Adnominatio (ad-no-mi-na’-ti-o): 1. A synonym for paronomasia[punning]. 2. A synonym for polyptoton. 3. Assigning to a proper name its literal or homophonic meaning.
My parents had named me “Mark” after one of Christ’s disciples. When I was around five, they told me the story of Mark and why I had been named after him. I was really proud of my name until around the 6th grade. The class bully, Dillard Trimp, started making fun of it. He called me “Skid Mark” or “Skid Mark Mark.” He said I made “Low marks.”
It was especially humiliating because I had been battling my chronic skid marks since I stopped wearing diapers. My mother didn’t help things much. She claimed they were indelible and would hang my underpants on the clothesline for everbody to see. I was humiliated. Kids would walk past and make the sound of a revving motor, and then a skidding sound and then point at the clothes line and yell “Wow! Look at Mark’s marks.”
Soon everybody was calling me Skid Mark, even my teachers: “Skid Mark, I’m still waiting for your writing assignment,” Sad Miss Turnbull. Everybody would sniff the air, some kids would ask “Do I smell a mark?”
I didn’t want to go to school any more. I felt so bad, I thought about running away from home. I HAD to get rid of my skid marks so when my mother hung out my underpants they would be hanging frosty white on the clothesline.
I bought a can of white spray paint. I painted over my skid marks and threw my underpants in my laundry basket. Two days later when my mother hung out the laundry there were my underpants, skid marks and all. The paint had washed off, but not my skid marks. I was devastated, but I would not give up.
Next, I went on a cream of wheat and rice diet—an all white food diet. My mother protested, but I talked her into it. After one day, I couldn’t wait to poop all-while poops the next morning. My skid marks would blend into my underpants and I would be saved. It didn’t work. My poops were the same old brown color. Finally, I came to the conclusion it was my wiping technique that was to blame.
I Googled “How to wipe your ass.” There was a video on YouTube that was very helpful. I tried the technique. The doctor in the aloha shirt in the video made it seem really easy. What I had been doing wrong was wiping across my crack instead of up and down it. I had this unwarranted fear that if I wiped along my crack it would grab me and not let me go. I’m not sure where this idea came from. My entire life I had been in denial, but the YouTube tube video had brought it to conscious awateness so I could confront it and combat it. I think I may have gotten the idea of my crack grabbing mu hand from a movie I saw where a diver gets his foot clamped by a giant clam. He can’t escape and he drowns. It was easy to see the connection between my crack and the giant clam! That’s where my wiping problem began—I was afraid of getting trapped in my crack.
The next morning I ate breakfast and headed to the bathroom for my daily poop. I followed the wiping instructions and pulled up my underpants. When I got home from school I ran up to my bedroom to check my underpants. No skid marks! I ran downstairs and told my mom. She shard my joy. I hugged her and cried. She pushed me away, smiled, and said to me, “Now Mark, we’ve got to work on that little bit of leakage on your pants after you pee.” I said, “You’re right Mom. I’ll Google it!”
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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