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)
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