Adynaton (a-dyn’-a-ton): A declaration of impossibility, usually in terms of an exaggerated comparison. Sometimes, the expression of the impossibility of expression.
“This is impossible. It’s like skinning yourself with a table knife, or making delicious stir fry with gravel.” These were Dr. Plug’s final words as he died, as his doctor said, from “trying too hard.“
He had been a professor at Habernero University (HU), holding the Chair of Repetitive Anomalous Ergonomics for fifty years. He had seen academic fads come and go—phlogiston, ghost plasma, total quality management, left-handed desks, faculty wife-swapping parties, etc. He always characterized it as “a wild ride.” He got tenure after his book “How Much?” was published in Poland by “Wydawnictwo Płatne.”
“How Much?” Was based on his decades-long study of the famous “Woodchuck” conundrum: “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck chuck if a woodchuck could Chuck wood?”
He spent days and nights in his laboratory. His wife left him and he forgot his son’s name. He called him “What’s his name?” The university’s Trustees saw the importance of his research. He was relieved of his teaching responsibilities so he could focus his endless intellectual energies on the Woodchuck Conundrum.
On campus he was a myth and a legend. Students were injured scaling the locked building where his laboratory was located. They wanted to get a glimpse of him through the second-story window working on the Woodchuck conundrum. Numerous students fell and were seriously injured. One student, Ted Clamb, managed to get a glimpse.
Clamb saw dozens of caged woodchucks and a pile of split wood on the floor. The woodchucks had muscular front legs and larger the normal paws. The student lost his grip and fell off the building before he could see more. He was seriously injured. After Dr. Plug complained about the “peepers,” armed guards were posted around the building. Unfortunately, a newspaper reporter was shot and killed when he breached the guards’ cordon and rushed the building. His death was judged to be justifiable homicide after a lengthy trial.
Based on Clamb’s observation, it became clear that Dr. Plug was secretly breeding wood-chucking mutant woodchucks as a preliminary to completing his central question regarding how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. We believe he was on the verge of teaching the woodchucks to chuck wood. In fact, events after his death have convinced people that he had succeeded.
One week after his death, his laboratory was vandalized by animal rights activists. They set free all of Dr. Plug’s mutant woodchucks. It didn’t take long before there were reports of rock-throwing woodchucks. Car windshield had been damaged, people were hit in the head by rocks, requiring stitches, and in some cases, hospitalization.
We are trapping the mutant woodchucks and returning them to Dr. Plug’s laboratory where his estranged son Woody will continue his father’s research.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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