of the year. I see fall and summer as one season—summerfall. That complicates things, but I don’t care—that’s how I see it. Summerfall goes from May until the first frost. That’s when I call it quits and close my swimming pool after a summerfall of splashing around and basking in the sun smeared with cream that smells like coconuts. After pool closing, it’s all downhill. Everything freezes. It snows, and the world is a mess. I can hear the snowplow at six a.m. as it wrenches its way down my driveway, wreaking havoc on my driveway’s gravel surface. Then there’s the pain in the ass of Christmas—driving through a blizzard to eat Aunt Ida’s cardboard turkey with dressing stuffed in its butt that smells like a dirty dock, uncle Dave’s “special” marshmallow sweet potato glop, my sister Pat’s turnip paste, Aunt Jillian’s raw potato cubes marinated in soy sauce and Nana’s Pelican Pie topped with pimento-stuffed olives.

Nana grew up in Florida, near Miami, in the late 30s when there was a lot of poverty. Her family lived in a lean-to close to a marina where rich people kept their yachts. Her father, my great grandfather, taught her how to sneak up behind a pelican perched on a dock’s piling, grab it by the throat, and strangle it to death.

The “swells” sitting in their yachts were always entertained by Nana’s pelican murder and would sometimes throw M&Ms at her to show their approval. She would pick up the M&Ms and go back to the lean-to where her mother (my great grandmother) would make the pelican into pie. One time when they were pulling out a pelican’s guts and entrails, a gold bar fell out on the floor. Somehow, the pelican had swallowed it. Pelicans were notorious for eating just about anything. But a gold bar? Weird.

They took the gold bar to the bank and had it weighed and valued. Now, they were loaded! They set their lean-to on fire and struck out on foot for Miami. They bought a brand new one-room shack. Great-grandfather invested in an orange grove and became rich. Every year at the Christmas party, I ask Nana where she got the pelican for her pie. She won’t tell me. She just throws a handful of cardboard turkey at me and the annual family food fight begins.

Covered in food fragments, stuffed with Christmas dinner, driving 5 mph toward home in the blizzard though two feet of show, with the wipers and defroster going full blast, skidding sideways toward a stop sign and bouncing off the curb, I think to myself that I don’t have much to be thankful for, but then again, maybe I do. I look at the gift Nana gave me. Since I’m stopped anyway, I pick it up off the seat and tear off the wrapping. It’s a picture of her standing alongside Earnest Hemingway, holding a dead pelican over their heads and laughing. It was signed: “To my soul’s inspiration, Ernie H.”

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99

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Climax

Posted on October 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Climax (cli’-max): Generally, the arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of increasing importance, often in parallel structure.

Bottom, middle, top. Where do we draw the line? How do we draw the line? What does the line consist of? But, most important, why do we cross the line?

I was brainstorming topics for my PhD dissertation in geometry. I had had a vision when I was visiting Egypt. Standing in the shadow of Cheops in the late afternoon, I was chatting up a fellow tourist, to get her to go to dinner and to bed with me. I told her she was fascinating and beautiful. She said, “I’ve heard that line before.” Suddenly, the world started spinning around and when it stopped abruptly, our guide had turned into Moses and she had turned into a golden calf. Moses looked like he always does: white hair, white beard, wild eyes. The golden calf fellow tourist looked even better made out of gold. I made a fist and knocked on her and she made a beautiful thudding sound. “24kt” I thought. I decided to call Moses “Moe” to test his take on hierarchies and formailities. Did he see himself as a Big Shot because of all the favors God had done him, not to mention making the Red Sea into a freeway and giving him ten short, easy to remember commandments to keep him and the rest of world on track toward salvation.

Me: Moe, do you have any idea why my fellow tourist got turned into a golden calf?

Moses: I would appreciate it if you called me Moses. The golden calf thing crops up as a symbol of misdirected affection—either putting God in second place (Commandment 1 violated), or caring only for the way people look and not how they act. In your case, it has to do with your desire for the flesh and not the person—you cared only about getting laid in your cheap hotel room, by plying your fellow tourist with a meal and drinks. For shame!

Me: But Moses, that’s life. It’s how the world turns. it is called “courtship.”

Moses: idiot! It’s courtshit, not courtship. It’s like the diabolical game show “Dating For Satan” that’s on Channel 666 all day Saturday and Sunday, drawing people away from worship to watch displays of wantonness, lust, and debauchery that Satan slips past the FCC in the United States and other regulatory bodies around the world. Wake up! Your penis does not communicate with your soul. It is an unreliable source of motivation for nothing but urination and procreation. Men who call their penis their “tool” are living by the right metaphor.

Me: You turn my hierarchy of the good upside down. I will think about calling my penis my tool. I have in mind a “screw-driver.” Ha ha! Pretty funny, huh?

Aside: With that, his penis caught on fire—just his penis, not his garments. It turned into a smoking screwdriver. Moses held out a handful of screws and said, “here. Have fun.”

Me: Yeeeow! I get it. I get it. It’s a metaphor. It’s a tool—peeing and procreating tool, not a toy, not for fun. A tool. (Moses snapped his fingers). Ahhhh. It’s back, unscathed. That was hell! So Moses, why are you here?

Moses: To show you where to draw the line. First, you should always carry a marking device: a chisel, a hoe, a marker pen, a ballpoint pen, a pencil and even a stick—especially good for drawing a line in the sand. Now, when deciding where to draw the line your first consideration should be what’s going to be contained on the line’s other side. Then, you must consider whether your line crosses somebody else’s line. Finally, you put up “No Trespassing” signs and punish anybody who crosses your line. Follow these simple steps and everything will line up.

Me: At that point I passed out and woke up in my sleazy hotel room. There was my fellow tourist, naked and snoring loudly, shaking the drapes. I came to the sudden realization that I had crossed the line. But, recalling my vision, Moses made it seem literally a bad thing to cross the line. Then, things started to click. I knew I had crossed the line, but whose line was it? My line? Society’s line? Then I remembered a TV show I loved to watch as a kid: “What’s My Line?” There would be three panelists. Two would lie about what they did for a living, with the remaining panelist actually telling the truth. Flash: Now that my penis was a metaphoric tool, I could see that “line” was a metaphor too!

TWO MONTHS LATER

I finished my dissertation and submitted it, against the advice of the committee Chair. The title is “My Tool is a Line.” In it, I transgress the deeply cultured lines that meanings draw, taking a Mosaic turn toward the utilization of recursiveness in surveying my “tool” and the syncretic obviation of its functional flexibility obscured by its metonymic iteration as a tool, and the line it draws, masking its recreational function and the threat it poses as “other” to the dominant trope of monogamy.

I am currently writing a new dissertation.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Coenotes

Posted on October 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Coenotes (cee’-no-tees): Repetition of two different phrases: one at the beginning and the other at the end of successive paragraphs. Note: Composed of anaphora and epistrophe, coenotes is simply a more specific kind of symploce (the repetition of phrases, not merely words).

When I was younger, I more less knew what was going on. I could see clearly and I could hear what people were saying, and understand them. I could actually run a few hundred feet, especially if I was being chased by a bully or a cop. I could balance my checkbook and do the boogie-woogie all night long. I would go to bars solely to meet women, talk to them for 10 or 15 minutes and then head to my place with them to boogie-woogie all night long, and then, after a boogie-woogie night, go to I-HOP for breakfast: a medley of grease, bacon, eggs, syrup-soaked pancakes, and cups and cups of hot black coffee, followed by a couple of Newports and a candy mint. After breakfast, I’d wait outside the liquor store, licking my lips, thinking about a couple shots of “Dancing Bolshevik” vodka chased with the tomato juice I kept in a cooler in my trunk. After a couple of 100 proof liquid cuties, I headed off to work, half drunk, and ready for another day of pretending to work and complaining. I worked folding pizza boxes at “John Smith Pizza.” It’s “gimmick” was its non-Italian pizza, like peanut butter and jelly, or American cheese topped with pork and beans. They called their pizzas “Flat-Circle Open Face Sandwiches.” Quite a mouthful, ha -ha. Business was terrible, but they had “backers.” Big Joe would show up once a month with a bag of “laundry” to run through the cash register. Memories never get old!

When I was younger, I more or less knew what was going on. Now that I’m an old man, it is the other way around. I take a small handful of Adderall everyday to “keep me in the conversation.” I wake up 4 or 5 times during the night to pee. I sleep with a headlamp strapped on my head because I can’t find the light switch in the dark. I inevitably accidentally turn on the ceiling fan by mistake and blow crap all over my room, tripping over socks and slipping on unpaid bills, sometimes wetting my pajamas. Without my glasses, the world looks like an oil slick. I don’t get Social Security payments because I never reported any wages. Instead, I am on the dole—I get a block of cheese, 2lbs of lard, powdered milk, and a pack of chewing gum each month from the state, $100 per month from “Stayin’ Alive,” a charity founded by a very successful Bee Gees cover band, and $200 per month for posing as an advocate for the abolishment of Medicare. Most of the time I sit in my apartment (paid for by the state) waiting to poop and watching TV. My favorite shows have all gone the way of the DoDo bird. TV stinks, but I watch it to stay in touch with reality. If it wasn’t for FOX News I would be clueless. I wish they’d bring back Ed Sullivan, but he’s dead. The Ed Sullivan Show was the shiniest gem in the crown of my youth. Memories never get old!

I get meals on wheels every night for dinner. Clay, the guy who delivers my food, acts like he’s casing my apartment to rob it when he comes to deliver the food and finds me dead. He can have it! Probably my heated toilet seat is the most valuable thing I own, and it doesn’t work right anyway. Two weeks ago I burned my ass on it. I had to go to the hospital. They gave me some ointment and a kid’s inflatable pool toy to sit on—it was a “My Little Pony” floatie—pink and baby blue.

My walker is second-hand and is missing a wheel. So, I replaced the missing wheel with a slit tennis ball. As long as the fuzz holds out on the ball, I can shuffle along almost fast enough so people don’t push me out of the way. But, I’ve learned how to raise my walker and threaten people with it. I knocked a teen punk down a couple of days ago and his head made a hollow-melon sound when it hit the pavement. Sometimes the tennis ball gets stuck in a crack in the pavement and I go around in circles until a passerby gives it a kick.

Now, aside from all my old man maladies, all I have are memories—memories that I mostly can’t remember, but that’s better than nothing! My most vivid memory is being bitten by a squirrel when I was around 16. I sneaked up behind it and grabbed it by the tail. It bit me on the thumb.

Just because I’m alone, it doesn’t mean I’m lonely! It means I am desperate for somebody in addition to Clay, the predatory Meals on Wheels Guy, to pay me a visit. I was thinking of throwing my TV out of my window, or lighting myself on fire and standing in the widow as ploys for getting people to come up to my apartment and visit me. I decided the window gambits were crazy. Instead, I bought a stolen laptop from Clay for next to nothing. I have joined a couple of online senior-citizen dating sites. There’s one that is especially good. It’s called “Hot Bags” and features “over-70 female hotties who will help you rise up and be merry.” It has a live feed from a nursing home “somewhere in California” that is themed after Hugh Hefner’s “Playboy Bunny Hutch.” Need I say more? I am making new memories for $12.00 per month.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Colon

Posted on October 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

Colon (ko’-lon): Roughly equivalent to “clause” in English, except that the emphasis is on seeing this part of a sentence as needing completion, either with a second colon (or membrum) or with two others (forming a tricolon). When cola (or membra) are of equal length, they form isocolon.

“I came, I saw, I farted.” I thought that was so funny the first time I thought of it, substituting “farted” for “conquered” in Caesar’s famous tricolon. I even had a T-shirt made that said “I came, I saw, I farted” in Latin with a picture of Caesar bent over, obviously blowing wind. People would ask me what it meant. When I told them, they would look at me with an “I pity you” look on their face. But that didn’t deter me. If anything, it motivated me to produce more witty t-shirts and make a lot of money, and to ensure that I would, I would only use English—no more Latin or anything else.

My first creation was Biblical, in a way: “The meek shall inherit the Porta-Potties.” It had a picture of a meek-looking person in sandals and a robe hugging a Porta-Pottie, smiling with joy, realizing he got what he deserved at the end of time. I thought the irony would strike people as exceedingly funny, but it didn’t. The name of my business was “Mr. T’s.” People started calling it “Mr. Traducer’s” and held a vigil in the street in front of my store. They chanted “Leave the meek alone” and “1, 2, 3, 4 we won’t shop at Satan’s store.” When I went outside to apologize, they threw kitty litter at me, followed by water balloons. They yelled “Traducer! Traducer! Caffeinated beverage user!” This chant I didn’t understand, so I yelled back “What do you mean?” Their leader yelled back, “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.” Then, they dispersed after setting fire to the Porta-Pottie they had carried to the protest. It smelled terrible and it took three days to clean up the mess.

I wasn’t to be thwarted. My sacred First Amendment rights were being violated. I felt oppressed. I felt angry. Mother’s Day was just around the corner. We needed to make a Mother’s Day T-shirt with a message from the hearts of sons and daughters throughout the land. I asked my workers for suggestions. I got things like a giant heart with “MOM” written across it, “A mother is like glue, holding the family together,” “My mother is a walking miracle”—two-bit cliches with no discernible oomph. I couldn’t depend on my idiot employees to come up with anything worthy of the company’s name.

I went out to my car, taking my sketch pad. I sketched a voluptuous woman stretched out in a bathing suit in a 1950’s pin-up style. After smoking a couple of unfiltered Lucky Strikes, I came up with a saying expressing and summing up men’s and women’s heartfelt honest feelings for their mothers: “Mom, I love you more than Dad.” We marketed the t-shirt for sale as a special Mother’s Day gift cutting through the usual drivel, and striking at the heart of the special day. We were confident of blockbuster sales. We sold 2 t-shirts which were burned live on the nightly news.

Undaunted, I forged ahead. I hired somebody else to design our t-shirts. My new employee had a perfectly round head. It was very cool. His first design, aside from the color, looked like a self portrait. It was a big smiling yellow head with eyes. I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever seen. But, after my string of fiascos, I had started mistrusting my judgment, so I had my employees decide whether they wanted to produce “Smiling Face” t-shirts. I was the only dissenting vote, so we put “Smiling Face” up on the web and waited for orders. In the first 2 hours, we had over 10,000 orders. We changed the name to “Smiley Face” and put them on everything we could think of—from cigarette lighters to underpants.

The basic lesson here is hard the fathom. I failed miserably, but I tried again and failed again. I never really succeeded. The guy I hired succeeded though, which sort of made me succeed, even though I voted against printing his design. So, what is the lesson? I don’t know, but I’ve become convinced that my designer is a “one horse Harry.” Since the “Smiley Face,” all of his designs have gone straight to the trash bin. For example, who would want a t-shirt with a thing that looks like a chicken’s footprint with a circle around it, or a hand making a WWII victory sign?

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Commoratio

Posted on October 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Commoratio (kom-mor-a’-ti-o): Dwelling on or returning to one’s strongest argument. Latin equivalent for epimone.

This is it—all that we have been waiting for since we turned vegetarian, rebuffing family and friends and living on whole grains, green leaves and supplements. Although our book “Meat Me in Hell” was a total failure, it got us a lot of attention. Soon, we’re going to give our cookbook a shot—“Leaf Me”—it has ten good recipes for ten good dishes. Spaghetti with applesauce sauce is a favorite in our home, as is grapefruit and eggplant wedges on tofu, with a ramekin of pearl onions blended with lotus seeds and sprinkled with crushed peppercorns on the side.

We’ve been vegetarians since we were in high school, where we were shunned and subjected to harsh ridicule— like “Moo Moo“ and “Have you found your roots yet?” That was fifty years ago—and it bears witness to longevity as the key benefit of being a vegetarian—that, and not committing murder for a meal. Our consciences and our colons are clear.

What about our classmates from high school who didn’t hoe same the row that we did? Class reunion was bleak. They’re nearly all dead or in nursing homes, while we continue to plow into the future with our rutabegas held high, while the non-vegheads limp, push walkers and roll in electric wheelchairs with bleary eyes and gravy stains on their clothing.

Somehow, animal organ eating, pot-smoking, acid dropping, beer guzzling Billy Gote went all these years unscathed. Go figure! By all rights he should be dead or bedridden. But, he had his fifth set of triplets with his new wife Velda just last week. So what! Who cares! Look at us! We can still stand! We can still feed ourselves! We can use a remote control. And best of all, we still drive, albeit 10 miles per hour under the speed limit— to the great chagrin of the young hooligans who try to run us off the road, or blow their horns and give us the finger.

Longevity is the aim and a meatless menu will get you there. The five of us haven’t sucked blood from char-broiled cows, boiled chickens in oil, or had ground-up pig leg on a bun for so long I can’t remember, and we look and we feel great. In fact, Raymond has started growing roots from the soles of his feet. They look somewhat like carrots without the orange glow. Raymond will be checking into the “Center for Mutant Studies” on Monday where he will become a subject in a scientific study.

So Raymond, this one’s for you, “May your roots take hold in the soil of life, and keep you steady in the years to come.”

I have prepared a celebratory lunch for us according to a recipe from our (hopefully) forthcoming cookbook. it’s called “Ants and Uncles.” It consists of batter-dipped ants, lightly seasoned with sea salt and garnished with chopped clover. The batter-dipped ants are “sequestered” on a “hill” of stir-fried brown rice “punctuated” with diced durian.

The next time you see one of our former classmates wobbling along behind their walker, give them a shove to help move them along their way. If you see Billy Gote, ask him what he’s doing Friday night.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Comparatio

Posted on October 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

Comparatio (com-pa-ra’-ti-o): A general term for a comparison, either as a figure of speech or as an argument. More specific terms are generally employed, such as metaphor, simile, allegory, etc.

Mom: You are like a cracked egg rolling toward the edge of a 200-foot high cliff somewhere in New Mexico. Our certitude of your forthcoming demise robs your rolling trajectory of all suspense, leaving room only for bets on how soon you will shatter on the canyon floor and splash your yolk and egg white all over the jagged rocks, leaving only your shell to bear witness to your fleeting infertile existence, the “offspring” of a captive hen, grunting her life away in the in the confines of a commercial nesting box, only to become after her death, a plastic-wrapped headless roasting chicken on display at Hannaford’s, like an explorer’s boat afloat on a sea of crushed ice looking for the fabled Northwest Passage, the Promised Land, or Atlantic City.

Now, I want you to take what I’ve told you and go out into the world and make something of yourself out of shame and embarrassment. Be like a loaf of bread, tightly sealed, resisting mold. Be yeasty and light to the touch, crumb free and thinly crusted. If you are toasted, go with the flow—the flow of soft butter smeared across your face, or jam, or thick dripping ultra sweet honey. Or be all the sandwich you can be, bearing cold cuts, lettuce, mustard, mayonnaise, cheese, or peanut butter and jelly toward wide-open prospects, eager to have diners gobble up your irresistible sandwiches of comfort and joy. So, take that twisty off your plastic bag and get out there and be a triple decker! Or be a bagel if you want to be!

Daughter: I’m so glad I came to visit. The orderlies are really nice and they escorted me from the front desk. Whenever I visit I see how far into cloud cuckoo land you’ve drifted. I have never been able to follow your advice. It’s like trying use a riddle for a roadmap, or like hooking up with a band of lost lemmings endlessly searching for a cliff, or like a salesperson who has nothing to sell and charges twice what it’s worth.

The closest I have come to following your advice is to be a rag wringer at the laundromat. I have my own corner in the back of the laundromat where I ring out rags, getting them ready to wipe down the washers and driers—keeping them spotless and shiny, like showcases in a jewelry store, countertops at MacDonalds, or toilet seats in rest stops along the NYS Thruway. If anybody should lick a washer or drier, they should have no fear of contracting any orally transmitted diseases. Our machines are as sanitary as Dixie Cups or factory-wrapped toothbrushes.

You’re crazy, so you probably don’t understand a thing I’m saying. It’s ok, We can just sit here and stare at each other for 5-10 minutes. Or maybe, play pattycakes.

Mom: No, no. That’s like asking a bumble bee to give up it’s stripes, or a plumber to pull up his pants, or a trellis to turn away roses, making them crawl along the ground like colorful nicely scented serpents slithering after spiders cowering in the grass, regretting everything they failed to do, as they focused their interest and affection on spinning elaborate webs, flimsy extensions of their self-absorbed egos providing no shelter from the shadow of death lengthening across their pitiful lairs, like a holed-up cowboy preparing to eat lead, or a professional baseball player who knows his team will lose, or a stockbroker riding the DOW into oblivion.

I’m so proud of you. I feel like a million dollars, like I won the LOTTO, or the Indy 500, or I found a wallet on the sidewalk loaded with cash, or I got a hole in one, or I got a ringer in horse shoes, or I shot you in the head with this pistol.

Mom brandished a handgun. It was fake, and she handed it to the orderly. She had made it in her “Life Skills” class out of balsa wood she was permitted to carve, as long as it was assured she had taken her medication. Allowing patients to use cutting implements was ruled “totally incompetent” by a tribunal and Dr. Iddy was put on one week’s probation.

Daughter: Mom. You scared to crap out of me. It was like I had stumbled at the edge of a cliff, or Dad had come home, or a rat chased me into the bathroom and I couldn’t get the door unlocked, and it was gnawing at my heel, like I got it stuck in a blender, or I was in an earthquake in some country that didn’t have clean water, or toilet paper, or frisky little squirrels.

Mom: Someday it will all sort itself out, like the keys on a piano, or a blank cartoon sound bubble. Please go home now. I need to cool off so I can make hay while the sun shines, and be a chooser not a looser.

Daughter: Ok Mom. I’ll head home now—it’s where the heart is, like my rib cage, or San Fransisco.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Comprobatio

Posted on October 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

Comprobatio (com-pro-ba’-ti-o): Approving and commending a virtue, especially in the hearers.

You are all too good to be true. Aunt Sally, your work with delinquents is commendable. Ed, your skill as a surgeon has saved hundreds of lives. And Aunt Edna, what can I say? Your Pulitzer Prize winning book “Shake, Rattle, Roll” has given us insight into the origins, history and social significance of Craps. The chapter “Whose bones do we roll?” could stand alone as a masterpiece in its own right, deserving of widespread recognition.

Today is Thanksgiving and we should give thanks for all the wonderful, accomplished, talented and compassionate people here at the table. That is, all the people except for my brother Edsel.

Named for a car that was mocked the moment it came off the assembly line, Edsel has been a loser and a burden on our family ever since he was born. My mother, God rest her soul, wouldn’t admit it, but we always thought that Edsel’s father was the guy who picked his nose in church and farted: Herbert “Hungman” Bush. Whenever we mentioned Herbert, mother would blush and drive away in the car, burning rubber, which was uncharacteristic of her. Dad would just tamp down his pipe and light it again for the tenth time, shake his head, clench his fist, and go back to reading “Outdoor Life” magazine.

And here you are, sitting at the table, Edsel. We had to put the house up as collateral for your weekend furlough from Beauregard Culver State Prison, named after the Confederate sharpshooter who served as Booth’s backup at Ford’s Theatre. Your crime spree across Florida earned you a lot of attention, plus 8 to 10 years behind bars for robbery. No one ever thought that stealing bicycles was worth it. You didn’t even have a pickup truck! Stuffing them one at a time into the back seat of your Ford Taurus must’ve slowed you down. You got caught when you donated one of your stolen bikes to the PBA Charity Bike Drive, an annual event where people donate their used bikes to charity. You gave away a $1,000 bike in nearly new condition. It took the cops five minutes to track it down, and they nabbed you right on the spot.

Edsel was a loser right from the start. He stayed back twice in the second grade and swore at his teachers. Nobody could ever figure out where he learned the swear words. Personally, I thought it was Herbert, but there was no way I could prove it. Dad, I remember when you nicknamed Edsel “Bastard Freak,” but most of the time you just called him “Freak” or “Bastard.”

Anyway Edsel (aka Bastard Freak), even though you’re a total loser and a disgrace to the family, here you are sharing a Thanksgiving meal with your family, who has considered disowning you countless times.

I’m holding a box of rat poison here, and would really appreciate it if you would let me sprinkle two heaping spoonfuls on your cranberry sauce while I say grace: “Dear Lord I beseech thee to motivate Edsel to eat the rat poison and come home to your loving arms. Amen.” Edsel tentatively took a little taste.

Everybody laughed as Edsel spit out the rat poison and ran to the kitchen to rinse out his mouth. When the water shut off we heard him stomp down the hall and out the front door. Everybody cheered and started eating. I ran after Edsel. I didn’t want to risk losing our house by losing him. I found Edsel sitting on the front porch smoking a cigarette. He asked me if it was really rat poison that I had put on his cranberry sauce. I said “No.” I lied.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Conduplicatio

Posted on October 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

Conduplicatio (con-du-pli-ca’-ti-o): The repetition of a word or words. A general term for repetition sometimes carrying the more specific meaning of repetition of words in adjacent phrases or clauses. Sometimes used to name either ploce or epizeuxis.

“My little runaway, run, run, run, run, runaway.“ I feel like Del Shannon’s son—Son of Del, looking for my own little runaway. Unlike Del, I know what went wrong with our love, “a love that was so strong.”

I commented on your chronic body odor and how you make my eyes water when I hold you tight. All I asked is that you take a shower—I don’t even care if you wore the same crusty clothes—just take a friggin’ shower. But you couldn’t or wouldn’t do that for me. Instead, you ran away.

Since you’ve run away, I’ve stopped eating, trolling Instagram, and going to church. I am a broken man—I walk bent over and limp badly. I thought I could follow your smell and find you, but your trail petered out when a hurricane almost blew our town away.

I have searched and searched for a solution to “our” problem. Then, I remembered the time when I was at my friend Bill’s and he showed me his kid’s hamster. “Hammy” had a plastic spherical bubble. Bill put Hammy in the bubble and Hammy walked it around the living room. He seemed to be having a really good time rolling around. Suddenly, I thought: I can build a bubble for you! It would contain your unpleasant smell, and at the same time allow you to leave your home without making people run away, pass out, or get sick.

I searched and searched and found a place that will build the bubble for $5,000. It’s called “Plastic Treasures” and they custom-build all kinds of things out of plastic. Their most recent project was a plastic staircase on wheels—the client called it “my staircase to heaven.” She loves ice cream and has her freezer mounted 3 feet off the floor. She climbs her staircase to heaven every night for a carton “Chocolate Melody” which she eats in bed and shares with her Poodle Richter. Pretty creative! So far, Mr. Loucite’s masterpiece is a plastic lawn sprinkler that flashes red, white, and blue. It is designed for night sprinkling displays of patriotism. It is shaped like an AR-15, with water coming out of the barrel. He has received an award from the NRA for “integrating iconic combat weaponry into lawn maintenance implements.”

If we pool our resources, we can build the bubble, get married, and refit my house’s doors so you can roll your smelly self in and out as you please. We can have the bubble fitted with a charcoal exhaust filter to manage your smell, and you’ll never have to take another shower! I can wear SCUBA gear for our intimate moments and we’ll be able to have children too. Just think! Oh, as far as eating and going to the bathroom are concerned we can work that out in consultation with Mr. Loucite at “Plastic Treasures.” He’s anxious to work on our project. He’s even thought of a clever name for the sphere, but he won’t tell me what it is because he doesn’t want any “leaks” to occur before the bubble is finished and he is nominated for the Plastic Fabricators’ annual “Ono Award”

I can’t wait to get things “rolling.” Ha ha! So, my little runaway, where the hell are you? I know you must be at least a mile away because I can’t smell you. I know you like to hang out at the sewage treatment plant when things get bad, or on a rock at the clam flats at low tide, where you almost blend in.

I hope you have your phone turned on and you get this message. It would really stink if you’re not coming back. Hmm. Well it wouldn’t actually stink, but I hope you know what I mean my little Corpse Flower.

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

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Posted in conduplicatio

Tagged elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

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