Homoeopropophoron: Alliteration taken to an extreme where nearly every word in a sentence begins with the same consonant. Sometimes, simply a synonym for alliteration or paroemion [a stylistic vice].
“Dawdling dingos dig dinky dens.” I was raised in Sydney, Australia and my father drove this saying into my head like a nail. Beyond the saying he didn’t say much to me. He never said “G’day” or called me “Mate.” Once he said “It’s fair dinkum” and I had no idea what he was talking about.
He would disappear for years at a time and pretended he didn’t know who I was when he came back home. It was difficult. He told me to stay away from him because I was a stranger and he couldn’t trust me.
When I turned 22 I decided I was going to ban him from our home. My mother was all in favor of it. The last time he was home she found a picture of him in his wallet with a woman and six children—my half-brothers and half-sisters to be sure. She was heartbroken at first, and then, became furious. She wanted to stake him to the ground in the outback and let him die of hunger or thirst. I calmed her down with the banning plan. Eight months later he came home.
When he walked through the door, mom hit him in the face with my cricket bat. His nose started bleeding and he sobbed “Crikey! What did I do to deserve this?” It was the longest sentence I could ever remember he said. Mom had taken a picture of the picture she had found and shoved it in his face. “This!” She yelled and hit him again.
“Oh that!” He said, “That’s my sister and her kids. I visit them whenever I’m “out there.” “Liar!” Mom hit him again. He asked for $10.00 before we pushed him out the door.
He pitched a tent in our back yard. Since he was technically the owner of the property, he could do what he wanted. He ran illegal poker games in the tent. He’d be up all night drinking beer and dealing cards. It was noisy and upsetting for Mom. She tried to get him kicked off the property, but instead, he got us kicked out of the house. After all, he owned it.
Luckily I have my job at the Vegemite factory. I’m a pungency tester, assuring that the odor is robust enough to meet Vegemite standards. Mom sells homemade hot jam donuts outside the Opera House. Together, we do ok. We live in a nice apartment in Bondi.
We are bitter about what Dad did to us. We will probably murder him someday.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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