Monthly Archives: April 2025

Sententia

Posted on April 30, 2025 | Leave a comment

Sententia (sen-ten’-ti-a): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegem, gnome, maxim, paroemia, and proverb.

“Stop Trying”

Yes, that’s the ticket. “If you’re tryin’ you’re dyin’” is a variation on the words of wisdon uttered by the ancient Roman philosopher Claudius Defectum. His book of sayings “Cedere” (“Give Up”) led to the fall of the Roman Empire. It will never have that regime-changing influence today, but it still inspires countless people to accept their mediocrity, or worse.

You can find Defectum’s collection of sayings in the back pockets of men and women settled, carefree, on cardboard pads, holding and waving empty styrofoam cups. They have shifted the rationale of their “trying” from greed and acquisition to the godly glow of begging. They have reduced their striving to the bare minimum— giving up and going on. A wonderful yoking of opposites that may motivate them to ask “Spare change?” as they pursue the limitless possibilities of living carefree in an alley or abandoned car. They’ve given up!

I gave up ten years ago. Fresh out of college, I went to work for a company making pearl snaps for cowboy shirts. I wasn’t a cowboy, but I could appreciate their need for shirts with or pearl snaps. Say, your shirt got caught on a cactus, you would just unsnap it and set yourself free. Or say, you’re riding the trail and you want to cool off. With your free hand, you can just unsnap your shirt, letting the cooling breeze blow across your chest.

I was put in charge of our Laotian snap factory. We churned out 5,000 snaps per day. My goal was 12,000. I had arrived at that number randomly by saying number out loud. “12,000” had a melodious tone to it—it almost had a poetic ring. I was drawn to it like a cow to grass or a fork-load of steak to my mouth.

I figured all I needed to do was make our machines go faster. The faster they went, the more snaps they’d make. “Faster! Faster,” I yelled. Everybody just looked at me and laughed. My translator told me they were calling me “silly man” behind my back. I took away their daily ration of Lao-Lao. They brought their own. I neglected to realize that home-brewing is extremely popular in Laos. My sanctions went on and on, ending with Tasering slow workers. Anyway, nothing worked, so after reading “Cedere” one more time and punching the walls in my room, I gave up. I stopped trying.

I felt a deep sense of relief and freedom. I slept like a baby. When I announced the next day that our new goal was 3,000 snaps per day, I became a hero. Sadly, I was fired for bringing the snap quota down, but I didn’t care. I went back to the States and got a job working at a Salvation Army Thrift Store. I was in charge of glassware. I did what I was told to do and had renounced all pretenses to promotion.

I had given up, and it felt damn good.

Definitions 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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Simile

Posted on April 29, 2025 | Leave a comment

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

I was going to fly like an eagle. I was off to my freshman year of college at Tony Pecker University. Pecker had made a fortune cleaning up brownfields throughout America, and then, reselling them to unwitting people. He was famous for the elementary school that was built on one of his so-called “remediated” sites. All the students came down with tumors covering 80% of their bodies. None of then got past the age of 12. Pecker was sued but he got off by claiming it wasn’t his fault. He never explained exactly why it wasn’t his fault, but that didn’t matter, it was a jury trial. The jurors showed up the second day of Pecker’s trial wearing big gold chains with big gold crosses hanging from them.

Anyway, Tony Pecker University is built on one of Pecker’s brownfield sites. Many of the students suffer from hair loss and discoloration of their teeth, neither is fatal and after graduation their hair returns and their teeth return to their normal color. So, it’s no big deal. I had had my head shaved in anticipation of losing it. My head looked like a shiny pink muskmelon.

You may wonder why I’m going to Tony Pecker University. I’m not very smart and none of my high school teachers would write me a letter of recommendation. They would tell me that “I would have to accept my limited reach,” or “College isn’t for you,” or “You’ve made me feel like a failure as a teacher.” Then, I found out that my great uncle “Ponzi” had gone to Pecker. He was extremely wealthy and bribed the Dean of Admissions to let me in. He had a horrible rash on his right hand that he had contracted when he was a student at Pecker. He credited the rash with enabling him to weasel out of bad business deals. Due to his rash, people wouldn’t shake hands with him when it came time to seal a deal. So, technically, the deal wasn’t made. He was grateful to Pecker University for the rash. He told me if I wanted a rash like his, I should wash my hands daily in the toilet bowl in the second stall from the right in the second floor men’s room in Polly Hall.

Anyway, I can read and write. I can’t do math, but who cares. As a legacy, I’m allowed to make up my own degree program. My personal program is titled “Dogs.” i will be learning all about dogs—why they have four legs, the aesthetics of tail wagging and tail chasing, barking in different languages, faithfulness, playing catch, sniffing, and much, much more. It will be rewarding for me and for the dogs I will be keeping in my room: it’s like a doggie mansion, with a “man” in the mansion. Ha ha!

I think I want to be a dog walker when I graduate. I am going to move the New York City. It’s like a gold mine for dog walkers. I am planning in competing in “Broadway On A Leash,” the annual competition to see who can walk the most dogs at once down a quarter mile stretch of Broadway’s sidewalk.

I’m arriving at Pecker now and driving through the gates. I will be greeted by a bald RA who will show me where to park, and lead me to my room. I see her! Her head looks like a muskmelon, just like mine! She has beautiful eyes. Already, I’m falling in love.

Definitions 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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Skotison

Posted on April 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

Skotison (sko’-ti-son): Purposeful obscurity.

He: This thing “talk” is driving me crazy. One of my best friends tells me it’s going to be the death of me. It’s just one of those things as far as I’m concerned. I suspect you know what the thing is all about, but you just won’t admit it to me. Maybe you think it goes without saying. Maybe you’re embarrassed. Come on and tell me! Don’t be shy! We’re engaged to be married. Between us, my thing is your thing. Tell me!

She: Is it your penis? It’s the only thing I can think of that is ever between us. I don’t see it as a problem. I take a ride on it once a week (as you well know) and have never skipped an orgasm since we’ve been together. In fact, I brag about your thing to my friends. Your thing keeps me coming back for more. Honey, I’m addicted to your thing.

He: You’ve got it all wrong. All you can think of is sex, sex, sex. Grow up! Well, to cut you a little slack, I have referred to my penis as “my thing” before and I shouldn’t admonish you for for mistaking “my thing” for “my penis.” But what is the “my thing” that I’m referring to? I admit, it does have a sexual overtone.

“My thing” is to look at my ass in a full-length mirror. I stand nude with my ass facing the mirror. I bend over, spread my cheeks, and look between my legs at my ass. If I spread my legs wide enough, I can see my scrotum too!

I’ve been doing this almost my whole life. It never loses its fascination for me. I have a blog called “My Ass” where other peoples’ “thing” is the same as mine. We share out fascination with auto-ass gazing.

Well, honey, that’s my thing. It’s looking at my ass in a mirror.

She: I didn’t know you had a secret life—marveling at your own ass. My god! I think there’s a touch of narcissism involved in your solo ass gazing. Although I’ve heard you making “mmmm” sounds in your walk-in closet in the morning, it has never intruded into our relationship, and I doubt if it ever will. Despite that, I don’t want to marry you any more. You are a creep. At least you’re honest, but that’s not enough.

He: You’re going to die without me. Look at my ass! Look! You miss it already you shallow piece of shit.

She: Ha ha! Shove your ass up your ass! Ha ha! Goodbye.

Definitions 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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Syllepsis

Posted on April 27, 2025 | Leave a comment

Syllepsis (sil-lep’-sis): When a single word that governs or modifies two or more others must be understood differently with respect to each of those words. A combination of grammatical parallelism and semantic incongruity, often with a witty or comical effect. Not to be confused with zeugma: [a general term describing when one part of speech {most often the main verb, but sometimes a noun} governs two or more other parts of a sentence {often in a series}].

My toe and my bank account were hurting! I didn’t know how my toe had become inflamed. It looked like a zucchini with a blackened claw at the end. I had visited at least 100 doctors. At $200 a shot, the bills were mounting. The remedies provided by the doctors made loud quacking sounds when I took the pills or followed instructions for doing things that would cure me:

  1. Snort dried rabbit poop ground into dust.
  2. Sit on an opened can of tuna fish until it imprinted a circle around my anus.
  3. Dip my foot in warmed goat urine seasoned with ramps and poison ivy.
  4. Take a pill filled with strawberry-flavored ground dog fur.
  5. Super-glue a set of dice to my toenail.

These are just a few of the 100s of remedies that I was prescribed and tried to no avail. I had a custom-made shoe crafted to wear on my errant foot. It looked like a meatloaf with a heel. People would cringe when they saw it, especially if we were crowded in somewhere like an elevator. One day on the subway, some kid stepped on my foot. I screamed so loud that the subway stopped. I’m not sure why it did, but it did. Everybody started yelling at me: “Go home creep!” “Nice footwork asshole!” “Limp to hell fu*k weed!”

I limped off the subway at my stop. I was thinking “Typical fu*king New York.” Then I saw it! Scrawled on the wall it said: “Try Doctor Hoo Doo. He will make you whole.” There was a phone number. I pulled out my cellphone and immediately called the number. There was a recorded message: “Who do voodoo? We do voodoo. Leave your number.” I left my number and Doctor Hoo Doo called me the next day. He is located in Haiti. I had to fly to Port au Prince the next day for my appointment.

When I arrived at the airport, a horse cart was waiting to take me to my appointment with Doctor Hoo Doo. The driver dropped me off at the end of an alley, and pointed down it. I started down the alley and saw a man sitting on a stool at the end of the alley wearing a track suit and holding a baseball bat. He told me to take off my meatloaf shoe. He sprinkled some kind of powder on my foot and started beating my toe with the bat. Strangely, it didn’t hurt. After beating on it for about 10 minutes, my toenail shot out of the send of my toe and flew away like a butterfly, dripping some kind of vile-smelling yellow goo. My toe deflated with a long farting sound and I felt better than I had felt for the past ten years.

Doctor Hoo Doo said “There! You’re cured! You will serve as my slave for the next two years. Then, you may go home.” Two years as a slave was a small price to pay for having my toe cured. I would’ve gone for five. I readily agreed.

I work at a pikliz factory out in the middle of nowhere. In fact, I do not know where it is, however, I can hear the ocean waves crashing at night. I have learned some French. My fellow workers are dull-eyed slow-moving sluggards. They look like they’ve sold their souls or something. They all work on the night shift which leaves me on my own to make pikliz during the day.

I met Doctor Hoo Doo’s overseer yesterday. He said “We don’t think about escaping, do we?” I knew he was joking, so I agreed with him. He has a subscription to Amazon Prime. We’re going to watch “Night of the Living Dead” tomorrow night while all the dull-eyes are working in the cabbage fields.

My foot is doing fine. As far as I can see, everything’s going great. One year and 9 months to go!

Definitions 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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Symploce

Posted on April 26, 2025 | Leave a comment

Symploce (sim’-plo-see or sim’-plo-kee): The combination of anaphora and epistrophe: beginning a series of lines, clauses, or sentences with the same word or phrase while simultaneously repeating a different word or phrase at the end of each element in this series.

I am an ochestrator.

I am a schemer—always setting things up to my advantage. But I think I’ve lost sight of what my advantage is. Last week, I glued my father to his dining room chair. My plan was to yell something rude at him and run out the front door. I yelled “I hate you, you arrogant onion breath!” I ran for the door. He stood up with the chair glued to his ass and waddled after me. My little brother, Dad’s little dupe, tripped me. Dad took off his pants, shedding the chair, and pulled his belt out of the loops. He said to me “Good try son” and he started whipping my little brother for betraying me.

This was my life.

I am an orchestrator.

Yes indeedy-do. I wanted a girlfriend. ZZ Top had given me a plan: “Every girl’s crazy about a sharp-dressed man.” I was going to get “sharp dressed” and stand against the wall across the food court from the ladies room at the mall. Solely catering to women, it was a conduit of females who were primed to be crazy about a sharp dressed man. I was wearing rough-out cowboy boots, denim stretch pants riding low on my hips, a snap shirt unsnapped half-way down my chest, dark glasses, and a Chicago Bulls hat. Then, my high school art teacher walked up to me. She said, “How much handsome?”

This was my life.

I freaked out. Clearly, she didn’t recognize me and thought I was some kind of male prostitute! I told her I charged $6.00 per hour. She laughed and gave me a twenty-dollar bill, and suggested we use her car down in the parking garage. I was panic stricken and ready to run. So I ran.

Two cops blocked my way. My art teacher sped off in her Subaru. The cops had on vests that said “Police” and “ICE” on them. They told me to stop or they would shoot me. They said I was wearing Venezuelan gang regalia, specifically, a Chicago Bulls hat. I told them I was a fan. They did not listen. I was arrested and sent to a detention center in South Beach, Miami. I was issued a Speedo swimsuit, an olive drab T-shirt and a pair of flip-flops. ICE had a portion of the beach cordoned off with barbed wire. We spent most of our days there making sand castles, swimming, and playing volley ball. To keep us hydrated they gave us big drinks with brightly colored umbrellas in them. I was half-drunk most of the time, fooling around with girls on the other side of the barbed wire fence, subtly exposing myself and singing the Harry Belafonte banana song. “Day O!”

Then one day, I saw my art teacher. She was waving at me and pointing to the far end of the fence. We met there. She pulled on the fence and it opened like a gate. I slipped through and we ran to her car and jumped in. She told me she wanted what she had paid for, and to get to work giving it to her. Then, she recognized me as a former student, screamed, and nixed everything. She told me she would drive me back to New Jersey for $200. I agreed and we sped away.

This was my life. A broken record playing “People are Strange,” getting stuck on a scratch on “strange,” playing it over and over until I slap the record player.

We got back to Linden safe and sound. One thing was for sure: I didn’t want to go home. My art teacher graciously let me stay with her. I was a high school dropout, so my prospects for employment were limited. My art teacher paid me $50 per hour to model nude for her. I had turned 18, so it was legal. One day she asked me if we could model nude together in her bed for an extra $25. I was confused, but I agreed to do it.

One thing led to another and we got married. We have two children who are the direct result of our modeling nude together. They are named Cyan and Magenta.

This was my life.

Definitions 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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Synaloepha

Posted on April 25, 2025 | Leave a comment

Synaloepha (sin-a-lif’-a): Omitting one of two vowels which occur together at the end of one word and the beginning of another. A contraction of neighboring syllables. A kind of metaplasm.

Yo’ are a total dog! Skipper wagged his tail, making his signature whipping sound, barking and bowing down on his front paws. It was like Skipper understood me. I had a laundry list of commands that he would unfailingly follow. My favorite was “speak.” He would say what sounded like “lightbulb” when I told him to speak. He was more articulate than Scooby Doo.

Then one day when he was doing the “speak” trick he said “fu*k you.” I was shocked. He said “Just kidding.” I thought I was losing my mind. I told my mother and she thought so too. She took me to see a psychiatrist. I told him my story and he told me I was going crazy like I thought I was. He prescribed me some anti-psychotic drugs to take three times a day. They didn’t work.

Skipper became more and more articulate. I would read him books and we would discuss them. He loved Plato’s dialogues. He loved Plato’s Phaedrus and its depiction of love. He asked me if I loved him. I didn’t know what to say, so I said yes. He told me he never thought of me as his master, instead, he thought of me as his friend. I was moved so deeply by this, I almost cried. He said, “Let’s go for a walk. I feel like letting one go in the park in the grass by the baseball field.”

When we got back home, Skipper told me he wanted to start a blog. I thought it was a great idea. He could talk and nobody would know he was a dog. Skipper had converted to Christianity after I read Paul’s “Epistles to the Corinthians” to him. So, he titled his blog: “Straight Talk: No Bells or Whistles.”

His most famous episode was on vivisection. He has fist hand experience. His best friend at the time, Butch, had had his nose amputated and then plied with different scents to see if he would sniff them and wag his stubby little tail. It was a heartbreaking story. Then, there was the Raccoon who had its front paws replaced with hooks to see if the Raccoon would adapt and walk on the hooks, reducing its scent trail and enabling its escape from hound dogs. This was another tear jerker.

Skipper was reviled by the pro-vivisectionists. Without even knowing he was a dog, they vowed to “neuter” him and give him a “special nose job.”

Then, there was the day of horror. The “Vivisectionist Vigilantes” found out where our podcast studios were located. One day, they raided us wearing balaclavas. There was Skipper sitting there with his headphones on. The Vigilantes flipped out. They shot Skipper to death. After he was dead they kept shooting until they ran out of ammunition. I was lucky they didn’t shoot me.

My heart was broken into little pieces. When the police arrived, the Vigilantes told them they had come for a tour of the studio and they were attacked by the vicious dog that they shot in self defense. The police told me to clean up the mess and left.

Since then, I’ve become “The Avenger.” I liberate animals from vivisectionist laboratories and find them loving homes before they’re “operated on” in the name of so-called science. The array of oddities produced by the labs is both infuriating and heartbreaking. For example: the six-legged rabbit, the toothless donkey, finless fish, the cow with 25 udders. The list goes on and on, and I can’t help them, but, I can help the others.

Please send me $500 in memory of Skipper.

POSTSCRIPT

It was determined that this story is fake and provides a foundation for an egregious scam. Skipper is alive and well and his podcast is flourishing.

Definitions 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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Synathroesmus

Posted on April 24, 2025 | Leave a comment

Synathroesmus (sin-ath-res’-mus): 1. The conglomeration of many words and expressions either with similar meaning (= synonymia) or not (= congeries). 2. A gathering together of things scattered throughout a speech (= accumulatio [:Bringing together various points made throughout a speech and presenting them again in a forceful, climactic way. A blend of summary and climax.]).

I had trouble making comparisons that went anywhere, so I tried going random to see if anything would fall out. I tried: “The hammer had a tremor, like ticking jello, like a swishing metronome, a robust tick tock, a merry-making time piece, a jocular watch, a bathing suit rhythmically dripping water, the creamed beats of a drum—rump a pum pum.”

There. You see. They go nowhere, like people in a nursing home, beached polliwogs, grilled cheese Bloody Mary’s, weasels on a holiday.

Ahh! A holiday!

I finally got somewhere. I called my keeper Crispy and announced my plan. He demanded more detail, so I made some details up. Crispy had worked for my family for hundreds of years. My great great great Grandfather had liberated him from a pyramid while he was on an archeological dig in Egypt. Crispy was immortal. He had no insides and had been given a drug made of ground scarabs, powdered lapis lazuli, bullrushes, and a secret ingredient that bestowed immortality on him. Surprisingly, he did not exploit his immortality. Instead, he plodded along through the ages, serving our family faithfully out of gratitude to my great great great grandfather. He never ate, so he was cheap to keep, but he wasn’t very smart.

I told Crispy I had a plan, I told him we were going to Ukraine to fight in the war. Given his immortality, this was a perfect holiday for Crispy. But, he was concerned that I might get killed. I told him I didn’t care. He insisted we make arrangements to ship me home. I was surprised at his pessimism, but I was glad he was thinking ahead.

When we got to Ukraine. We were immediately sent to the front lines. It was hilarious seeing Crispy get shot. The bullets would knock him down, but he’d quickly get up and shake his ass at the Russians who had shot him. They’d shoot him again and he’d get up and shoot them. It was a riot seeing the looks on their faces when Crispy stood up a second time. I was a coward, so I’d always found a tree to hide behind and watch.

Then it happened.

I got shot in the butt running away from a Russian ambush. One AK round in the ass. That’s all it took. In the hospital, the nurses treated me like a god. One in particular treated me like a mega god and told me she loved me every day. Her name was Bohdan. She gave me extra ice cream and the “Tom Swift” series to me. I loved “Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship.” I vowed t build my own rocket ship when I got back to Nee Jersey. I would call it “Space ECKS” (Every Craft Knows Space) and launch it from North Jersey—maybe Newton.

I didn’t know whether Bohdan knew I was a multi-billionaire, and I didn’t care. Crispy told me to go for it, so I did. We were married. We lived in my private hotel in Atlantic City—“The Open Arms.” We slept in a different room every night, Crispy made us breakfast, and I worked on my rocket ship every day. Soon, we will land on your anus—ha ha—I mean “Uranus.”

That’s it. That’s my story.

POSTSCRIPTT

Bohdan ran off with Crispy. Crispy pushed her off a cliff and went back home to apologize for everything.

Definitions 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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Synecdoche

Posted on April 23, 2025 | Leave a comment

Synecdoche (si-nek’-do-kee): A whole is represented by naming one of its parts (or genus named for species), or vice versa (or species named for genus).

My new soles took me along the avenue, clomping along, looking through the glass at all the wonderful things for sale from agricultural implements to zebra skin throw rugs. I came to Mr. Zeldbanger’s jewelry store. He was too lazy to clear his shop’s window at night. There were watches, rings and necklaces sitting there yelling “Steal me!”

It was 2:00 am and the streets were deserted. I was pretty sure my new sneakers could get me out of there fast enough to evade arrest when Zeldbanger’s burglar alarm went off.

Yes! I was going to perform my first heist. I took out my hammer and was about ready to smash the window, when my uncle Rosco pulled up in his pimpmobile. He blew the horn and it played Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper.”

It was the most elaborate pimp mobile in New Jersey. It was “tomato” red with a tire mounted on the trunk lid with a picture of Al Capone painted on it with a cigar in his mouth. It said “No Law No Problem,” It had flashing blue lights in the wheel wells. it had three foot high tail fins, each with six brake lights and one back-up light. It had two specially fitted searchlights for headlights. The grill looked like a set of braces torn from a giant teenager’s mouth. The interior was upholstered in raccoon fur and there was a tanning bed in the trunk. The whole car operated as a sound system. It had a 1,200 horsepower airplane engine. The pimpmobile could go 350 MPH, but it only got 4 miles per gallon of gas.

Uncle Rosco loved his car more than anything—especially his wife and children who he characterize as “A royal pain in the ass.” He hit the automatic door opener and told me to get in the pimpmobile. His big purple hat with the mirrored hat band glistened in the beams of the interior ceiling light.

“What the f*ck are you doing?” he asked. i told him I was going to rob Mr. Zeldbanger’s jewelry store. He said “Oh, now I get it.” I showed him my hammer and told him I’d give him 10% if he’d be my getaway man. He told me he’d be honored. So, I took out my hammer, walked up to the window and smashed it. The alarm went off and I raked as much as I could from the display into my backpack. I heard police sirens and turned around. The pimpmobile was gone. “What a piece of shit” I thought as I took off running. I turned into an alley where the police cars couldn’t follow. I knew the cops were too lazy to run after me, so I got away as smooth as silk.

I saw Uncle Roscoe at the family Thanksgiving dinner a couple of weeks later. I pulled my gun and told him I would blow his balls off if he ever did something like he did at the jewelry store ever again. He said, “Get over it. If you’re going to be in the game, you’ve got to learn how to deal with betrayal. I taught you an important lesson kid.” “This is how I’m going to thank you” I said. I put my gun to his head and cocked it. Uncle Roscoe fainted face down in his mashed potatoes with gravy. Every body laughed when he came to with his face covered with mashed potatoes and gravy. Uncle Roscoe laughed too as he wiped the gravy off his purple pimp hat.

I was vindicated. I would steer clear of Uncle Roscoe and his bullshit. He was my mother’s brother. If he wasn’t, I would’ve sent him to his next incarnation, hopefully, as a pin-worm living in a dog’s ass.

Definitions 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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Synonymia

Posted on April 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

Synonymia (si-no-ni’-mi-a): In general, the use of several synonyms together to amplify or explain a given subject or term. A kind of repetition that adds emotional force or intellectual clarity. Synonymia often occurs in parallel fashion. The Latin synonym, interpretatio, suggests the expository and rational nature of this figure, while another Greek synonym, congeries, suggests the emotive possibilities of this figure.

Life: slippery, slick, silky. No, I am not talking about a skating rink. Like I already said, I’m talking about life with a capital “L.” Life. Living. Not a corpse in a morgue. Not a homeless man frozen to a city sidewalk. Not a squished squirrel flattened in the fast late. Not a spider under your shoe. None of the above, I am talking about heartbeat thumping. Body warm. Brain firing thoughts. Eyes seeing whatever is there. Nose pulling in odors, some pleasant. Tongue tasting, teeth chomping, hands gripping, bowels dumping, bladder sloshing, legs moving, and feet walking along a quiet beach on a warm moonless night, dragging your nameless victim out on the jetty to dispose of with a swift kick. Splash! Now it’s really finally over.

You can go home and take two or three showers and try to wash away the death feeling, the death smelling, the blood and the disquiet. The soap is slippery like life itself. It washes away the traces of what you’ve done.

A perfect stranger. Without knowing her, there can be no remorse, just vivid memories of the killing: the begging, the silence of the blade sliding into her heart. And before that, the seduction, the mounting friendship, the outstretched hand. The invitation to a walk on the beach. The unwarranted trust. The sweet talk. My memories of her corpse stretched out on the sand. Bleeding profusely, twitching toward the end, with a final inrush of breath—the sigh of death—a sad sound made all the sadder by being final.

I am a psychopath. I could be any number of other things: President of the United States, Father Brown, Mr. Clean—ha ha that’s a joke. Actually, I’m the boy next store. Nondescript. Nice. Helpful. Never swear. Live a secret life. Peeps though neighbor Molly’s window when she gets ready for bed. Steals things from his neighbor’s homes when they’re on vacation. Likes to stick his face in his mother’s underwear drawer. Likes to kick the cat Binker when nobody’s looking. One day I was going to run Binker over with the rotary lawnmower. But I wisely determined there would be too much evidence and I didn’t want to make up a story of how Binker ran in front the mower causing a horrible accident. Besides, I enjoyed kicking Binker, and that would be impossible if Binker was dead.

His parents had detected his madness when he came home covered in blood and said he had been hit by a car. He was prescribed medication after a visit to Dr. Wedge. He dutifully flushed his pills down the toilet every morning to maintain what he considered his “clarity” of thought.

Sexily dressed policewomen were dispatched undercover to the bars along the beach where he operated, clustered about a mile from the jetty. He walked into “Bob’s Big Mullet Bar.” There was a gorgeous woman sitting at the bar (she was a policewoman). He started with his usual patter, and asked her to take a walk on the beach. She agreed. After about 100 yards, he turned and attacked her. She Tasered him into oblivion and held him at gunpoint until her backup arrived.

He was arrested, booked, jailed, tried, convicted and sentenced to death for all the women he had killed. He was beheaded by special court order. His head was mounted on a pike and installed on the killing beach as a deterrent. At first, people complained, but eventually they got used to it and the “head on a pike” was employed by other beach communities. There was always a shortage of heads, but people took it in stride.

Definitions 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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Synthesis

Posted on April 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

Synthesis (sin’-the-sis): An apt arrangement of a composition, especially regarding the sounds of adjoining syllables and words.

I had grown a beak. A big yellow beautiful beak. I was wondering why it happened when I thought of my bird feeder. Feeding the birds was my hobby—helping them survive and thrive. My major bird buddies were Juncos, Gold Finches, Purple Finches, Tufted Titmice and one male talking Cardinal. All the rest of the birds just peeped and chittered, but the Cardinal was a real yapper. Christopher Cardinal told bird jokes: “What do you call birds who don’t know song lyrics? Hummingbirds.” That’s damn funny! He could actually sing songs about birds. For example: backed up by the Cat Bird Quartet providing the tune, he could kill the lyrics of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “”Free Bird” perched on top of the feeder with his Cardinal crest dyed blond:

But if I stay here with you, girl
Things just couldn’t be the same
‘Cause I’m as free as a bird now
And this bird you cannot change
Oh, oh, oh, oh
And the bird you cannot change
And this bird, you cannot change
Lord knows, I can’t change

He would flap his wings when he sang “Cause I’m as free as a bird now . . .” And the Catbird Quartet would bob up and down. I played my “Howdy Doody Peanut Gallery Guitar.” It had a crank that an engineer friend of mine had refashioned to play “Free Bird” over and over again when I cranked it.

Every once in awhile we’d do a night show. I would duct tape my flashlight to a mop handle and prop it up against the front of the house, about ten feet from the feeder. I would turn on the flashing function and we’d have a real light show. We’d do “Rockin’ Robin,” “Robin in the Rain,” and we’d often close with Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on the Wire.” It is totally depressing, but it gives you a lot to think about:

Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free
Like a worm on a hook
Like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee

Wow! And then, last but not least, the Cardinal recites bird-oriented poetry! My foavorite is Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the Thing With Feathers”:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all, , , ,

This is all pretty amazing. I feel blessed to have a talking Cardinal for a friend. As long as I keep feeding him and the other birds they all keep coming back for more. Two days ago a Canada Goose landed by the feeder and looked straight at me and said “F*ck you!” I did what I had to do and had roast goose for dinner that night. I blew a hole in the kitchen window screen, but that does not matter. I will not let a goose get away with insulting me.

So, what about my beak? I must admit it’s fake. It is part of the chicken suit I wear around the house, out in the yard, and grocery shopping too. it has an egg pocket in the back that works to lay eggs. Without fail, I lay two per day! Christopher thinks it’s hilarious.

Let just say in closing, after I saw the movie “The Birds” I couldn’t sleep. It made me realize that there are bad birds who hate humans and want to peck them out of existence. In a way they are like my neighbors who want to metaphorically peck me to death with taunts when I play my Howdy Doody guitar or wear my chicken suit to the grocery store. Maybe I could do to them what I did to the Canada Goose.

Ha ha. I can see Mr. Joblousy on his back on my dining room table with his arms and legs sticking up and his butt stuffed with chestnut dressing.

Definitions 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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Syntheton

Posted on April 20, 2025 | Leave a comment

Syntheton (sin’-the-ton): When by convention two words are joined by a conjunction for emphasis.

Death and taxes, life’s two certainties. But who cares? I specialize in uncertainty, experiencing it and cultivating it. I revel in anxiety—mine and yours. I am a “Worry Wart.” I help free people from the trap of certitude—that bleak unchanging mental place, where you’re stuck in the grip of truth—always, everywhere the same. Blah, blah, blah.

Certainty is like a lump of coal in your stocking on Christmas morning. Santa pulls no punches, so you know you’re naughty. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. That’s it. No room for improvement. No chance for redemption. You think “naughty” is the truth, but it isn’t. A Worry Wart can encompass this “truth” growing over it and masking its effect—it can throb with questions pounding away at the “truth.” What if Santa didn’t put the lump of coal in your stocking? What if Santa put the lump of coal in your stocking by mistake? What if there is no such thing as Santa? Good God!

There is this sweet anxiety prompted by the questions above. You worry. The space between the questions prompts anxiety as you wonder about the accuracy of the naughty-imputation signified by the lump of coal. Where should you turn? What should you believe? The foundation of your self concept has been shaken. The “truth” of the coal’s “naughty” projection has been shattered into shards, which, at best, now construe the possible. But the shards would have to be put back together again. It is uncomfortable. It is disconcerting. It is probably impossible.

Now, you try being nice. It is a choice. “Nice” takes a sort of competence imbued by practice. But you realize that being naughty works the same way. You must desire to be nice. You must desire to be naughty. And what is more disconcerting—you can be naughty and nice. Not at the same time, though. Now you are really provoked! Where does the “wanting” come from? The same place everything else comes from.

Human nature! The womb of human nurture: the social matrix that gives birth to character and cultivates its changes prompted by experience caught in worry, flowing inexorably toward the unknowable future.

POSTSCRIPT

Worry Wart has done it again! Functional anxiety will set you free.

Definitions 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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Synzeugma

Posted on April 19, 2025 | Leave a comment

Synzeugma (sin-zoog’-ma): That kind of zeugma in which a verb joins (and governs) two phrases by coming between them. A synonym for mesozeugma.

My head was metaphorically furry, bleating sheepishly. I was a sheepaphile. I loved wool. Soft, luxuriant, furry, good smelling. I had a pet sheep named Bobby. Sometimes I called him Bobby Baa Baa. Sometimes I would dress up like Mary and he would follow me around our apartment. Sometimes I would dress up like Little Bo Peep. I pretended I had lost my sheep and Bobby would hide somewhere in the apartment. There was only one place to hide, so I would find him every time wedged in my closet. It was great fun.

I would try to take Bobby for a walk as often as I could, but it was hard. My neighbor had an Australian Sheep Dog. If he saw me and Bobby walk by, he would go berserk in the window until my stupid neighbor would let him out. The Sheep Dog’s name was Crikey, and no matter how loud and angrily my neighbor called him, Crikey would ignore him and crouch down on the sidewalk trying to “herd” Bobby. Bobby would bleat and paw the sidewalk as a warning. He’d give Crikey his best combat head butt. Crikey would roll over and play dead. Without a word, my neighbor Iggy would come outside, hand me a beer, and drag Crikey up the front steps and back into his apartment. This happens at least once a month. I think Iggy plans it this way. I wish he’d wear a shirt.

Then there was the “Wooly Bully,” a “mutant” sheep that lived in the woods adjacent to the park where we took our walks. On one of our walks, one day in late September, we were walking on a trail in the woods. We heard an extremely loud fart—almost like a tractor trailer truck air horn. Billy made a sound like he had never made before. It sounded more like “daa” than “baa.”

The Wooly Bully stuck its head out of the bushes. It had two big horns and a wooly jaw, just like in the song! Billy was going crazy bleating “daa, daa, daa.” Then I got it! Apparently the Wooly Bully was Billy’s estranged father. This made Billy an extremely rare cross-breed of sheep. I found out that the Wooly Bully wasn’t a mutant after all. He was a Tibetan Valley Sheep, bred for his wool and also to guard villagers against marauding Yetis. We’ll never know how the Wooly Bully got to the US. It could’ve been during the Great Tibetan Migration of 1902, when the Yaks stopped giving milk and the Tibetans faced starvation. Billy’s dad could be descended from those original Wooly Bullies who emigrated with the Tibetans.

Now, Billy visits “Wooly” once a week. They spend time butting each other and playing “Yeti Attack.” I play the Yeti and get knocked around pretty good when we play.

I was thinking about buying us a Yak. We could make Kumis and get drunk while we watch pro wrestling or Netflix. But, Yaks are hard to find in New York. Besides, I don’t know how I’d fit a Yak in the apartment along with Billy. So, I got Billy a tattoo of a Yeti on his ear to remind him of his heritage.

Definitions 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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Systrophe

Posted on April 18, 2025 | Leave a comment

Systrophe (si’-stro-fee): The listing of many qualities or descriptions of someone or something, without providing an explicit definition.

Exciting! Breathtaking! Mega-tremendous! Off the charts! Spectacular!

I had ridden on it 240 times. So far this summer, I added another 22 trips to the edge heaven. It seemed like it went every direction all at once.

I took acid and rode it.

Although it only took six minutes to transit its course, on acid it was like two days. I saw my high school Math teacher hanging upside down and scratching one of his armpits and saying “Two times two is nine—number nine, number nine, number nine.” He had a Beatles wig on and was dressed like Pee-Wee Herman. Then, after a breath-taking dip—a quarter-mile straight down at 100 MPH—behold: Tinker Bell! She was holding a fly swatter instead of a wand. I turn into a big fly and she pulls off my fly wings and swats me on the back of the head. Then she turns into a turnstile and says “You may pass shithead.” I speed off in my paper sky boat. It catches on fire—pretty blue and orange flames. I stand up and whip it out. My penis turns into a fire hose streaming red Kool-Aid. The fire goes out. Ahead, I see a tunnel. It has a banner hanging over the entrance saying “Love Tunnel.”

I whoosh into the tunnel. It is filled with naked women reaching for me and saying “Please” over and over again. I reach for one and she turns into a puddle of cackling yellow goo. I look down. The floor is covered with yellow goo. A cadre of school crossing guards marches into the tunnel from the other end. They use their stop sign paddles like snow shovels to shovel up the goo. I am saved! I move on.

I come out the end of the tunnel. I’m stretched out on my living room couch. I’m watching Wink Martindale beating “Tic-Tac-Dough” contestants with a tire iron.

The acid wears off. It’s been another awesome day and it’s time to go home. As I walk home picking up deposit cans off the roadside and putting them in a plastic bag, I wonder why the cans are not talking to me today.

Definitions 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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Tapinosis

Posted on April 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

Tapinosis (ta-pi-no’-sis): Giving a name to something which diminishes it in importance.

“Teeny Weenie.” That’s what they called me in the showers after gym class. It was true, that’s why it hurt so much. I did have a teeny weenie. It was less than an inch long and as big around as my pinky. It looked like a stubby pencil with a pink eraser. It was pitiful. When it got erect, it didn’t grow longer. It just got a little fatter, like a teeny fire hydrant.

The first time I used it for sex was with my high school girlfriend, Tammy. When I finished, she asked me if we’d done it yet. I told her we had and she started laughing and calling me “Teeny Weenie.” I was devastated and vowed to find a way to make my teeny weenie grow. My first idea was to stretch it.

I glued two of my sister’s cotton balls into the jaws of my father’s pliers. My strategy was to “squeeze and pull” my teeny weenie into a a full blown hot dog—a snappy griller with length and girth capable of doing the job.

My plan failed. The cotton balls came loose and I pinched my teeny weenie as I pulled it with the pliers. I cut it badly and had to go to the Emergency Room. They put a big white bandage on it that bulged in my pants. Now, in the showers they called me “Band Aid Dick.” As soon as it healed, I devised another plan.

I took the cardboard cylinder from a roll of toilet paper, pained it as close as I could to my skin color, and glued a ping pong ball with a pin hole in it to the tip. I filled the tube with clay hollowed out to fit my teeny weenie. This would secure my new “Mega Pecker” so cylinder wouldn’t fall off when I whipped it out.

It was show time!

I put on my father’s overcoat with no clothes on underneath. I positioned myself outside the girl’s restroom at school. A little group of girls came out of the restroom and I opened my coat with a flourish putting my cardboard mega pecker on full display. Unfortunately, my teeny weenie had warmed the clay and caused my mega pecker to slide off. The girls laughed. One of them said, “Oh. It’s Teeny Weenie! Pecker Pervert!”

I was humiliated. I was suspended from school for one year.

I turned to “Doin’ It,” my favorite porn site. It advertised a product called “T-Bone Tower,” a supplement you could take to “make it bigger.” The before and after photos convinced me. The pills were $75.00 for a bottle of 30. I got a part time job washing street signs. In 2 months, I had the $75.00. I put it in an envelope, filled out the order blank, and mailed it to T-Bone Tower.

The pills came in two days. In my desperation I took the whole bottle. It was a mistake. Almost instantly my teeny weenie started to grow—and grow, and grow. By the time it stopped it was three feet long!

I had already turned 18 so I went into the porn movie business. I was known as “Anaconda Man” and I did “constrictor” porn. I had trained my big Anaconda to wrap around women. Wearing a snakeskin condom, it looked like I was squeezing them to death. The squeezing served as foreplay for the main event. The Anaconda “shed” its skin and slithered home. My films filled a perverse niche—and probably made me my own niche in hell.

The effects of T-Bone Tower only last two days. So, I had to down a bottle every-other day to keep my Anaconda going. It was tiresome, but I lived in constant fear of becoming “Teeny Weenie” again, so I didn’t really have a choice.

Definitions 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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Tasis

Posted on April 16, 2025 | Leave a comment

Tasis (ta’-sis): Sustaining the pronunciation of a word or phrase because of its pleasant sound. A figure apparent in delivery.

“Beautifullll! Wonderfullll! Over the rainbowwww!” I was looking at my reflection in the mirror. I liked what I saw. I had had the big three: eyebrows, boobs, and butt. I had my hairy old eyebrows removed. I had them replaced by snake tattoos slithering across my forehead where my eyebrows used to be. They were exotic, poetic, and cool. I named the left one “Snakey” and the right one “Serpentina.”

My boobs had always been too small. People called them “button boobs.” I got tired of that. Nobody wants a button for a boob! It’s like having a tube of lipstick for a toe, or an ashtray for a kneecap. Stupid! So I got a boob job to make them bigger—more confident, more cocky, more visible.

I had always loved Paramount Pictures. Some of my favorite movies have been produced by them. “The Godfather” and “Forest Gump” are my two favorites, but I love them all. That’s why my new boobs are modeled after the mountain on the Paramount Pictures logo. I had snow caps tattooed on them with a tiny Marlon Brando climbing the left one and a tiny Tom Hanks climbing the right one. There’s an annual tattoo convention in Vegas and I’m going to enter the “Most Innovative Tattoo” contest. I don’t think I’ll win, but it will be fun.

My butt was like my boobs. I had a pancake but. There wasn’t much there you could call a butt. It was so flat and bony when I sat on somebody’s lap it was painful for them. They’d say “Ow!” and push me off. It wasn’t very romantic. Then I heard of the “bubble butt.” I got bubble butt implants. They bring my butt up to par and more.

The implants are the size of cinder blocks. Unlike cinder blocks, the edges are rounded to look like butt cheeks. At five pounds per cheek, they are a little heavy. I can’t run. My plastic surgeon says something may tear. That would be embarrassing if I was on a date or something. Besides, I’m not about to run with my bubble butt—it would make a loud sloshing sound courtesy of the silicone in the implants. But, I love my bubble butt. Along with my snake eyebrows and mountain boobs, I am quite attractive and get the kind of attention I like. Next week I’m getting a tattoo of floating bubbles on my butt. Very cooool!

I’m thinking now of getting a nose job. I want my nose to look like the Paramount Pictures mountain, but it would be tattoo free. However, it would still coordinate nicely with my boobs.

POSTSCRIPT

She was leaving “Inked All Over” after getting the bubble tattoo. She slipped on a patch of ice and landed on her butt. Her butt exploded in a shower of silicone.

She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. It was tragic. Her most recent boyfriend Billy-B wanted to fly her body to Vegas and enter it in the “Most Innovative Tattoo” contest. Because of the red tape and the cost, he was unable to do so.

Definitions 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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Thaumasmus

Posted on April 15, 2025 | Leave a comment

Thaumasmus (thau-mas’-mus): To marvel at something rather than to state it in a matter of fact way.

This is totally unbelievable. It’s like meeting a shark in a movie theater rest room or having a toad jump out of an orange you’re about to peel and eat, or seeing your grandma levitating over her bed pan.

Unprecedented!

I was taking a shower two days in a row! Don’t cry for me Argentina. I have adopted a new hygiene regime. I’m tired of people saying “What’s that smell?” when I approach them. And then, when I get close to them, they say things like “I smell raw onions” or “Did you roll in fertilizer?”

Until now, taking a shower has always been a choice for me—a sort of political statement and expression of my autonomy. I cut back to once-a-month in the sixties when everybody had an axe to grind. My smell went with my long hair and beard. People would say: “Where did you get that righteous smell, Dude?” Or “Far out on the odor, man.” I was a walking talking site of protest. I had a slogan I would chant in elevators and other closed places: “if you don’t like my smell, go ahead and go to hell.” When I said it in an elevator people would applaud and yell “Right on, man. Stink man, stink—stink it to the man.”

I was on top of my game. I had a purpose in life. I smelled. I wafted. I showed all those sweet-smelling losers that they were victims of the odor industry, masking the smells God gave them to find peace, love and happiness on the ripe winds of B.O.

It is 1980 now and those days are gone over. Now, my odor is seen as a sign of neglect and even neurosis. I had smelled the way I had smelled for over a decade and my world was falling apart. I had no friends and I had trouble keeping a job due to my smell. My last job was at McDonald’s. I thought the smell of the kitchen would mask my B.O., but it didn’t. People said my smell was ruining their meals. I was fired. As I was going out the door a woman grabbed me by the arm. She smelled like me. She said: “I know what you’re going through, dude.”

She has saved my life.

We sat on a park bench and started talking. Her name was Chive and she said she was tired of catcalls and abuse for her smell. She realized she couldn’t change the world. She was ready for a change. She had a paper bag with two bars of Dial Soap in it. We went to her place and showered together. It was ecstasy. We vowed to start with two showers per week and then, eventually a shower every day would be our goal.

There I was, holding the soap and waiting for Chive.

We were only at day two, but given that we showered together, I was converted. It was wonderful. I was sure that after today our smells would be controlled.

I was so grateful that Chive had come into my life—so suddenly, just at the right time.

The sixties were groovy, but wow, the eighties were going to be dope. After a week, we were already set to be married and had already settled on the name of our first child: Glade.

Definitions 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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Tmesis

Posted on April 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

Tmesis (tmee’-sis): Interjecting a word or phrase between parts of a compound word or between syllables of a word.

“Oat-shit-meal.” That’s what I called it as soon as I learned to swear. Every morning, oatmeal. Every morning prepared the same way: plain. No sugar. No Half & Half. No fruit. No nothing. Just the steaming brown glop in a small metal dog dish. Yes, dog dish! My mother got it at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. It was imprinted with bones around the rim and I could annoy my mother by tapping my spoon on it.

It was like having hot ground boiled watery cardboard for breakfast every morning. And then there was lunch.

My mother put the leftover oatmeal in small shallow Tupperware containers and refrigerated them. The oatmeal would take on the consistency of refrigerated meatloaf. Mom would slice the refrigerated oatmeal into 1/4 inch thick squares. These were our special cold cuts. She would put one on a slice of bread, top it with a slice of American cheese, and slap another slice of bread on top. Unsurprisingly, she called them “Oatmeal Sandwiches.” She had submitted her “recipe” for her sandwiches to numerous food-oriented magazines and was rejected every time. That did not deter her—we had Oatmeal Sandwiches every day for lunch.

Mom saved Quaker Oats containers. She decorated them and sold them as tom-toms on the web. She would dip them in different-colored paint and decorate them with painted macaroni, seashells, pumpkin seeds, leaves and scraps of different-colored cloth.

Her web-shop was called “Dead Drummer Girl.” We thought she would never sell a single tom-tom, especially with the name of the shop. But we were wrong.

Punk Rock was making its debut. The first band to buy one of her tom-tom’s was the highly innovative punk band “Santa’s Wanker.” Mom’s tom-toms became ragingly popular. After Johnny Balls puked on the stage he would roll around in it playing the tom-tom in a ten-minute solo that was characterized as “shocking.” Santa’s Wanker was killed in a dumpster fire, but that did not slow things down. If anything, it caused a surge in sales. All the great punk bands had to have a tom-tom from Dead Drummer Girl.

Mom started selling the tom-toms for $2,000 each. She made millions before she quit. She quit when Iggy Stool did “something too weird” with one of her tom-tom’s. It didn’t happen on stage. We’ll never know. Mom disavowed any relationship to oatmeal. Our lives changed considerably, and we started going to IHOP for breakfast and Shogun Sushi for dinner,

Definitions 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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Topographia

Posted on April 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

Topographia (top-o-graf’-i-a): Description of a place. A kind of enargia [: {en-ar’-gi-a} generic name for a group of figures aiming at vivid, lively description].

“Milly Joe’s Eats” was the pinnacle of eating out. I had been around the world five times and I always came back to Milly’s. It had a flashing neon sign that said “Mill Jo ats ,” it had been burned out for fifteen years and a lot people thought its truncated lettering was actually the restaurant’s name.

It was located in a former gas station down the street from The Rahway State Prison. Most of the guards ate lunch there coughing their heads off from the tuberculosis they contracted working in the prison. Between boughts of coughing and choking they’d tell stories about their lives and times as guards.

For example, one time there was a prisoner who thought he had escaped. He relentlessly looked for Cliff’s convenience store—he looked under his mattress, in cracks in the floor, even in the toilet. He needed to buy a scratch-off lotto ticket, a can of Red Bull, and a pack of tiparillo cigars. He did this every day for 25 years. Finally, his appeals were exhausted. He was executed. For his “last wish” before he was executed, he asked for a can of Red Bull, a lotto ticket and a Tiparillo. He drank the Red Bull and smoked his Tiparillo while he scratched off his lotto ticket. He won $1,000,000 and went off to get his lethal injection. The lottery winnings were divided among the 5 guards who oversaw the execution.

My two favorite things about Milly’s are the food and decor. There are only three things on the menu: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Breakfast consists of three fried eggs sunny side up and calf’s liver with onions. Lunch consists of 4 slices of baloney, 6 saltines, mustard dip and calf’s liver with onions. Dinner is the best: pizza topped with American cheese slices, and calf’s liver with onions. Just thinking about it, my stomach is rumbling.

Then, there’s the decor. The are pictures of New Jersey Governors plastered on the wall, going back to 1925. The photos are candid and show the governors having a good time with their mistresses, taking bribes, shaking hands with Mafia Dons, and in one case, running over a chicken with a Ballot 4-Light Saloon Car.

There are no tables in Milly’s. There’s just one 150 foot counter that snakes its way around the restaurant. Oh, there is one table down in the grease pit where the lift used to be. Milly built in a ramp so people in wheelchairs can use the pit, but it is mostly for family gatherings: birthdays, anniversaries, engagements, etc. The counter stools are upholstered in “genuine” Naugahyde. When it’s time to go, you slide off your stool like it’s slathered with butter. What a feeling!

Milly passed away 20 years ago. She’s buried in one of the 300-gallon tanks that were used to store gas for the pumps when the restaurant was an ESSO gas station. What a beautiful sentiment. It almost makes me cry to think of Milly laying out there on her back underneath the parking lot.

So, if you’re ever visiting a friend or relative at the prison, make sure to try out “Milly Joe’s Eats.” It epitomizes New Jersey’s complex cultural matrix, providing hearty meals and good fellowship for over 100 years.

There’s a Milly’s tradition: Whenever a fly buzzes around your head, another meal has probably been served at Milly’s. Stop what you’re doing and give thanks.

Definitions 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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Traductio

Posted on April 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

Traductio (tra-duk’-ti-o): Repeating the same word variously throughout a sentence or thought. Some authorities restrict traductio further to mean repeating the same word but with a different meaning (see ploce, antanaclasis, and diaphora), or in a different form (polyptoton). If the repeated word occurs in parallel fashion at the beginnings of phrases or clauses, it becomes anaphora; at the endings of phrases or clauses, epistrophe.

My truck was dead. My Christmas Cactus was dead. Worst of all my goldfish Sparkle was dead. We had been living together for 12 years. I was 10 when I stole him from the pet store and brought him home in a baggie and dumped him in my bathroom sink. Then I found a pitcher in the kitchen cupboard and Sparkle had a new home. I called him Sparkle because he sparkled—his orange scales were like so many sunsets decorating his sides. Now he was dead. I ground him up in the garbage disposal and sent him to the big fish pond in the sky where he will have eternal life among the catfish, sunfish, polliwogs, and frogs. Bless you Sparkle.

Then there’s my truck—faithful Buck the Truck. I rode the highways and byways in Buck, stealing mail and packages from peoples’ front porches. I fenced so many valuable things at “Humming Fence Goods and Services.” My friend Stewy ran the business which he had inherited from his father who was serving twenty years to life. It’s unfair. He shouldn’t even be in prison. Everybody knows that Stewy’s mother was decapitated by a faulty chainsaw that Stewy’s father was waving around. He spun into Stewy’s tied up mother and the chainsaw wouldn’t turn off. Stewy’s mother was tied up because his father was practicing knot-tying for his motorboat license. Even though Stewy’s mother was having an affair with the mailman, Stewy’s father was ok with it. He only threatened to kill him three times. Stewy’s mother was threatened on a daily basis but she took it in stride—she knew that Stewy’s father was just kidding.

Anyway, my tuck had rusted so badly it collapsed in the driveway in a tangle of oxidized metal. The rust had started with the bullet hole in the driver’s side door and slowly infected the whole truck. The bullet was meant for me, but it missed and hit my little brother in the shoulder. It didn’t kill him, thank God, but it killed his prospects for being a professional golfer. He was bitter for the rest of his life. He ended up selling used cars at “Smarty Arty’s Rolling Rods.”

I had had my Christmas Cactus nearly my whole life. It was given to me 10 minutes after I was born. I was too little to appreciate it, but as I got older, I appreciated it more and more. It had beautiful reddish-orange flowers that poked out of the petals’ tips like little fists. I named my cactus Calvin and watered him once a week. This went on for 33 years. Then, two days ago he dropped dead—literally. All his leaves fell off, piling up around his pot. Today, I put Calvin in a paper shopping bag and threw him on the pile of crap in my back yard. Now, when I look out the kitchen window I feel a twinge of sorrow, but I’m too lazy to move him somewhere else. It’s horrible.

The fish. The truck. The plant. There’s nothing I can do except fill the void with new versions of the fish, the truck, and the plant. I’m going “fishing” at the pet store this afternoon. Equipped with a zip-loc bag, I’m sure to score a new Sparkle. My brother is setting me up with a “broken in” 1992 Ford pickup. Aside from the missing headlights, the “relaxed” bench seat, rusted rims, and missing truck bed, it’s good to go. I’m excited—it comes with a complimentary quarter tank of gas!

The Christmas cactus is a real challenge. I headed off to Lowe’s. They had baby Christmas cacti lined up under a purple grow light. Security had been tightened after a rash of yard tool robberies. Since people are no longer able to hire illegal immigrants to do their landscaping, they have do their own. The tools are expensive, so they steal them.

I got an idea!

I yelled “I saw a Venezuelan guy with tattoos, over there!” I pointed toward the other end of the store. All the security people ran to the other end of the store. I grabbed the cactus and ran out the door, jumped in Buck II, and drove home.

I was whole again. My grief was vanished.

Definitions 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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Tricolon

Posted on April 11, 2025 | Leave a comment

Tricolon (tri-co-lon): Three parallel elements of the same length occurring together in a series.

I could be tough. I could be rough. I could be janky. Since nobody knows what janky is, I could get away with being janky all the time. Since I’m switching over to a more obscure and more enjoyable character attribute, I will reveal the meaning of janky as it compliments being tough and rough.

Janky can mean junky—like cheap shit crap. As a character attribute, it’s close to lanky and rhymes with it. Lanky Janky, or janky lanky. Being janky, you can see yourself as one of those stuffed animals you can win at the county fair—maybe a Goofy doll. He’s lanky, and Janky. Or maybe you be cranky janky. That would push you toward tough and rough. Your anger would obscure your janky hood, keeping it obscured and passing for something other than junk, the goal of all junk. Or jankyhood. You sort of adopt the ethos of a used car salesperson—always, all the time, with everything. You begin every interaction with “Have I got a deal for you!” Then you sell yourself as a really valuable piece of jank. You talk about your heritage, your education, your height and weight, the car you drive, and your job as a busboy at a really expensive restaurant: that’s biggest piece of junk that you’ve got to offer. If you pitch it right you’ll have a Janky’s dream: pity. If the person you’re talking to says “You poor bastard,” you have hit the jackpot, the whole purpose for being janky: pity! As you revel in the pity, you realize you’ve found your place in the social matrix: the bottom, the landfill, the garbage heap. Relax on a worn-out seat cushion and cook those potato peels on a stick over the fire in the cracked sink you found.

But that’s not all. There’s more to janky than junky.

It also means faulty or functioning improperly. There’s a lot of room to encompass the human condition in “faulty.” Being faulty is a sumptuous luxury. Being known as faulty, you can get away with almost anything. The rallying cry “I’m faulty” will prove to be a baseline excuse for just about every personal failure, from being late to running over your wife in your driveway and killing her. No matter what ulterior motive you may have had “I’m faulty” will see you through.

POSTSCRIPT

We read this paper several times and can’t really tell what its point is. We think it may be something like the power that adjectives have to determine our lives. Once you’ve accepted an attribution and the adjective enmeshes you, you become the adjective. But, attribution isn’t essence. For example, no matter how much you want to be called “honest,” as a virtue, being honest can be evil. Honesty can hurt peoples’ feelings and even get them killed. Right?

Your being is a constantly rotating kaleidoscope of conflicting points of view. Life makes it rotate. We all live on a fault line, waiting for the BIG ONE.

Just get used to it.

Definitions 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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Abating

Posted on April 10, 2025 | Leave a comment

Abating: English term for anesis: adding a concluding sentence that diminishes the effect of what has been said previously. The opposite of epitasis (the addition of a concluding sentence that merely emphasizes what has already been stated. A kind of amplification).

“I love you, but not totally. I need to control my emotions or I’ll go berserk. I know I’m mentally unbalanced. On a good day, I can’t see the forest for the trees. On a bad day I want to burn the forest down and throw hand grenades at the fleeing animals. ‘Oops, there goes another problem ker-plop.‘ This is the way it ought to be Miss Pinkwell, but I’ll call you ‘ Barbara’ since we’re heading to Mexico to get married.”

Wow! What day. I had Barbara, my 8th grade English teacher, all taped up. She was wiggling around, obviously doing some kind of tantalizing love dance in the car’s front seat. I was going to knock her unconscious when we got to the border. I will untape her and put a blanket over her so she’d look like she’s sleeping.

Barbara is my first girlfriend ever (aside from my mom). I could tell she loved me when she would call on me and scold me for napping in class. But, when she crossed her legs under her desk, I couldn’t stop panting and crossing my own legs too. She kept me after class one day and told me I was weird and that she was going to recommend to Mom that I should go into psychological counseling “before it was too late.” It was already too late.

I broke into her house and covered her with duct tape. Then, we took her car and headed to Mexico to get married. We lived in San Diego, so the Mexican border was not that far. We would cross at Tijuana. I could see the border lights ahead so I whacked Barbara over the head with a tire iron I got out of the trunk, and rendered her unconscious. I untaped her and put a blanket over her as planned.

The US customs agent asked me why I was going to Mexico. I told him “Me and Barbara are going to get married.” I pointed at the “sleeping” Barbara. He looked surprised and told me to “Pull over there.”

Barbara was regaining consciousness and was yelling, “Save me! He’s a maniac!” The customs agent said “Son, you’re a little young for her. You better back off.” Barbara screamed again as two customs agents dragged her to a holding cell. She was going to be investigated for having a relationship with a minor.

I got back in Barbara’s car and crossed the border. I got a job selling balloons and fake Cuban cigars. Since I had disappeared, Barbara couldn’t be tried. She was released, but the story of our “love ride” had gotten back to Long Acres Middle School. she was ruined, but she married Bill Slothburger when he turned 18.

I was heartbroken.

Two weeks after they were married, Bill “fell” down a flight of stairs in their new home and died from a broken neck. I felt a sense of relief and was ready to give Barbara another try.

Definitions 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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Abbaser

Posted on April 9, 2025 | Leave a comment

Abbaser [George] Puttenham’s English term for tapinosis. Also equivalent to meiosis: reference to something with a name disproportionately lesser than its nature (a kind of litotes: deliberate understatement, especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite)

I’m no hero. I’m no coward either. Well, I say Mount Everest is a Tibetan molehill. You may be thinking I’ve gone off the rails, but I’m talking about the power of attitude. My attitude can cut Mount Everest’s altitude down to a pimple on a Buddhist monk’s butt. I’m going to climb that little bump or my name isn’t Carl Young.

The mountain’s so-called height makes it seem insurmountable. It symbolizes strenuous walking along an upward incline. It symbolizes heavy breathing, expensive climbing boots, sore muscles, constipation, and memory loss. It is one of the toughest symbols in the pantheon of archetypes, perhaps bested only by the valley—the warm and sticky linear fissure in the soul of nature. Like a Venus Flytrap it entices its unwary prey into its sweet abyss. Its edges are littered with fallen saints overcome by passion and frozen in time. The valley must be shunned at all costs. If you succumb to its glistening slippery rim your life will become a repetitive treadmill of desire forever distracted, forever wanting to slide into the abyss head first. Amen.

I was going to Tibet to conquer Mount Everest for myself. To struggle with the perils and bury my fear. I would be a man—a man’s man, a manly man, a man among men. I took the bus from the airport. I could see Mount Everest everywhere I looked. Mt. Everest was ubiquitous, but it looked fake, like a piece of cardboard with a picture on it. I hired a Sherpa from “Cut Rate Sherpas.” His name was Gunga Dill. I asked him about my cardboard cutout theory and he laughed. That was it, he just laughed.

We loaded up the next day to begin our trek to Basecamp Jerry Lewis. Evidently, there was a French influence operative here. I had bought a BarcaLounger at the market for climbing breaks on our way up. With some difficulty Gunga was able to load it on his back.

POSTSCRIPT

The narrative abruptly ends here. Mr. Young was run over and killed by a ghee delivery truck before he even had a chance to don his expensive climbing boots. Gunga kept the BarcaLounger.

Definitions 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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Abecedarian

Posted on April 8, 2025 | Leave a comment

Abecedarian (a-be-ce-da’-ri-an): An acrostic whose letters do not spell a word but follow the order (more or less) of the alphabet.

“A big cat developed eczema. Finding gritty helpful itching jabbers . . .” I was trying to create an Abecedarian—the first letter in each word follows the order of the alphabet. I had been working on it for three days but I was stuck on “J.” I had nightmares and came down with a cough. I was starting to think the Abecedarian was killing me. I know, it’s ridiculous, but not for somebody like me. I had killed my high school biology teacher Mr. Beazock when I yelled “You stink!” at him. He clutched his chest and flopped around on the floor and died in front of 22 teenagers. The worst was the drool that came out of his mouth and dripped on the floor after his final flop.

His doctor told me it wasn’t my fault—that it was the jelly donuts, the butter, and the whipping cream he used on his breakfast cereal and dumped in his coffee that had brought his life to an end with a stroke that had exploded his clogged-up heart. No matter what anybody said, I persisted in my belief that words can kill and that I had killed Mr. Beazock.

I got a job in a nursing home to prove my point. On my first day, I told an 85-year old lady that her husband was secretly “dating” his 27 year-old niece Betty and she was pregnant and they were going to get married as soon as they killed her. She started choking on her oatmeal and she died. Technically, it was the choking that killed her, but my lie about her husband had started the ball rolling. I had the power of killing!

I set up a site on the dark web called “Mr. Beazock’s Heart Attack.” It was named after my biology teacher, my first kill. I charged $10,000 to hit victims with words.

My first client wanted me to kill his father. His father was 97 and on the verge of death and had been talking about disinheriting my client. I knocked on his father’s door posing as a Jehovah’s Witness. While we’re talking about the Lord, he fell asleep. I stuck my life-like rubber snake up his pants leg and yelled “There’s a snake crawling up you pants leg!” He said “Wah?” and died of a heart attack. I pulled the snake out of his pants leg and called an ambulance, Everything went according to plan.

I collected my $10,000 and went out to dinner at the best restaurant I could find. It was called “Holy Shit!” because that’s what most people said when they saw the prices on the menu. For example, a slice of pumpkin pie was $300.00. At the end of my meal, I ordered the pumpkin pie for desert.

Suddenly, there was a beautiful woman standing at my table. She said “How’s the pie, big boy?” I was smitten. I asked he to join me and ordered a bottle of champagne. We got pretty drunk and went back to my apartment. It was cramped. It was untidy. I should’ve taken her to a fancy hotel. When I opened the door she said “PU!” and waved her hand in front her nose. It was gas! There was a huge explosion. It killed her and put me in the hospital for two months.

I took down my website and cancelled all my contracts. I decided to become a high school biology teacher to atone for Mr. Beazock’s murder. I enrolled in the local community college, majoring in biology. That’s where I met Teresa Trimp, the lying, conniving, cheating, back-stabbing tramp that I fell in love with. She lied to me about her feelings for me, cheated on me with one of our professors, and hacked my credit card. I asked her to marry me and she agreed on the condition that I give her all my money in cash. So, we got married.

I graduated from the community college. I transferred to Dick Jones University in Swanton, Vermont. We moved to Swanton. I would come home and there would be a line of frat boys outside the bathroom. One day, I pulled open the door and there she was sitting on the toilet with a cardboard box filled with $20.00 bills on the floor beside her. “Shut the door, I’m peeing!” she yelled, but I could see the silhouette of a person behind the shower curtain.

She was a whore! I took her for a walk in the woods. She asked why I was carrying a shovel. I yelled “Look me in the eye and tell me you love me!” She did and I hit her in the face with the shovel and I kept hitting her when she fell to the ground. I must’ve hit her on the head at least 20 times before I buried her in the woods and went home.

Definitions 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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Accismus

Posted on April 7, 2025 | Leave a comment

Accismus (ak-iz’-mus): A feigned refusal of that which is earnestly desired.

“”I lifted fifteen tons, and what did I get? Another day older and deeper in debt.” That’s Tennessee Earnie Ford telling it like it was for him. He was pissed off, but he was a whiner. You’re going to get a year older no matter what you do—lift fifteen tons or jog 10 miles every day. And, if you’re going to send your kid to college, live in a decent home, or have nice new car, you’re bound to be in debt. We’re all getting a year older. We’re all in debt. We’re all human. We’re Americans. We have so much to be grateful for. In Tennessee Earnie’s case, he had the Union to help him through Black Lung disease and cross over to the other side choking on his comfy cot.

He should’ve been given this award. I’m at a loss to name it if he got it, but it wouldn’t be the award I’ve received here tonight for 25 years of unbroken service to Tramhill’s Train Wheels. I have been awarded the “Big Wheels Trophy” named after our beloved Boss, “Big Wheel” Bobby, the great-great grandson of our founder “Locomotive” Langoul who emigrated to America from France, where he had been a simple wheelwright, working on a Barouche cart assembly line in Marseilles. He arrived at Ellis Island covered with rat bites from stowing away among sacks of grain. He came down with “Rat Fever” which he recovered from by snorting the new wonder drug cocaine, and taking long hot baths in a Brooklyn whorehouse while drinking shots of anisette.

He was a great man. Unlike me.

So, let me just say: I don’t deserve this trophy. All I did was show up for work every day. As a wheel polisher, my job is not very challenging. The biggest challenge is finding a clean rag when mine has become too dirty to use any more. Sometimes I have to go so far as to return home and grab a clean T-shirt from my underwear drawer to use to polish wheels. None of this is very remarkable or worthy of this trophy. Clearly, showing up for work every day is hardly worth a Trophy! If I didn’t show up I wouldn’t get paid and I would be fired, like my friend Fred who missed three days with pneumonia and was fired, and died under a tarp on Broadway after losing his meager health benefits. But I understand: You can’t make a decent profit with a tardy or absent workforce!

I don’t deserve this trophy, but I’ll find a place for it on my mantel between my handgun—my first-class ticket out of here—and my high school graduation picture—my reminder of when I had hope.

Thank-you.

Definitions 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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Acervatio

Posted on April 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

Acervatio (ak-er-va’-ti-o): Latin term Quintilian employs for both asyndeton (acervatio dissoluta: a loose heap) and polysyndeton (acervatio iuncta:a conjoined heap).

Peace and love, and butterflies, and roses, and warm summer nights, and flying eagles. These are the threads of truth and beauty stitching together my soul—the neon sign flashing go, go, go determining my motions, translating them into actions dripping with motives heated by desires running after horny hopes, running, charging, stumbling, falling in a trance like a clumsy ghost or a drunken moron.

Where do we go from here? Laden with insights like a Sherpa ready to scale Mt. Everest for the umpteenth time—conscious of the dangers, well-versed in negotiating the pitfalls of the climb while singing the Sherpa song “Blueberry Hill,” introducing an element of levity into an otherwise terrifying task—to lead the rich foreigners to their deaths, making it look like a horrible accident, blaming the Yetis, who looted their victims—stealing their mittens and designer sunglasses.

The Yetis were pissed off. This was the tenth time the Sherpas had pulled the “Yetis did it” trick. Usually reclusive, the Yetis vowed to come out of their caves and show how friendly and nice they actually are. They would parade through the Sherpa village, singing and dancing and showing what harmless good sports they are. After that, nobody would believe the Sherpas’ “The Yetis did it” ever again. As they marched, they stopped singing and dancing and recited the Yeti credo: “We are the Yetis kind a true, we want to make friends with people like you.” At first the Sherpas were horrified when they saw the marching Yetis. But, when they heard the Yeti credo, they calmed down and everybody mingled, making lasting friendships and burying the lies.

The criminal Sherpas were apprehended, tried and chopped into dog food, using ice axes and crampons. The diced miscreants would be fed to the Tibetan Terriers living off the dole around the village.

Five years later, a Yeti was elected mayor of the Sherpa village. Past transgressions were forgotten and peace and brotherhood ruled the day.

Definitions 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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