Monthly Archives: May 2024

Asyndeton

Posted on May 31, 2024 | 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.]

I got an unbelievable deal on a new car. Well, it wasn’t actually new, it was one year old, but it was new to me! It only had 9,000 miles on it. It was a black Escalade CSV. It cost around $65,000 new. I paid $3500 for mine. I had gotten it from a newspaper ad. The tag line was “No bullet holes!” The guy I bought it from was named John Smith. It was on the title, so I figured it was legitimate. He said to me: “I hate to get rid of it, but I need to get rid of it fast. There could be consequences I don’t want to deal with.

This was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I was overjoyed, totally stoked,ecstatic. Ever since I was a little boy, I wanted a black Cadillac. All the mafia guys drove them. They were like four-wheeled merit badges, expressive of a major accomplishment. Now I had one! The leather seats were enough to make me cry with joy. I bought a handgun and stashed it under the seat. I didn’t know how to shoot it, but it made me feel cool. My girlfriend, Rosy, wanted to move into my Cadillac and live together. She said, riding in the car she felt like a goddess—like Venus. I felt like a mobster: Bosch suit, stingy brim hat, Gucci shoes, black cashmere overcoat, Di Nobili cigars, dark glasses.

I was waiting in the cue for a burger at McDonald’s when a guy who looked like a mobster, knocked on my window and asked “Where’d you get that car?” I didn’t answer. I pulled out of line and sped away. I swear, the guy pulled out a gun. I never saw him again. Then something started to smell. I tried to cover it with air fresheners, but it didn’t work. The smell got really really bad. I couldn’t ignore it any more. I drove out to an isolated place in the woods. I opened the back of the Escalade and the smell got worse. I opened the hatch where the spare tire was stored. Just as I suspected there was a dead body stuffed in the space. He was wearing a black suit and all the other things mobsters wear. There was a note pinned to his suit jacket: “When you find me, throw me on the ground somewhere isolated. You will be rewarded. Keep car.” So, I was somewhere isolated—the woods. I hauled out and let him flop to the ground. Underneath him was a shopping bag filled with $100 bills.

I’ve been scrubbing my car and have made some headway getting rid of the smell.

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

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Auxesis

Posted on May 30, 2024 | 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.

The wind was quiet, then blowing, then like a jet engine sweeping across the land. Trees shot through the air like giant leafyl spears, impaling people on their branches. Whole towns disappeared into the sky. Livestock flew. The only safe place was Cliff’s, a convenience store catering to beer drinking, smoking, scratch-off lotto players. People packed in to save themselves as dogs and sheep and cows flew by.

Nobody knew exactly why Cliff’s survived the annual wind storm. The most credible rumor was that Cliff was descended from Viking stock—after all, his last name was Fiord. It was rumored he had a shrine to Njord, the Viking god of the wind. To appease the god he ran an electric fan that blew on the shrine 24-7. It even had a back-up battery for when Njord made the power go out. The constant wind appeased Njord and kept hm from blowing Cliff’s away.

I wanted to believe the rumor. If it was true, I would build a Njord shrine in what remained of my basement. Cliff denied he had a shrine, so I had to do some sneaking around. Cliff’s house was always unscathed by the wind, and his basement windows were painted over. I had to go inside. I had worked briefly for CIA and learned how to pick locks. I knew Cliff was at the store, so I wouldn’t be worried about meeting up with him. I picked the lock and went straight down the basement stairs. There it was!

There was a 70” plasma screen Tv with a box fan blowing on it. I turned on the TV and it was tuned to an episode of “Vikings”—where they were a sacking Paris. Suddenly, I heard a voice with a Danish accent ask “I am Njord. Who in the name of Odin are you?!” I told him I was Cliff’s neighbor and friend and I wanted to build a shrine to Njord. He told me I was looking at one—he told me to just keep the fan blowing and “Vikings” tuned to the TV. Njord swore me to secrecy. If I revealed the secret of the shire, he told me he would “blow me to pieces with one gust of northern wind.” I believed him, so I kept my mouth shut.

Everybody attributed our recurring wind storms to climate change. I knew better. With my shrine running in my basement, my house has remained unscathed for the past 9 years—Cliff has the same kind of “luck.” Every couple of months Njord stops by disguised as an EMT. He brings a bag of Kringle. I make strong coffee and we play Hnefatafl, a board game with a military objective. We talk too. He misses the old days, when the wind was the primary ”fuel” for moving trade and war ships.

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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Bdelygmia

Posted on May 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

I hate myself and everybody like me. I can’t help myself. I can’t resist. No matter how many times I risk bent caught, I go back. If am a certified nutcase. I beg my brain to stop me, but it won’t. It has a mind of its own.

What’s my problem? I like to squeeze women’s butt cheeks in public places—malls, nightclubs, places of worship, schools, etc.

My Uncle Ernie got me started grabbing. One day we were walking through the mall. He went up close behind a woman and grabbed her but with two hands. He had this wild look on his face—his eyes were bulging and he had a smile on his face like he was intoxicated. As soon as he made his grab, he stopped and turned around and pretended he was checking his cellphone. The woman would look around and sometimes ask him if he saw anybody come up behind her. Uncle Ernie would answer “No” and ask if he could be of assistance.

I thought grabbing was so cool that I took it up—I became addicted. I grabbed hundreds of butts and never got caught. Then, everything changed.

I came up behind an elderly woman one day and grabbed her butt. Before I could make my getaway, she looked over her shoulder and said “That was nice.” Here face turned from that of a 60-year old woman to that of a 25-26-year old woman. Then, it immediately turned back to a 60-year old face. She invited me to come to her home once a week and give her grab. All I had to do in return was mow her lawn and water her garden. I agreed with her proposal. We built a “mall walk” in her basement. She would walk past me and I would follow, squeeze her butt and then do my turn-around evasion routine. I spent some of the best days of my life in that basement making grabs.

Then one day she invited me over midweek for a special grab. The basement was lit by candles and the air was perfumed by jasmine incense. She came walking by and her pants were pulled down, exposing her naked butt. This was the holy grail—she put on her young face and said “Grab it hard.” I did. But my hands sank into her butt as if it was peanut butter. I could feel something chewing lightly on my fingertips. No matter what I did, I couldn’t pull out my hands. She was eating me with her butt. It wouldn’t be long and I’d be dead. Just then, the basement door crashed open. It was Bill Whilk, my dad’s Vietnam War buddy.

He said, “Mary Lee, stop right now. You’re about to eat Willis Yodel’s son Wendell!” I felt the grip loosen. Mary Lee kept on her young face. Even though she had tried to eat me, I was smitten.

I learned she was one of very few mutants who had grown up in close proximity to the oil refineries in Linden, NJ. It had never been documented so nobody knows how many hand-eating grabbers exist. None have ever been captured and most people think they are fictional.

So, that does not keep me from hating myself. I would much prefer living a normal life. I hate the fact that I married Mary Lee. I’ve become her grabber pimp. I can’t rat her out. I’d be ratting myself out. End of story.

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 May 28, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

I’m a man. I can eat more Big Macs than anybody can. I can make a hound dog shut up. I have so many girlfriends I can’t remember who they are. I can drink a bottle of scotch and do my taxes. I gave myself a tattoo with a chainsaw. I drowned and came back to life.

These are just a few of the things I list on my resume. Strangely enough, there was a ad in the local muckraker for a man. It was next to the story about the duck who saved a whole town from drowning, lead the townspeople down a derelict canal that was last used in the 18th century to smuggle beaver pelts into the US from Canada. Unfortunately, it was called “Beaver Canal” and it inadvertently opened the door to the construction numerous brothel along it bank, serving the deviant smugglers and the not too intelligent dupes who worked for them. Beaver Canal also attracted saloons and gambling houses run by immoral greedy Canadians.

The man description in the ad fit me to a “T.” They wanted somebody physically strong but morally weak. I worked out four times per day and I did a lot of things that skate on the edge of legal, but don’t cross the line. Lying is my favorite—but not to break the law. Like, I told my mother that I’m married and my wife is in the Air Force stationed in Iraq. That got her off my back.

I was hired to be a man on Beaver Canal! It has fallen into total disrepair. Most of the buildings have fallen down, but the towpath is still in good shape. There is no passport control where the canal crosses the border. My job is to put Canadians into large canvas bags and drag them across the border one at a time. For this service my employers’ clients pay 1,000USD. The Canadians I drag are really desperate. Many of them are fans of rap music which is outlawed in Canada along with black lipstick and Sushi.

The company I work for is called “Freedom Drag.” It is owned by a Mexican drug cartel “Corriendo Muerta” (Running Dead). I’m starting to think that the canvas bags I drag are filled with drugs, not people. So, I flicked open my switchblade and jammed it into the bag I was pulling, which I hadn’t filled with a Canadian and which I was instructed to pull across the border. I was right! It was full of cocaine! I snorted some off the slit I’d made, and then some more, and some more, until fireworks were going off in my head. Now, I had a drug induced plan. I would drag the bag to Buffalo, Nw York and sell its illicit contents in little plastic bags. I fail to see that cocaine was leaking out the slit in the bag and leaving a white powdery trail. DEA had picked up my trail somewhere around Niagara Falls, and, wearing rubber knee pads, had been following on their hands and knees for hundreds of miles.

I was in my hotel bagging what was left of the cocaine, when the two Agents burst in guns drawn. I threw the bag at them and ran out the door. But, as I ran between them, they shot at me and missed and shot each other. They lay on the floor cursing at each other. I dumped what was left of the cocaine into a trash can liner. I tied a knot in it and stuck it under my hoodie and walked out of the hotel. I went back to Beaver Canal, but it had been abandoned.

I got a grant from the Canadian and US governments to “restore” Beaver Canal as a heritage site complete with gambling casinos, saloons, and pseudo brothels.

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 May 26, 2024 | 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.

I make lists and use them to give my life an orderly appearance. Bell, butter, cow, jeans, gas, war, car ]ack. This is a typical list. It has content that is incoherent. What is it a list of? I take these items and lay them out on my garage floor in the order they appear on the list. Starting with “bell” I go down the line. But first we’ve got to check contextualize the bell—it is the little thumb ringer bell from my tricycle. When I was 3 I had a callous on my thumb from ringing that bell. I would ride up behind my neighbor 70-year-old Mrs. Pinko and ring my bike bell and startle her. She would say “Oh my” and pull her grocery cart up close to her and rummage for protection, usually a loaf of Italian bread, which she wielded as a club. Once she actually hit me with it. It broke in half and dented my NY Yankees hat. The den topped right out. No harm done, but I didn’t care.

I rode him as fast as I could and told my parents that Mrs. Pinko had hit me “really had” and it had hurt.my parents were law and order paranoids. They called the police two or three times per week. Most recently, somebody had “planted” a toad on the front lawn. The toad “sent a message” to everybody who walked past. Whoever put it there should be tracked down, arrested, and jailed. The police concluded that the toad found its way to the lawn on its own. My mother called the mayor and complained. A hazmat detail was subsequently sent to our yard to remove the toad.

Now, Mrs. Pinko was in mom’s sight. She was arrested for “clubbing a child.” She was convicted of attempted murder. She died in prison at the hands of her fellow inmates for “what she had done to the kid.”

Maybe I could make a list of all the things I could’ve said to save Mrs. Pinko. But that would be too tedious and would thwart my current list: things that clog or can clog toilets. This is a really challenging list. From apples to zebras—the arc of possibilities is huge. For example, a boa-constrictor. Can you image? A boa- -constrictor head gaping from your toilet, tongue flicking, maybe hissing. If you had it on your list, you would be less startled and better able to deal with it. Or what about a wet beaver? Hugging a small log, smiling, showing his orange beaver teeth’s? Think about it. Without the list, you’re shocked, and lost and frightened. Save yourself from this kind formidable peril, and possible PTSD for the rest of your life, medications and expensive therapy. Make lists and spare yourself the trauma and its aftereffects. But god forbid, there’s a Ninja Warrior clogging your toilet, holding a sword and glaring at you. You can’t speak Japanese so you can’t reason with him and you can’t risk the consequences of peeing in his face. If you had a list, you could’ve anticipated this a prepared yourself by learning how to say “Get out of my toiletries!” in Japanese. Problem solved.

I could go on forever. Remember, before Santa comes to town, he makes a list and checks it twice. Follow the wisdom of Santa—make a list and check it twice.

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 May 25, 2024 | 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.

He is a pickled booger —relish for his secretion sandwich. Look at the mucus dripping from his lips. Of course, this isn’t literally true, it is the beginning of an allegory of the person he really is. Dog vomit. Cow flops. Puss. Blood. Gangrene. Amputated fingers. Ingrown toenail. Gout. Sweat. Rainbows.

Yes, rainbows. The light of hope beaming down on Noah’s yacht, ready to capsize with the weight of his living cargo—endangered species destined laboratories and museums up and down the east coast of North America. This is why I call him a pickled booger, and all the other disparagful cognomens. I don’t how or why he merits he rainbow. Perhaps God has made a mistake. Can it be? Who am I to say—a Papa John’s Pizza franchise owner. I must confess, the idea of pickled boogers intrigues. As a garnish, they would bring my franchise to the top of the mark. Pickled boogers are not produced everywhere. There is only one place in the world. I won’t reveal it. They are worth their weight in gold among aficionados. For example, Steve Banon consumes $1,000,000 worth per year. He has tiny toothpicks to spear them for “Boogartinis.” He sits by his pool sipping Boogartins and making up lies for his boss.

It just goes to show you that one person’s Boogatini is another person’s vile concoction. Which is it? Both. That’s how taste operates through our feeble understanding of its origin, say, in the tongue, with some tastes being excellent and others being vomit inducing. But one person can love what another person hates—we’ve already established that. So, it’s the person not the taste. Jello can tastes good and it can taste like crap (to somebody). Sweetness is the equivalent of truth to the tongue. it is certainly used as a metaphor for goodness—not quite truth—but sweet enough.

But, getting back to Captain Noah. His yacht “Bedlam” is looking for a place to dock. Given his cargo, his quest for a North American dock is doomed. We hear he is disguising the animal cargo to evade detection. They are being disguised as so many Rin-Tin-Tins. Rin-Tin-Tin was a German Shepard mercenary working for the US Army in the far western US. His major role was to bark vigorously in support of Army maneuvers. So, the animals on Noah’s yacht are being taught to bark—even the only existing Samoan Weasel Constrictor. That, I’d love to see. By the way, Noah is disguising his cargo of pickled boogers as peppercorns.

We live in strange times. “The lie, the disgusting, the ugly” have replaced “The true, the good, and the beautiful” as aspirational horizons of the human adventure. We are nearing the end. Don’t despair. Have a handful of pickled booger and make up some lies.

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 May 24, 2024 | 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 parking my thoughts under the overpass. Then, I would abandon them—leaving them behind like a salad with no croutons—just romaine lettuce, cheddar chew, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, with oil and vinegar dressing. The more words I use, the more likely it is that ai’ll say what I mean to say. I am reticent to speak my mind because the world waits to respond and I have to pretend I care. I am not good at that as my wife will tell you. She’s filing for divorce because I didn’t on’t “listen.”

So what if she was yelling for help when she got stuck in the dishwasher. She got out on her own, Anyway, you’d think she was helpless the way she talks. I believe that “No island is a man.” Anybody can see that. So why do we keep trying to make islands into men? Think about it. I think it might make sense to a poet or a king, or a geographer.

Anyway, I’m going to take a walk down by he river. I like to look at the garbage washed up on the bank. I especiallynnnnnń like shopping carts. They are like woven metal sculptures with wheels. How do they end up there? I think it’s my wife. She’s Trang to please me to make up for the divorce.

This how I wrestle with my thoughts. It is as if they don’t exist. I don’t wonder any more. I drink and do unsafe things—like going home.

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 May 23, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

A gourmet meal. A pile of garbage. The peak. The trough. The spectrum makes life meaningful. The stretch from here to there is somewhere —the contrast makes meaning, and meaning is what we need more than anything, more than sunrise, more than a good sandwhich—good because of its difference, perhaps, from party dip—which can drip on the floor and make a mess. The intricacies of these discernments can actually lead to the composition of tunes like “Elevator Man” or “Tomatoes in the Rain.” “Elevator Man” tracks a manic depressive middle-aged man as he travels to the world’s capitals, riding the elevators in their tallest buildings. He discovers he has an ear infection in Taipei and has to stay in Taipei and take drops to heal them. After two weeks his ears begin to smell and his ear drums blow out the sides of his head. They look like veils hanging out of his ears. He lost his hearing, but he can feel his eardrums tickling his jaws when a breeze blows.

“Tomatoes in the Rain” focuses on a small urban garden planted solely in tomatoes. The song focuses on the different qualities of rain and their interaction with the tomatoes’ skin. The song is very sensual and it is banned in 38 countries. There are wanted posters of the singer Mick Bagger in airports throughout the world. Personally, I hope he never gets arrested and that “Tomatoes in the Rain” becomes free to play. It’s line “My tomato is wet” should become a catchphrase for the redeeming qualities of moisture—whether drizzle or downpour.

I am selling t-shirts with dangling eardrums pictured on them. They say “One Man’s Symbol is Another Man’s Drum.” It bears witness to Elevator Man’s persistence riding elevators and abusing his ears. He had acdream, and it came true for him. Bless him,

Well, I’m going to take an elevator ride and eat this wet tomato. I will slice it and salt it. I have a slight ringing in my ears that I’m hoping will fester and become a serous infection. Wish me luck!

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 May 22, 2024 | 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.

Joey: Your interior decorating skills have made your home look like a nouveaux rest stop. The only thing missing are the urinals and the antiseptic smell. But I don’t have the time to rant and rave about your decor. Let’s take a swim in your pool.

What the hell is that in your pool? What? A friggin’ manatee!

Barbara: I got it at the pool supply store Swim! for $600. I licks the algae off the side of the pool and make chirping sound when intruders enter the yard. Last week we caught a feral poodle that had to be put down by animal control. He was wearing a collar that said Pierre on it.

Joey: But the manatee takes up half the pool! And the manatee poop sort of disgusting. It looks like floating potatoes.

Barbara: That’s true. I hired Wes from Swim! To keep things clean and keep me focused with poolside exercises. He’s a genius. My favorite is “put the ice cream in the cone.” I sit on a traffic cone while he spins me around.

Joey: That’s disgusting. I think Wes has made you into some kind of pervert.

Barbara: That may be true but his “Perversion” has made me into a more relaxed, open and fearless person. I can handle just about anything. With Wes behind me I don’t feel pushed or shoved. Rather, I feel like a pony delivering mail on the the Pony Express. I surprise my neighbors plucking their mail from their mailboxes and delivering it to their doors in my mouth with a celebratory whinny. Wes comes along to explain. I don’t know what he says because he goes in my neighbors’ houses and spends about an hour with women, and five minutes if it is only a men are home. Anyway, as you can see it’s all above board.

Joey: I don’t know what hoard you’re talking about. Pallet board? I thought your home decor was a horror. But it is eclipsed by your Wes escapades. I’m guessing he was recently released from someplace— like maybe a mental facility.

Barbara: Yes! He recently got out of “Left-Handed Studies Institute—about five years ago. They study left-handed people for criminal tendencies. Wes was left-handed and took pleasure in choking chickens with it when he was a boy. After choking 226 chickens his mother sent him to the Left-Handed Studies Institute, where he lived for thirty-two years being presented with a chicken every day until he lost interest in them and took up an interest in marine biology and obtained a degree from UC Santa Cruz. Hence, his interest in pool maintenance. Alice (my manatee) was his senior project at Santa Cruz.

So, don’t worry about Wes. He’s on the up and up.

Joey: Up what? It is clear to me that he’s a nutcase. Some day he’s going to confuse you with a giant leghorn and send you to the big nesting box in the sky. I say, tell him to take a hike. Buy him a plane ticket if you have to.

Barbara: Don’t be silly Joey. We’re getting married and he’s moving in with me. The only difficulty is that he insists that my manatee come to the wedding as a bridesmaid. We’re working it out.

Joey: You better work it out or things might get dicey.

POSTSCRIPT

The first responders found Alice dressed as a bridesmaid, lying on top of Barbara, suffocating her. Wes was nowhere to be found, but he left a note that was gibberish: “wa ooh, wa ohh gropple we Ho.” It was determined that it was written in porpoise, but in a dialect nobody understood.

Joey sent flowers.

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 May 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

Husband: You have done me wrong. I am on fire with anger. You ignited my matchbook collection. They traced my travels through the 70s. The 100s of bars I hit, slowly building my collection of East Coast matchbooks, sometimes going to a bar just to get a matchbook.

My collection won first prize in ‘78 in the National Assemblers Sweepstakes. All you cared about was the giant wine glass I kept them in and how “ugly” it looked as a centerpiece on the dining room table. It was an icon—a token of excellence from a time gone by, along with my disco suit folded in the chest up in the attic waiting to be resurrected as time reaches back to the past and time returns us to the good times when bell bottoms flapped and the top three buttons of our shirts were unbuttoned revealing our manly chests. It is people like you who want to obliterate my past, to make me a living anomaly—a doorway to nowhere, a highway to hell. A living landfill.

Well baby, we know we all collect something. We gather together objects that are the same in some way—like matchbook! My beloved matchbooks! Damn you! Well, have you seen your thimble collection lately? I know, your answer is “No.” That’s because I have—that damn tray with your carefully arranged thimbles—metal, wood, ceramic, rubber, plastic—antique to contemporary. I’m especially going to enjoy crushing the Mary Todd Lincoln thimble she used to repair the seat of Abraham’s pants because he insisted on wearing cheap suits for at least four-score and seven years. Then I’m going to grind up the Winston Churchill thimble—made of rubber and used by his doctor to examine Churchill’s prostate. It saved Churchill’s life when it was discovered he had an enlarged prostate and stopped eating fish and chips. Then, there’s the John Glenn thimble he carried to moon in case his spacesuit got a leak, he could sew it shut. Part of his training involved sewing classes. He was supposed to embroider a lunar landscape, but was unable to do so because of “issues” with the lunar lander. I can’t wait to turn the John Glenn thimble into dust, along with commie dictator Kennedy’s portrait on the tip.

Wife: Where are my thimbles you loon?

Husband: At the divorce lawyer’s. I’m holding them hostage until you beg for my forgiveness for destroying the greatest matchbook cover collection ever.

Wife: If you must know, I staged their demise—I burned random matchbooks to account for the collection’s absence from the dining room table, I had a crystal chalice made for it for your birthday. It was a bad decision, but all’s well that ends well. Right?

Husband: Well umm . . .

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 May 20, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

Bill: You’re the world’s biggest schmuck.

Me: That’s totally wrong! You’re talking about my brother! He’s the king of the schmuck-a-lucks. He makes me look smart and likeable like Santa’s Claus or the Cat in the Hat.

Shh. Here he comes. What’s that you’ve got there?

Brother: A magnifying glass. I thought we could fry some ants. Sizzling ants makes me happy.

Me: You’re 26 years old and I’m 30. My time for frying ants has passed.

Brother: Then what about this? Ha ha!

Me: That’s a baby bird! You are truly twisted. They never should’ve let you out of Gurney Hill. I told Mom and Dad they were making a mistake. When you head-butted the orderly who was escorting you to the exit, they should’ve known. You’re psycho. These things escalate—first it’s baby birds and eventually it babies.

Brother: Bullshit. I am very normal. That’s what my therapist Dr. Bugles tells me. We build little matchstick dungeons and pretend we’re inside torturing each other. I paddle him and he whips me. Sometimes he makes me sit on nails.

Me: Give me the baby bird. It is an innocent little creature that should live!

Brother: Over my dead body. See this? It’s a .22 auto. I got it at the flea market with no background check. You told me all my life I have a hole in my head. Now, I really will.

Me: My brother shot himself in the head. The .22 didn’t make much of a hole, but it was big enough to kill him. As he lay there bleeding the baby bird got loose and ran down the driveway where it was run over by a FedEx truck delivering my “Candles in the Rain” mantle decoration. When you turned it on the “candles” flashed red, yellow, blue and green. And, it played the song “Candles in the Rain” by Melanie. I thought I had heard it at Woodstock, but I wasn’t sure.

At that point I called 911. My brother had started twitching around on the ground.

Somehow, he had survived a self-inflicted wound to the head. As he convalesced we discover he could speak six languages, knew the entire contents of the dictionary, wrote beautiful poetry and gave excellent advice based on his encyclopedic knowledge. It was a miracle! He became an actuary, got married and had two daughters. People ask him how he got so far in life. He says “I took a shot.”

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

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Chiasmus

Posted on May 19, 2024 | 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).

In morning the sea retreats. In evening it attacks the shore. It destroys sandcastles, washes away the seashells, and winds around the pier’s pilings making them sway, showing their age and need of repair.

When I was a kid I watched a show called Diver Dan. He wore a diving suit and had fish friends and enemies who talked to Dan. But most important, there was a mermaid queen named Laura who he had a passionate love affair with until he decided to move to the Galápagos Islands. How sad.

The show taught me that I could like somebody who acted like an absolute A-1 bastard. Dan had to do what he had to do. I don’t remember why he moved, but I know it tore Laura the Mermaid to pieces. She almost climbed into a lobster trap to die. But she didn’t because her anger outweighed her grief. She conspired with Baron Barracuda to cut Dan’s air hose and murder him. Baron demanded that Laura “be his girl” if he was going to help her cut Dan’s hose. She said she would think it over, but by the time she made up her mind, Dan was gone to the Galapagos Islands where he planned to build an army of Blue-footed Boobies and invade the small fishing village of Salango and become its Mayor for Life. There was an archaeological dig there that gave him further motivation to invade. He would open a stand on the beach selling artifacts, including fake native bracelets made in Taiwan, and t-shirts saying “Kiss an Archeologist.” Dan was ambitious. Meanwhile, Laura was wasting away from a broken heart. She stopped eating and just sat on a rock looking sickly with scales coming off her tail. Yet, Dan was not taken in. He persisted in his plan and never came back.

Dan’s plan failed. His flotilla of Boobies was intercepted by the Ecuadoran navy and flew off to better places. They left Dan by himself about a half-mile off the coast bobbing on his Ski Doo, with the Boobie flag mounted on the stern. Dan revved up the Ski-Doo and headed for Costa Rica, but he was too late. The naval vessel fired its deck-mounted fifty caliber machine gun at Dan and his Ski-Doo. Dan was hit in the head by a round and his decapitated body slipped into the sea in a circle of blood. The sharks soon arrived and ate the hapless Dan. Hundreds of the cowardly Blue-Boobies circled the carnage silently out of respect for their leader Dan. They were hypocrites.

Laura recovered her health. She met another diver—Diver Dave—and fell in love. Still, though, she would cry in her Boobie flag at night and pine for Dan who she hated and loved at the same time. When the Blue-footed Boobies recounted to their children what happened that day, they lied.

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

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Chronographia

Posted on May 18, 2024 | 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.

All night long! It’s the right time for everything on the edge, like romance, armed robbery or hit and run. I can’t tell you how many times I fell in love in the back seat of my parent’s Subaru on a Saturday night. Maybe three times—ha, ha! My first liquor store I robbed was on a Wednesday night. I swooped in, cleared the cash register, and faded back into the night. It sounds pretty good, but I got caught and spent the next six months in county jail, where I met the worst people I ever met in my life. One guy had spray painted his landlord’s face. Another guy had stolen his mother’s washer and dryer and sold them to a family up the street. There’s more, but let’s get back to night time.

When we were kids we would play flashlight tag at night. If you got shined on you were out. It was usually over pretty quickly. If you got somebody in the back, they would call you a liar and stay in the game. Then, we’d go to the park and watch for shooting stars. They were beautiful. We would smoke and argue over whether they were shooting stars or falling stars. Then one night, we heard a woman yelling “No, no. Stop it!” It was coming from the woods ar the edge of the park. We decided to sneak across the park and check out the yelling.

It was Mr. and Mrs. Torbow. Mr. Torbow was wearing black underpants, black shoes and black socks. He was holding a fly swatter. Mrs. Torbow was wearing a wedding dress and was tied to tree. We watched them for about 15 minutes and went back to star gazing. We didn’t talk about it except to ask why they used the park for whatever the hell they were doing.

Then one night my father took us night crawler hunting behind our house. He had gotten plans for a worm shocker from “Popular Science” magazine. He stuck it in the ground—it was a metal rod with an electric extension chord hooked to it. we stood around it in anticipation of worms flying out of the ground. He plugged it in and electric current pulsed through our legs—started dancing and he pulled on the chord and unplugged it. Everybody went home without a word.

There’s a lot more I could say about nighttime as the best time: shooting out streetlights, stealing lawnmowers, hanging out.

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

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Climax

Posted on May 17, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

I was angry. I was outraged. I was ready to go ballistic, somebody had stolen my pin cushion. It looked like a strawberry and it had been in my family for 800 years. Betsy Ross had rented it from my ancestors during the American Revolution when she was sewing the flag. She said it’s strawberry motif worked to motivate her to “keep going” in the face of Ben Franklin’s “incessant” overtures. He was overweight and the creepy glasses he wore repulsed her. She said Tommy Jefferson would’ve been a real catch, but he already had a girlfriend.

Then, we got into the wedding dress business. Great-Great Grandmother “Lippy” used the pincushion when she made wedding dresses for rich people. One dress is especially interesting p. It was for Duchess Binger of the tiny European Duchy of Droppenstain. Duchess Binger was known far and wide for her dishonesty. She had “dishonest” breasts stitched into the dress. Her soon-to-be husband, the Duke of Earl, would be none the wiser. He was blind. She was taking a huge risk. If he touched them he would know—he had touched them when they first met. He knew how big they were. The Duchess had to keep him at bay until the wedding was over. When Grandmother Lippy asked her why she “was ding this,” she said she didn’t know. That was normal for the Duchess. Nobody had ever taken the time to teach her how to make good decisions. People believed that her unlimited wealth would shield her from the consequences of her bad decisions. For example, recently she had salted the manor’s fields, rendering them unsuitable for farming. She believed salting the earth would make food taste better.

But enough of this—where the hell is the pin cushion now?

Holy crap! The dog had gotten ahold of it! It was soaked with saliva and he looked like he had had an altercation with porcupine. My wife sat on him while I pulled out the pins and needles with a pair of pliers. After I got him straightened out I put the pin cushion up on the mantle on a dish towel to dry out.

This was the closest the pin cushion had come to being destroyed. The only other incident I’m aware of was Uncle Zombro’s carrying the pin cushion during the Civil War as a lucky charm. His diary recounts many time how it saved his life. For example, at the battle of Knuckle Ridge, he was juggling the pin cushion, a crumpled piece of paper and a rock. A Rebel sniper who was going to shoot him was so impressed he came down from his tree and asked Zombro to show him how to juggle. Zombro shot him in the head and took his boots, which were in great shape for a Rebel’s boots.

Well, the family heirloom is home! We’ve had it appraised and it is worth $25. That’s not much, but it’s ours. To family it’s worth $25,000,000. It’s packed with history, like a suitcase full of time. When the pin cushion dries out, I’m going to put it in a showcase and insure it for $50.

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

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Coenotes

Posted on May 16, 2024 | 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).

I don’t know how I ended up in a field surrounded by a herd of circling deer—some the size of dump trucks. I don’t know why these things keep happening to me with things the size of dump trucks. I don’t work in construction or paving, but there they are circled around me, snorting and pawing the ground. The circle is starting to close. I am doomed. I try to scare them by clapping my hands. They rise on their hind legs and start to dance. I faintly hear “jingle Bells” and realize that one of them has a blue tooth speaker paired with a cellphone playlist consisting of pop Christmas music. I was completely weirded out. Where did they get deer-friendly electronics? It was bad enough I was in the middle of nowhere when spikes of light shot out of the ground, each one with a pole-dancing woman wearing a black spandex body suit. It was beautiful seeing them dancing with shafts of light. It was “Jingle Bell Rock” blaring out of the ground.

Then suddenly, it all disappeared and I was left alone in darkness. There was a full moon hanging on the horizon and billions of stars spread across the sky. I stood and raised my arms. Something grabbed them by the wrists. It lifted me off the ground and started swinging me back and forth, and eventually, in complete circles. Whatever it was lost its grip and I went flying across the field. I slammed into the front door of a little cottage that looked like a cartoon. A cartoon version of me opened the door and asked me what I wanted. I ask him “Who drew you?” He told me that I had drawn him in my Drawing class at the Community College 50 years ago. He told me I had drawn the cottage too. “No wonder!” I exclaimed. I never thought I was a very skilled artist. The guy standing there looked more like a road kill version of me than an artful rendering of my being in the world. I told him he depressed me. He changed into a stand-up comic and started telling art jokes to cheer me up.

He led off with: “What do you call a drawing of a cow? A moo-sterpiece.” It went on like this for five minutes, and then, I cut him off. At that minute, a sedan chair pulled up and carried me along the Garden State Parkway and dumped me out at the Union exit. It hurt. I got up and started walking. Two girls picked me up in a Land Rover. We went to a golf tournament at Bedminster. They were members of an environmental activist group targeting golf courses for the environmental damage they cause. We lit the golf carts on fire, headed for Newark Airport, and took off for Costa Rica. The girls had a condo there overlooking the ocean.

We’ve been planning our next mission for the past 6 years. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I miss New Jersey. I wonder what Jon Bon Jovi’s up to.

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

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Colon

Posted on May 15, 2024 | 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.

There was a time before time—no time, no measure of duration, no deadlines. People lived and then they died—no yesterday, no tomorrow. Just now. this is how you live. I’ve known you for 22 years and you’ve never been on time. I remember when we were going on vacation together. You were driving. You were two days late picking me up. I waited with my suitcase on my front lawn. When you finally showed up it was pouring rain. I was wrapped in a plastic tablecloth I pulled off the picnic table in the garage. It leaked and my head got wet. When you finally got there you didn’t apologize because you didn’t know what “late” means.

The time has come. Cuckoo cuckoo me and you are going to Switzerland. Enough is enough. There is a clinic in Geneva—“The Max Plonk Clinic.” They have developed a foolproof surgical procedure for awakening your time onsciousness—to get the ticker in your head tocking. Phil was opposed to it at first. But when I pointed out how being bereft of time consciousness had negatively affected his life, he capitulated. I had reminded him how he was 3 years late for his daughter’s birth and almost destroyed his family. So, we took off for Switzerland.

I made sure we were on time to the Max Plonk Clinic. It was still beyond Phil. The surgery was bizarre. Dr. Chronoveaux cut a slot in Phil’s head like a piggy bank slot. It was about the size of a quarter. he dropped a watch the size of a quarter into the slot. And then pugged it with a little rubber plug. For purposes of battery changing, he implanted a small spring that would enable the watch to pop up like a little piece of toast when the skull plug is removed. As far as the way the mechanism works, it is a mystery to me. Dr. Chronoveaux would only say, “It puts zee time in zee head. Ha, ha, Zo vunny to me!”

That didn’t help. But when the watch was inserted in Herb’s head, he started tapping his fingers and his eyes darted around. At one point he looked at his wrist like he was wearing a wristwatch. When he fully woke up he asked what time it was. Success! but then, he asked again in five minutes, and again in five minutes. It needed to be fixed. They sedated Phil and used the toast popper function to remove the watch. There was a picture of Mickey Mouse on the watch’s face. “Vee must upgrade!” Said Dr. Chronoveaux. He went to the Mall and came back in around 30 minutes. He had a small watch with Taylor Swift embossed on the face. The Doctor dropped it in the slot and Phil was repaired! Aside from wanting to time nearly everything, Phil is just fine now. He is on time most of the time and he apologizes if he’s late by saying “Taylor and I apologize— it’s really not her fault.”

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

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Commoratio

Posted on May 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

I am right. Do you understand me? I know the answer. My answer is the “right answer”always—even if I’m wrong. And it does not matter. No matter how wrong you think I am, it is you who’re wrong. You might think there is something beyond the wall of convention that makes you right. Well, I’ve taken a few bricks out of that wall in anticipation of change. We are not talking natural order here. We’re talking about everything else. Do you remember when marajuana was illegal? Well, it is not illegal any more. It is wrong to call it illegal. What about abortion? Now it is illegal. What about gay marriage? Now it is legal.

So, if you have a hope, you may be able to induce a change. This is how democracy works. Nobody is %100 in favor of everything, so there’s always a chance for change—for better and for worse. Accepting the status quo is functional if you’ve thought about it and it aligns with your values—what you think is right. Just because it is true that abortion is illegal, it does not make it right that it is illegal.

This is all pretty basic, but it opens the portals of change. So you reflect on what keeps you party to the status quo. What motivates whre you reside? Laziness? Happiness? Trapped? Lack of vision? Fear? Every motive term you can imagine is operative here. And then, on the other side are the motives for change. We live in the grip of motives. They fuel our choice making. They are the foundation of our character. As you make your trajectory through life they answer the question “Why?” They answer to our conscience internally, and externally to people who care about the meaning of our actions. Of course, as Kenneth Burke tells us, we avow motives and others impute motives to derive meaning—the why. For example, the meaning of a handshake isn’t in the handshake, it’s in what motivates it.

Anyway, I am right. Whatever I project on the screen of social reality is in some way right. I don’t know why. I just think it. Thinking it does not make me wrong. It makes me like everybody else.

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

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Comparatio

Posted on May 13, 2024 | 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.

I was on my way to San Jose and I made a wrong turn and turned around and made my way to San Jose, but got a flat tire and couldn’t find my AAA card. I was a Platinum-gold member and could’ve had the AAA Safari Crew carry my car on their shoulders to a gas station. I was angry. It was like I had stabbed myself in the foot with a kitchen knife tied to a broomstick—primitive but effective, to a certain extent. Butter knives are kitchen knives, but their rounded tips make them poor candidates for stabbing. I might’ve been better served by a sharpened toothbrush handle, like in prison or a demented dentist’s office—like a toothless man wearing a tuxedo and drool bib with flashing lights saying “You’re a wanker. I’m a Yanker.” Not too creative textually, but the flashing lights are a nice touch: like candles on a birthday cake or a fake campfire or a fake campsite, in fake woods with fake bears and deer.

I feel like I’ve veered off the track. It’s like yesterday. I couldn’t find the bathroom at my friend’s house. He caught me peeing out his bedroom windrow. Embarrassment had done me in again, I was too embarrassed to ask where the bathroom was. It is like you’re crushing inside, making your self-esteem into crushed gravel or even crushed glass. It is like revealing a birthmark shaped like a red stain—like raspberry juice dribbled on your belly around your belly button. Or, having your pants fall down at your wedding. Embarrassment grabs you by the soul with walnut crackers. You can hear your self-esteem cracking as you want to disappear from the face of the earth. The closest you can come in the US is The Thorofare in Wyoming. You can commit every faux pas in the universe without fear of being observed, except maybe by a squirrel. Back in 2020 I spent a week there farting in place. Got all the fart-barrassment out of my system. It was like a faucet that had only been partially opened, and was opened for the first time, rapidly releasing pressure and making the faucet feel free.

So anyway, everything is like everything else in some way. At the very least, they are all existing. Wow! I need to go to the library if I ever get to San Jose. But, I discovered my GPS only speaks English. It’s like I’m looking for salvation in a language I can’t understand. I know the freeway outside San Jose is like the valley of the shadow of death. It is hard to drive with a rod and a staff resting on the steering wheel—ha, ha. That’s supposed to be funny.

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

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Comprobatio

Posted on May 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

“God bless us, everyone.” Tiny Tim was such an ass kisser, he was hoping that Scrooge would pay his college tuition. As far as he could see, his loser father was going nowhere, supervising a pack of rats at Scrooge’s accounting firm. Scrooge had had the crap scared out of him by an extended nightmare that, ironically, woke him up from being a the stingiest man in London.

Tiny Tim had been posing as a cripple for the past five years. It was part of an insurance scam that he had pulled on Royal Haulers, the King’s vegetable conveyance. He made it look like the cart ran over his foot. He got no insurance settlement, just a free crutch that he used to his advantage to display his infirmity and garner pity, worth a few pence. But Scrooge’s nightmare psychosis had made him ripe for conning.

Tiny had managed to get a check from Scrooge’s checkbook. He had filled it out for 50,000 pounds and was waiting for Scrooge’s signature. He couldn’t figure out how to pull the check scam off, so he decided to burglarize Scrooge’s apartment.

It was 2.00 am when he quietly broke in. Scrooge had curtains around his bed and he was carrying with Trollope Lil who lived next door. Scrooge had a pile of cash on his desk. Tiny stuffed it in the pillowcase he had brought along for that purpose. When he picked up the final 20 pound note a jingling bell went off. Scrooge came out from behind his bed curtains wearing only his night cap. “What are you up to, Tim?” Scrooge asked with an angry look on his face. Tim responded: “Sleepwalking.” It was all that Tim could think of and Scrooge bought it.

Tim made off with all of Scrooge’s cash and had to leave London as he was being hunted by the police. He move to Glasgow and bought a canned haggis factory: Scotty Mac’s Highland Haggis. Scrooge had a relapse and started saying “Humbug” again and fired Bob Cratchet. He hired his girlfriend in Cratchet’s place. She started a nearly undetectable embezzling scam. Her name was Belle. That was enough to blind Scrooge to her scam.

Tim made millions under the name of Ginnis McCorckle. He branched out into single malt scotch and became obsessed with the Loch Ness Monster, and was instrumental in the resurgence of the kilt. He was developing cellophane sticky tape when he died.

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

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Conduplicatio

Posted on May 11, 2024 | 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.

Ho, Ho, Ho! I did it again. It was at my brother-in-law’s funeral. “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Ho, Ho, Ho!” That’s how it went, but I could not help it. I had come down with “Santa-Clausis” after sitting on Santa’s lap and telling him what I wanted for Christmas. When I left, Santa’s I said “Ho, Ho, Ho” and my mother thought it was humorous and cute. But then, I saw a bird squished in the street and said “Ho, Ho, Ho.” My mother didn’t think it was cute and admonished me, but I couldn’t help myself—the worse it was the harder I laughed. Like the time an elderly woman fell out of her second-story window and died at my feet with her head cracked open. I couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes. I was beat up by the crowd that gathered.

For the past twenty years I’ve been tying to cure myself of “Santa-Clausius.” I’ve come close—once I only giggled when a kitten was run over by a steamroller. I thought I was on the road to recovery. I wasn’t. The next day I saw a man’s taco stand go up in flames with him in it. I laughed a full fifteen minutes. I felt like something had a hold of me, making me laugh.

Finally, I went to see a gypsy. She told me that the only cure is the blood of a Santa. She gave me a syringe. Christmas was only a week away so there were plenty of Santas to “draw” on. She told me to bring the blood back as soon as possible after I drew it.

I went to the Santa shack in the park. Wearing a balaclava, I burst in the door, knocked a kid off his lap and stabbed him in the leg with my needle and filled it to the brim. I gave it to the gypsy and she injected it into me. Immediately, my white beard fell off and I lost 40 pounds. The gypsy pulled a white mouse out of a cage and smashed it with a hammer and killed it. I didn’t laugh. I was cured!

After that, I hammered a mouse every month to make sure I was still cured. No laughter. No Santa-Clausius disease.

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

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Congeries

Posted on May 10, 2024 | Leave a comment

Congeries (con’ger-eez): Piling up words of differing meaning but for a similar emotional effect [(akin to climax)].

Wee haa! Wo hoo! Yody Ho! Yippee! As you can tell, I am relatively elated—making some stock elation sounds, and a couple of new inventions. I am easily elated. An airplane landing elates me. Sunshine on my shoulders elates me. A chicken crossing the road would push me over the edge without asking why. I would just watch, and then break out in joyous noises when the chicken reaches the other side.

There are so many goals to be achieved in life that are not extraordinary but yet help make the world go around. Think of the humble nitwit. Consider how they must contemplate the steps in a process and diligently strive to complete it without causing too much damage, but nevertheless be yelled at by an angry boss.

Once one becomes an avowed nitwit, life’s burdens build into mountains of incompetence topped with grief and anger. For example, what about the guy whose job was to scrape gum off the floor at the Notting Hill Tube Station in London. People would walk by and kick them, pretend he was a horse because he worked on his hands and knees, and rode horsey on his back while he scraped. They would also swat his butt with “The Evening Standard.” He stood up, posing like the Statue of Liberty—holding his scraper up like Lady Liberty’s torch. One of his knee pads slipped down his leg and all the commuters stopped and fell silent.

Collectively, they could see what they couldn’t see individually. There was a doctor from Vienna standing by the stairs holding his arms in a circle. He was holding a pastie in one hand and chewing a bite from it very slowly while the wheels spun in his head. They were snow tires and unsuited to London’s summer. He tried revving them up while he contemplated the crowed. He hoped to wear the treads off on the rough edges of his skull’s interior. He dropped his briefcase. It startled him and provided a road to revelation: collectively the commuters came to conensus without saying a word. This must mean when people are packed together they think alike. The have a “collective” consciousness. They are like ants or honeybees, or flying geese or schools of fish.

The gum scraper lowered their scraper and pulled up their knee pad. The commuters became animated again and headed down to the tube platform. The sun came out behind the doctor’s back and he forgot everything, picking up his briefcase and blending in with the commuters. He kicked the gum scraper as he went past and felt very good after doing so.

He was a fake. He wore a second-hand sports coat and pretended to be a doctor. He had a fake office and receptionist. He spoke with a fake Austrian accent, that was actually German and had learned from Colonel Klink on “Hogan’s Heroes.”

Life is complicated.

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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Consonance

Posted on May 9, 2024 | Leave a comment

Consonance: The repetition of consonants in words stressed in the same place (but whose vowels differ). Also, a kind of inverted alliteration, in which final consonants, rather than initial or medial ones, repeat in nearby words. Consonance is more properly a term associated with modern poetics than with historical rhetorical terminology.

Herbert: Tumbling dice. Shallow ditch. Sky-blue donut. It all fits together—everything fits together. Just look! Use your eyes—both of them. Just look. Don’t listen. It is not in your ear, although it could be. This is one of the interesting things about repurposing your senses. Look! Don’t listen or smell for awhile, just see and feel. Then, after a week let smelling be your companion. Sniff it out, twist and shout—shake it up baby.—do the jerk! Do you love me now that I can smell?

You are sugar and spice and everything nice, pony tails and hiking trails, toilet seats and doggie treats, selected meats, and big plump beets.

I feel so much better. A visit from Marshmallow Man always sweetens things up. I wish they’d let you in my cell. I’d take a big bite out of you. Probably, your face.

Susan: Herbert, it’s me your mother. Today is visitor’s day, and I’m visiting you like I do every month hoping you’ll return to normal—like when you were a little boy and played your days away with Chip the neighbor boy. I’ve told you before, but you don’t remember. He broke into Micky’s Pet Store and ate the tropical fish, got sick and had to be taken to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. I always knew you’d be good friends, but the pet store incident would’ve sealed the deal if you weren’t locked up here at “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Who knows, maybe some me day you will snap out of it.

Herbert: Chip was such a good influence. I remember when we made kites out of our underpants and flew them over the playground. They were too heavy to fly, but we tried. Miscalculation is 50% of calculation. I learned that from Chip. One enchanted evening we were wearing blue suede shoes and pink carnations. We went to the bowling alley, had a cherry coke and then talked about Kansas City and then I went directly home to murder you, mom. It was my best plan ever, but you were in the bathroom and I wanted to kill you in your bed, where you slept, and I would stab you with my Boy Scout knife. With, in addition to the main blade, has a small blade, can opener, a corkscrew and an awl. You were too cheap to get me one with a fork and spoon.

When you came out of the bathroom, I chased you across the hall into your bedroom. You ran into your bedroom, locked the door, and called the police. That was it for me.

Susan: Oh Herbert! You’re so funny! Your needs and desires are hilarious. You’re such a clown. Just think, if you had murdered me, where would you be now? You’d be right here because you’re insane. Ha! Ha!

Herbert: Ha! Ha! Ma, you light up my life. But really, you’re nothing but a hound dog. Go home!

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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Correctio

Posted on May 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

Correctio (cor-rec’-ti-o): The amending of a term or phrase just employed; or, a further specifying of meaning, especially by indicating what something is not (which may occur either before or after the term or phrase used). A kind of redefinition, often employed as a parenthesis (an interruption) or as a climax.

There was a mess in my living room. Crumpled newspapers. Dirty clothes and dishes. Cookie crumbs all over the couch. Stains everywhere. Wait! No! In keeping with my Delusory Regime, I’m going to say that I’ve got an organic room-size sculpture going.

It was determined by my doctor that most things are beyond my reach—for example, neatness, and drawing on Protagoras’ “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” as a guiding Maxim, I went through 10 weeks of training in renaming what I couldn’t understand or achieve. For example, roller blading was renamed “stupid shoe rolling with wheels.” This made me feel much better about my inability to learn how to roller blade.

The Delusory Regime worked like a charm. It boosted my self esteem by encouraging me to disparage what I couldn’t do, or understand. I had gotten to level 10 where I insulted people who were clearly superior to me, even challenging them to fights.

Then it all fell apart. I was at the zoo enjoying looking at the caged animals. A siren went off with a voice saying “a tiger has escaped. Please evacuate the zoo.” I thought, “What a bunch of chicken shit bastards.” And kept my strong string of insults going at an elephant. I felt good! But then, the tiger came bounding out of the bushes and stopped and looked at me. I yelled at hm “You striped orange bathrobe from a nursing home.” It did not work. He was still a tiger from the jungle. I tried “Here kitty, kitty.” That didn’t work either. Right before they shot and killed him, he bit my left hand off—he twisted it back and forth and dropped it on the ground. The pain was awful—actually it was unbearable. Luckily, there was an ambulance standing by. The hand was too mangled to put back on. Now, they think it’s funny to call me lefty. I wear medically themed socks over the stump— I’m trying to make it into a sort of billboard that I can rent out.

Now, I go through life “calling them as they are.” For example, I’ve accepted the fact that I’m a slob while suing my doctor for losing my hand. I keep my hand in a jar in my office to make the point that I used to have two hands, and also, as a conversation starter with new clients: “Do you need a hand?”

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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Deesis

Posted on May 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

Deesis (de’-e-sis): An adjuration (solemn oath) or calling to witness; or, the vehement expression of desire put in terms of “for someone’s sake” or “for God’s sake.”

Marla: “For God’s sake. Put down that knife!”

Wally: “I’m not done buttering my toast. Wait a minute!”

Marla: “You’re not buttering your toast, you’re buttering little Ralphie. For Ralphie’s sake, put down the knife and hand him to me,”

Wally: “Let me butter his head first and slick down that ugly cowlick. He takes after you in so many ways. Look at the drooling smile—it’s you all over!”

Maria: “My drooling smile is the result of an injury, not heredity. You may remember: you stepped on my face when we were camping. You got up in the middle of the night to pee and you stepped on my face with your big hiking boot when you tried to go out the back of of the tent and tripped. God! Put down the knife!”

Wally: “Relax! I’m going to put Ralphie in the oven—it’s freezing- ass cold in here. I’m setting it at 100 so he can warm up and we can heat some leftovers too..”

Marla: “Ok, you’ve gone around the bend Wally. Hand him over right now! I’ll put him in the garage while you calm down, have some coffee, and return to normal.”

Wally handed Ralphie over and Marla put him in the garage in the lawn spreader. It was like a cradle. Ralphie liked the lawn spreader. He spent 3-4 hours in it per week. He liked the smell of the weed killer residue and the spreader’s bright green color. If he could talk, he would say “Oh my God! This is great!”

Now that Ralphie was out of the way in the garage, it was time for Marla and Wally to play Sudoko. They would quietly sit on opposite sides of the kitchen table nodding their heads as they scored. Wally picked up the knife and licked it. That reminded Marla that Ralphie was out in the garage.

When she got inside the garage, Ralphie was gone. She looked out the garage door and saw Ralphie crawling across the street. A pickup truck veered around hm blowing its horn. She ran out in the street and grabbed him. She noticed he had white powdery weed killer on his nose. She couldn’t help laughing and was still laughing when she brought Ralphie inside the hose. Wally started laughing too. They took a picture to send to Ralphie’s grandma.

Wally and Marla were not model parents. Ralphie grew up to be a daredevil. He would jump a Queen size bed full of live lobsters with a Vespa motor scooter.

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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Dehortatio

Posted on May 6, 2024 | Leave a comment

Dehortatio (de-hor-ta’-ti-o): Dissuasion.

“If you don’t stop playing that damn guitar, I’m gong to hit you over the head with it.!” I knew my father wouldn’t follow through on his threat. I played an electric bass. A blow on my head would probably kill me. I was wrong. I woke up in the hospital with a concussion. They told me my father had clobbered me with my bass. He had nearly killed me and had been in police custody for three days. I said, “That’s good. I hope he never gets out.” I was shocked by my voice. I had Elmer Fudd syndrome cupped with a vice an Elvis impersonator would die for. The doctor told me that my pronunciation was called rhotacism—a condition where you have trouble pronouncing “r”__ also called “Barbara Walters Syndrome.” The Elvis thing cannot be accounted for. But combined together rhotacism and Elvis Voice sound amazing. Imagine this in an Elvis voice:

“ Little wed cowvette,
Baby, you much too fast
Yes, you awe
Little wed Cowvette
You need to find a love that’s gonna last

Little wed Cowvette
Baby, you much too fast
Yes, you awe
Little Wed Cowvette
You need to find a love that’s gonna last.”

Again, just imagine this sung in Elvis’ voice. I couldn’t wait to get out of the hospital to start a band. I got together with three guys I went to high school with. We had a band back then. We covered Bee Gees music. We weren’t too popular, but I had kept practicing and driving my father crazy. We reunited and named our new band Concussion after my recent head injury that had prompted my musical gifts.

Our first gig was coming up at “Blankety Blanks,” a club in Elizabeth, New Jersey right off the Rte. 1 Circle by the Goethals Bridge. We decided to do covers of Nirvana, The Police, and Jefferson Airplane. The crowd was wild, foot stomping for us to start. We led off with “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The crowd stood still, mouths open like they were hypnotized. When finished the first set, the crowd went wild, applauding and fist pumping for 20 minutes. Concussion was a raging success. Word spread. Gigs piled up. Money rolled in, along with a lucrative recording contract.

My brain damage had made me a star. We’re still flying high. To keep my gift, I discovered I had to be hit in the head with a brick once a month. It’s like my dad says, “It’s the price of success.” I forgave him and he’s part of the crew and does a good job smacking me on the head.

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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