Monthly Archives: April 2025

Acoloutha

Posted on April 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

Acoloutha: The substitution of reciprocal words; that is, replacing one word with another whose meaning is close enough to the former that the former could, in its turn, be a substitute for the latter. This term is best understood in relationship to its opposite, anacolutha.

My cat was mewing, talking softly to his catnip toy. Then he yowled and batted it across the floor. I yowled too and he looked me like I was nuts—crazy as the mouse that would pop out of the hole in the baseboard and taunt him with his whiny chatter. You never knew when he was going to stick out his head and start the cat and mouse games. I think the two of them actually enjoyed it. Melody could’ve caught the mouse hundreds of times, but he didn’t. He would fake-chase the little mouse.

But, then the rat moved in. Sleek and shiny with a low-profile slink, seemingly floating across the floor, silent, devious.

He took over the mouse’s little hole in the baseboard, gnawing it out so he could comfortably fit through. He was unlikeable. He wouldn’t play and we could hear the little mouse trapped behind the baseboard. The rat was holding him prisoner. We could hear him thrashing around and squealing. I got a flashlight and looked into the hole when the rat was out rummaging through trash cans. I could barely see the little mouse in the back shadows of what had become the rat’s nest.

Somehow the rat had found a piece of an adhesive rodent trap and stuck the little mouse to it. He was being tortured by the rat! I feared he would wriggle and whine until he died of starvation. Goddamn rat.

We got some rat-sized adhesive traps and put them in the kitchen along with a half-eaten raspberry jelly donut. That night, I was asleep when I was awakened by a sort of tickling feeling on my forehead. I brushed my forehead and saw blood of the back of my hand as the rat scampered off the end of my bed. The bastard had bitten me. I had to go to urgent care and get antibiotics. I got back from urgent care and went back to bed.

The next morning I made my way into the kitchen and there was the fu*king rat stuck to one of the traps. Melody was sitting there looking at him. I swear he had a cat smile on his cat face. He purred.

All I wanted to do was kill the rat. I stabbed him at least ten times with a steak knife from the kitchen drawer, and then crushed his head with the hammer my father had given me last Christmas. Then, I put his body in a paper bag and took him outside, doused him with gasoline, and burned him to a crisp. Then, I went back inside and I pried off the baseboard behind which the little mouse lived, and rescued the little mouse, and fed him some bits of New York State aged cheddar. He gobbled it up. Then, I used nail polish remover to free him from the trap. I nailed the baseboard back on and he scampered through the hole.

I called an exterminator and told him to get rid of every rat he could find, but to leave the little mouse alone.

Everything is back to normal now. Incidentally, Melody has overcome his catnip addiction and is now a drug-free cat. I attribute this to some extent to his friendship with the little mouse and the quality time they spend together.

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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Acrostic

Posted on April 4, 2025 | Leave a comment

Acrostic: When the first letters of successive lines are arranged either in alphabetical order (= abecedarian) or in such a way as to spell a word.

Baloney sandwiches.

Elvis records turned up loud.

Cool water on hot days.

Knocking on stranger’s doors.

Obedient soup from the microwave.

Nudge me toward delight!

I’m Jeffery and this is it! An acrostic of things that beckon me—that nudge me toward delight. Some people would include gold and caviar. Not me. I’ve devoted myself to mundane inexpensive pleasures. “Cheap thrills” is what they’re called, with the emphasis on “cheap.”

I’ve never had a glass of champagne or a Porterhouse steak. Instead, I drink “Last Tango” fortified wine. The alcohol content is close to vodka and it’s only $1.89 for a pint bottle! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up in a strange place clutching an empty pint bottle of “Last Tango.” It also comes with a lanyard so you can hang the bottle around your neck. It’s the best.

As far as meat goes, I limit myself to baloney. The cheapest is “Nag’s Head.” It’s imported to the US from Argentina. You can get one pound for $2.25. It tastes like garlic-flavored fat. A bonus is the crunchy bone fragments lacing the baloney from the meat’s processing. Also, the baloney is bright pink. It gives the meat a happy aura, like pink tends to do—like one of Barbie’s dresses or a Mary Kay Cadillac.

Then, there’s cheap soup: “Brezhnev Chicken Fragments Soup.” It is delicious and it only costs .75 per fifty-ounce can! Why buy Campbell’s when Breznev’s is available on the internet? You just get on your computer and order it. It shows up a month later from Belarus, with free shipping. Mmmm. Every once in a while you get something weird in your soup, like a feather or a chicken embryo. You just fish out the feather with a sieve and leave the embryo alone—its tender little chickie body adds zest to the soup. If you want, you can pick it up with a pair of tongs and swallow it whole. Now, that’s a gourmet treat! For .75 you’d be crazy to pass it up.

What about beverages? You’ve heard of “spring” water. It is costly, and it comes out of the ground. Nobody knows where it’s been before it just “springs” out of the filthy earth or scum-covered rocks. Scammers put it in plastic bottles and sell it as healthful, when in fact, you can get measles from it and die. But yet, people take the risk and drink it. Very sad. Very sad.

I drink “roof” water. It is pure sky-borne rainwater collected fresh from downspouts across America. It tastes like a “roof”—a distinct flavor—bitter with a subtle hint of tar. Plus, it’s gluten free. It is delicious. At .35 per gallon, it is my beverage of choice. A tank truck delivers it to your own bucket at your door! Convenient.

One of the key benefits of my lifestyle is chronic diarrhea. I have a toilet paper dispenser on a strap that goes over my shoulder. I’m ready for a blow-out any time. I carry a beach umbrella that I open and hide behind when I’m “streaming” in public.

I’m five-foot eleven and I weigh 145 lbs. I’m as sleek as a salmon. I tire easily, but that’s a benefit—I go directly to bed after climbing the two flights of stairs to my apartment—you know—“Early to bed, early to rise. . .” I don’t go out much anyway—it ‘s so embarrassing to have to drag myself along the sidewalk moaning for help. Even if I’m not fit, at least I’m thin, unlike my former friends—a pack of fatsos.

Today, I discovered a cheap substitute for toothpaste! This will cap off my “skinny boy” lifestyle. There’s a guy selling it on the street. He refills empty toothpaste tubes with his brand “Barbarian Breath” which he writes on a strip of masking tape and tapes to the outside of the tube. It’s only .25! I bought five tubes!

POSTSCRIPT

Jeffery died instantly as he brushed his teeth. The man selling “Barbarian Breath” was a psychotic former dentist. The toothpaste contained super glue and cyanide.

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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Adage

Posted on April 3, 2025 | Leave a comment

Adage (ad’-age): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings, or traditional expressions of conventional wisdom.

Slogans and sayings are pretty much the same. But sayings want to teach you something and slogans want to sell you something. Sometimes they can do both. For example, “A penny saved is a penny earned” can be heard as a lesson in thrift. It can also be used as a slogan by a bank to get you to deposit money in an account in the bank. Given his ethos, Ben Franklin probably intended it to to be used as an adage and a slogan.

I was pushing 65 and I had a waddle swinging under my chin. I looked like I had had a turkey body part gafted under my throat. I tried stuffing it in my shirt and buttoning the top button to conceal it and hold it in. I’d be in the middle of a conversation and it would pop out and swing back and forth. It scared a lot of people, and one or two yelled “That’s disgusting!” and flipped over my desk, and ran out my office door. One person even pulled a gun!

But that’s not all. My grandchildren would go “Gobble, Gobble Grandpa.” The littlest one would pull on my waddle and go “Choo, choo, wa, wa!” like my waddle was the pull-chord on a train whistle. Everybody thought it was cute but me. The worst was when I was cooking on the grill and bent over to check the flame and my waddle swung into the fire. Luckily I had a bucket of basting sauce nearby and stuck my waddle in it to cool it and sooth the pain. My cruel cousin Eddie took a picture and I appeared with a basted waddle on the front page of “Cry Truth,” our local bullshit newspaper. The headline was “Local Mad-Man Bastes Own Waddle.” I was angered and humiliated and vowed to do something about my errant waddle.

A co-worker whose breasts had grown remarkably big in one month, told me about her plastic surgeon Dr. Skinner. His slogan was “A stitch in time saves nine.” I could never figure out what that saying meant, but in the context of plastic surgery, maybe it meant that stitching your time-sags could take nine years off your age. Anyway, I made an appointment for “waddle reduction surgery.” I got up early and was making a smoothie when my waddle missed swinging into the blender by a quarter of an inch. Boy, I couldn’t wait to get the damn thing fixed.

I met Dr. Skinner in the waiting room and he said, “I hear you’re a real swinger.” At first I didn’t get it, but then I realized he was referring to my swinging waddle. I almost hit him.

They laid me out on the operating table and the anesthetic knocked me out. When I awoke I saw two voluptuous bumps pushing up under my gown. I felt my neck and my waddle was still there. Skinner had mixed me up with another patient. He came into my room and asked me how I liked my new boobies. I was enraged. He told me not to worry, the “boobies” were actually coconut shells. He told me that at the last minute he had to scrub the waddle surgery. The coconut shells were supposed to make me laugh. He told me that he had realized at the last minute he had run out of scalpel blades and was unable to slice off my waddle.

We went ahead with the surgery the next day. My waddle was successfully removed. Life is good for me, but not so much for Dr. Skinner. I’m suing him for $1,000,000 for his coconut trick.

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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Adianoeta

Posted on April 2, 2025 | Leave a comment

Adianoeta: An expression that, in addition to an obvious meaning, carries a second, subtle meaning (often at variance with the ostensible meaning).

“Think about it.” Sometimes it was an invitation to wonder together. Other times it was an admonition focused on my failure to think about consequences. It was her favorite catch phrase—same words different meanings: one, a happy joining of mental resources, the other a painful put-down shattering my self-confidence.

I decided I needed a catch phrase too, so I could seem smart and win points by mimicking her “same words, different meanings” gambit. I nearly drove myself crazy. I saw how good irony could work—where I would mean the opposite of what I said. I could say “Your poetry is beautiful,” meaning “Your poetry sucks.” But, I was looking for a signature utterance that stood on its own as a dual-duty word or sentence.

I have a hearing problem and I say “what” a lot when I don’t hear what a person says. I realized that “what” said with a sarcastic tone, can express displeasure, or disbelief—a sort of critical jab at the speaker’s utterance fraught with negative nuances. Now, I made point of saying “What” with an ironic tone.

People started staying away from me because my intentions were unclear, and our conversations were fraught with mixed message—they didn’t know whether I didn’t hear or didn’t agree.

My girlfriend told me to think about it, and it wasn’t an invitation to wonder together—my “what” was an easy and dysfunctional way into the realm of dual meanings. I was ashamed. If I couldn’t do any better than “what” she was gone. She said again “Think about it,” and I did!

I went on a walking tour of the US. Each step I took, I tried to hit on a catch phrase with dual meanings. My shoes were wearing out and my money was running out. I had gotten half-way across Pennsylvania when some guy in a purple shirt wearing a straw hat, rode past me in a horse and buggy. I said to myself “Well Fu*k me! What the hell was that?” The guy in the buggy circled around and came back. He said “I will ride you to the bus stop.” I said, “Well, fu*k me, let’s go.”

We were clomping along to the bus stop, when I got it. After all the anguishing. After a simple episode, I found “Well, fu*k me!” as my saving catch phrase. It brought my own personal two meanings into my life and settled my heart. I was truly saved on the road to Altoona!

“We’ll fu*k me” can be an expression of joy and wonder. Or, it can be an expression of self- reproach. On the down side, its scope of use is limited. The “F” word makes it hard to use whenever you feel like it, unless you live in New York City, or anywhere in New Jersey. I lived in New Jersey!

My girlfriend thinks it’s brilliant. After a few glasses of wine she gives it a third meaning, a literal meaning that makes our time together meaningful and beautiful. Well, Fu*k me.

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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Adominatio

Posted on April 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

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).

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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