Monthly Archives: August 2025

Epanorthosis

Posted on August 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

Epanorthosis (ep-an-or-tho’-sis): Amending a first thought by altering it to make it stronger or more vehement

I was looking for affection. No, I was looking for hot steaming all night love. I deserved it, but it had eluded me. I was 87 years old and I was still looking. I had trolled all the nursing homes within a one-hundred mile radius. There was nothing but a gaggle of old blue-haired broads sitting in wheel chairs or lurching along with walkers with tennis balls stuck on the front legs.

I heard of a nursing home in California where the residents were euthanized when they reached 65. I was overjoyed. A delicatessen of delight filled with under-65 women, some barely eligible for Social Security. I knew I’d find my dream babe there, sweep her off her feet, and “play house” with her for the rest of my life—which wasn’t much.

The nursing home was called “Planned End.” What an apt name for a place that killed you when you turned 65! All those wasted years between turning 65 and dying of natural causes at some point were erased! I couldn’t wait to meet the love of my life there—maybe somebody who had just turned 60 and was ready for a new life.

I called Uber and took off for California. It cost $1,200, but it was worth it. We arrived at Planned End at 2:00 am. I walked up to the reception desk. The clerk gasped and asked me how I slipped through cracks. She thought I was a resident who had evaded euthanasia. Nothing I said could convince her otherwise. Four orderlies were summoned. They strapped me to a gurney and wheeled me into what was named the “Bon Voyage Room.”

Luckily I was carrying my switchblade knife that my grandfather had given me for a high school graduation present. I got it out of my pocket and flicked it open. I was able to cut the straps holding me down. The orderlies had gone outside for a smoke, but one of them came back carrying the kill juice in a bottle with a tube and needle hanging out.

I jumped off the gurney table and threatened him with the knife. He wet his pants and ran out the door yelling “Oh my God!” I took off for the lobby. There was a 60-something babe in the hallway. I grabbed her, dragged her out the entrance, and pushed her in the Uber. I told the driver to “Drive!” We made it back to Missouri the next morning. Mandy and I got to know each other on the ride to Missouri. She was a former pole dancer who had made a fortune in tips.

Her short-term memory was impaired so she forgot how she got to Missouri. I told her we had gotten married in Nevada.

Bottom line: I got what I wanted. Mandy generously signed her fortune over to me. We are living happily ever after. I hope Planned End never finds us. The Uber driver is sworn to secrecy.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in epanorthosis

Tagged , , , , ,

Epenthesis

Posted on August 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

Epenthesis (e-pen’-thes-is): The addition of a letter, sound, or syllable to the middle of a word. A kind of metaplasm. Note: Epenthesis is sometimes employed in order to accommodate meter in verse; sometimes, to facilitate easier articulation of a word’s sound. It can, of course, be accidental, and a vice of speech.

“I was Wallyking to the malallarola.” I talked inside my head like I was a hoochy-coo baby-kins. It made me feel loved and protected, something I never had. My mother was cruel. My father was cruel. My brother was cruel. My sister was cruel. They each specialized in a different kind of cruelty.

My mother’s cruelty was simplistic. She would tie my shoelaces together and make me walk to school. It was a mile to school and I would always fall down two or three times and skin my knees.

My father would make me mow the lawn barefoot. He would sprinkle the lawn with thumbtacks and laughed whenever I stepped on one and yelled “Ouch.” By the time I was done mowing the lawn, I’d have five or six thumbtacks stuck in my feet.

My brother was horrible. He would put snakes in my school backpack. When I opened it at school, I would scream in terror and my teacher would beat the snakes to death with a ruler. Inevitably, some of them would escape and terrorize the entire school. I was always blamed for the snakes and was finally expelled from school, never getting past the eighth grade and going to work at the local car wash—Soap & Steel—as the wet t-shirt girl. Most of the cars were driven by fat sweaty men who would stare at me through their fogged-up windows, lick their lips and take their hands off their steering wheels. I knew what they were doing and I was disgusted. But, I needed the job to cover the rent Dad started charging me when I was kicked out of school.

Then, there was my sister.

What she did to me was pretty straightforward. She told me that the leg hair removal crème “Nair” was a great scalp treatment and would work wonders on my dull scraggly hair. I rubbed the whole jar into my hair. It burned, and the next morning all my hair had fallen out. My mother wouldn’t let me get a wig because I would look like a “two-bit whore.” She wouldn’t let me wear a knit watch cap because I wasn’t a sailor. So, I went to school bald. People kept rubbing my head and asking if it was magic. They said, “Hey cue ball,” “Let’s bowl a few frames with your head,” “Will it pop if I stick a pin in it?” It went on like this until my hair grew back. After the hair incident, everybody called me “Orby” and pretended they were spinning a basketball on their finger when they saw me.

“Baddy boo boo doo doo” I said in my head as I loaded my father’s Glock. I was going to blow away my whole family. They had made my life miserable. They deserved to die. First, I sent my mother to hell where she belongs. I reloaded and went looking for Dad. He was reading his newspaper oblivious to the gunfire in the kitchen. I emptied the Glock through the newspaper and he was gone.

My brother came home from work. I aimed the Glock at his crotch and told him to put the back pack full of snakes I had prepared over his head. He sniveled, and whined and squirmed around crying. I got tired of it and shot him straight through heart. He flopped on the floor, dead. In my head I said, “Oohny noohny bronother is deady weddy.”

Then my sister came through the door. I pointed the Glock at her head, duct taped her to a chair, rubbed Nair in her eyes and shot her in the top of her head until it turned to mush.

I was arrested, tried, and convicted of four murders. Given the cruelty I had endured, I was sentenced to five years. But, I was also diagnosed as insane. I am indefinitely remanded to the “Nice Home for the Criminally Insane.” It is nice here. Murdering my family felt 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.

Leave a comment

Posted in epenthesis

Tagged , , , , ,

Epergesis

Posted on August 4, 2025 | Leave a comment

Epergesis (e-per-gee’-sis): Interposing an apposition, often in order to clarify what has just been stated.

My ass was grass, just like the old cliche, and he was the lawnmower. My “crime” was asking his sister to the movies. I didn’t see what was wrong with that. I asked him: “What’s wrong with that?” He told me I had a reputation as a “Don Casanova Quixote.” He didn’t want his sister pawed by me.
Evidently I had done something to warrant the reputation. But what could it be? I thought and I thought. After a couple of hours, I came up with a lead—Mary Tabala. She was the only girl I had expressed an interest in so far in my young life. Maybe she was spreading the rumors, but I couldn’t imagine what they were unless they were lies.
Being named after Jesus’ mother, Mary was hyper-moral, so much so, she once told me that she was going to have a virgin birth. That was a pretty tall ambition. Mary would never lie. I asked her anyway. She swore to God that she did not spread rumors about my romantic inclinations. She even said “May God strike me dead if I’m lying.” When she said that a car alarm went off down the street, but God left her alone.
I put up a sign on the school bulletin board asking for information about the rumor spreader. After a few false leads, Vinny “The Squealer” Bologna came up to me on the playground. He told me for a dollar, he’d give me the information I wanted. I told him I only had twenty-five cents. He said OK and took my quarter. Then he said “It’s your little brother. Sorry.”
I wanted to hit Vinny, but I knew he was telling the truth. His reputation preceded him. He never steered you wrong. As difficult as it was, I believed him. I hurried home to confront my little brother. He was very intelligent. He wore glasses. He had skipped two grades and was starting his freshman year at Harvard next fall.
My brother told me that for the first time in his life he had made a mistake. He told me he believed the rumors would boost my prospects as a “lover boy.” However, they had had the opposite effect. This error had prompted him to begin work on his “Polar Retro-Affective Theorem.” Given his reputation as a “boy genius,” he had already secured a grant of $1,500,000 from the N.I.H.
I was amazed. Of course, I forgave my little brother and took the part-time job he offered me taking care of the lab rats used in the research.
POSTSCRIPT
My little brother’s research project was a failure. It had something to do with the lab rats.

My ass was grass, just like the old cliche, and you’re the lawnmower. You’re going to mow my ass! I didn’t believe it. If it was a gasoline-powered rotary lawnmower, you would kill me. My “crime” was asking your sister to the movies. I didn’t see what was wrong with that. I asked him: “What’s wrong with that?” He told me I had a reputation as a “Don Casanova Quixote.”

Evidently I had done something to warrant the reputation. But what could it be? I thought and I thought. After a couple of hours, I came up with a lead—Mary Tabala. She was the only girl I had expressed an interest in so far in my young life. Maybe she was spreading the rumors, but I couldn’t imagine what they were unless they were lies.

Being named after Jesus’ mother, Mary was hyper- moral, so much so, she once told me that she was going to have a virgin birth. That was a pretty tall ambition. Mary would never lie. I asked her anyway. She swore to God that she did not spread rumors about my romantic inclinations. She even said “May God strike me dead if I’m lying.” When she said that a car alarm went off down the street, but God left her alone.

I put up a sign on the school bulletin board asking for information about the rumor spreader. After a few false leads, Vinny “The Squealer” Bologna came up to me on the playground. He told me for a dollar, he’d give me the information I wanted. I told him I only had twenty-five cents. He said OK and took my Quarter. Then he said “It’s your little brother. Sorry.”

I wanted to hit Vinny, but I knew he was telling the truth. His reputation preceded him. He never steered you wrong. As difficult as it was, I believed him. I hurried home to confront my little brother. He was very intelligent. He wore glasses. He had skipped two grades and was starting his freshman year at Harvard next fall.

My brother told me that for the first time in his life he had made a mistake. He told me he believed the rumors would boost my prospects as a “lover boy.” However, they had had the opposite effect. This error had prompted him to begin work on his “Polar Retro-Affective Theorem.” Given his reputation as a “boy genius,” he had already secured a grant of $1,500,000 from the N.I.H.

I was amazed. Of course, I forgave my little brother and took the part-time job he offered me taking care of the lab rats used in the research.

POSTSCRIPT

My little brother’s research project was a failure. It had something to do with the lab rats.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in epergesis

Tagged , , , , ,

Epizeuxis

Posted on August 3, 2025 | Leave a comment

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

“Dive, dive, dive you gutless wimp!” My father was working on what he called my cowardice complex that I had inherited from my grandfather. He had me perched on the top level of the playground swimming pool diving board. Well, actually there was only one level. It was one foot above the water. I stood on it trembling, fearing for my life. My little brother Beaver (named after the kid on the TV show) sneaked up behind me and pushed me off the end of the diving board. I screamed for help and an old man walked through the water over to me and told me to shut the hell up. The water was only four feet deep and more people were injured scraping their faces on the shallow bottom of the pool diving than ever drowned. In fact, in the history of the municipal playground, nobody had ever drowned. Nobody.

Yet, because I had inherited my grandfather’s cowardice I was terrified that I would inhale lung loads of water if I dove and die a hacking choking death beneath the water, or crack my skull on the pool bottom.

I did some research on my grandfather to see if I could find a remedy for my cowardly life. I found his journal which documented some of his experiences.

He “served” in the German Army in WWI. He was drafted at the war’s onset and disappeared after the swearing-in ceremony. He disguised himself as a gypsy. Gypsies were not allowed to serve in the military. He hid out in a caravan and the gypsies hid him and taught him how to make loaded dice. One day, he wandered off from the camp. When he came back the caravan had pulled up stakes and headed for a new campground. In the ultimate display of cowardice, he started crying, running around in circles, and rending his gypsy garments. After an hour, he got tired and stopped. Standing there moaning, his torn pants revealing his private parts.

A woman came by and stopped and stared at him. Looking at his torn pants, she asked him if he knew what a zucchini is. He said “No.” She said, “Your thing looks like a zucchini. You shall come live with me and my husband.” He lived in their basement for the entire war. His job was to grease up his “zucchini” three times a week and “frolic.”

In this case my grandfather’s cowardice earned him a pretty good deal—far better than being in a war. I learned that being a coward can be fun.

Then, there was changing light bulbs. My grandfather was an afraid of ladders. He would not change lightbulbs. It was dark in his house because back then women (aka his wife) were not permitted to do manly work because men were afraid that they would take over the world. Eventually, all of my grandfather’s lightbulbs burned out and it was dark in the house at night. After he fell down the stairs twice in the dark on his way to bed, my grandfather decided to do something. Candles were out of the question—they would burn the house down. He settled on miner’s hard hats with lanterns mounted on them like headlights. Having emigrated to Pennsylvania, used miner’s helmets were in abundant supply and he bought one each for his wife and three children and five more for guests. The romantic play of the lantern light on the house’s walls gave it a nightly aura of love and peace. Once again, my grandfather’s cowardice had taken him down a road toward something beneficial.

I vowed to find redemption in my cowardice. At the same time I learned that the worst thing about being a coward were the taunts and ridicule addressed by cruel idiots. So what if I didn’t rescue the baby held at gunpoint by her insane father? So what, I didn’t run into a burning building to save a puppy? So what, I or dodged the draft?

I was destined for the safety of better things as I rebounded from peril and hid or ran away.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in epizeuxis

Tagged , , , , ,

Epicrisis

Posted on August 2, 2025 | Leave a comment

Epicrisis (e-pi-cri’-sis): When a speaker quotes a certain passage and makes comment upon it.

“Shove it up your ass.” Dieter Biltburg, Class Bully, 11th grade.

Dieter was a foreign student from Hamburg, Germany. It was post-WWII New York. It was 1948 and Dieter was part of a group of German teenagers and children of prominent Nazis that had been chosen to come to the US to participate in a federal program “Democracy for Nazis” intended to “rehabilitate” the young Nazis by relocating them to America: “The home of the free and the land of the brave.”

The program was a failure at my little high school in Watertown, NY. Whenever anybody asked him to do something other than picking on somebody Dieter shouted “Shove it up your ass!” in his authoritarian German accent. He scared everybody and they quit trying to influence him and just got out of his way when he came goose-stepping down the hall in his Jack boots on his way to class.

Completely intimidated, “Shove it up your ass” became our high school’s motto. We would chant it with a German accent at football and basketball games. I started saying “Shove it up your ass” to my parents and teachers, and even to the school crossing guard, a former Marine who had fought in WWII and was missing his right hand, lost in combat. He told me if I didn’t stop mimicking the Nazi Dieter, he would stick his bayonet in my eye. I told him to stick it up his ass. He glowered at me, but didn’t do anything.

The next day he was standing on the curb with his bayonet held above his head. “I’m going to stick this up your asses you little racist shits.” We yelled “Up your ass!” He yelled back, “No, up your ass!” Dieter led the chorus. It went on like this, back and forth, for about 10 minutes. The police came. An ambulance came. Men in white coats wrestled the crossing guard into a straight jacket and took him away. We cheered and carried Dieter on our shoulders to Charlie’s Malt Shop. We all had Black Forest Sundays and toasted Dieter with a chorus of “Shove it up your ass.”

Dieter yelled, get me the smallest boy! We turned over Tiny Bins who was underweight, had asthma, wore thick lens glasses, used an inhaler, and was allergic to milk. Dieter punched and kicked Tiny and beat him on the head with a chair. We all yelled “Shove it up his ass Dieter!” as Tiny bled gasping on the floor.

Tiny was nearly killed. Dieter was deported. We were deeply ashamed, especially for becoming little Nazis, Tiny’s beating, and getting the crossing guard put away. We all memorized the “Declaration of Independence,” carried a copy, and recited it at sites of social injustice. But we could never atone for what we did to Tiny. He’s still in the hospital and his mother told us he holds no ill will—that just the other day he woke up long enough to to sit up and say “Bless us one and all.” I almost said “Shove it up your ass” when I heard what he said. But instead, as I was graduating from high school, I had recently finished my application to work for Simon Wiesenthal hunting fugitive Nazi war criminals. This should go a long way toward healing my guilt and changing my behavior. Already, I have curtailed my goose stepping and no longer say “Shove it up your ass” with a German accent.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in epicrisis

Tagged , ,

Epilogus

Posted on August 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

Epilogus (e-pi-lo’-gus): Providing an inference of what is likely to follow.

Things were getting rough. Soon I would be where I belonged. It was closing in like a closing door. Dawn would not come. Daylight would not reach me.

I was visiting my cousin Helga in Iceland in the town of Höfn, a small fishing village surrounded by mountains. It was January and pure daylight never came. It was dark most of the time and the Northern Lights would appear frequently. They were beautiful, like rainbow-colored bedsheets waving on a clothesline in the sky.

Helga worked at “Whalesickles.” They sold chunks of Minke whale, barbecued, and skewered on a stick. I loved them and ate at least three per day. With the special sauce, eating a Whalesickle was like kissing an angel.

Helga was a little weird but I enjoyed staying with her. The weirdest things were having to listen to ABBA every morning during breakfast and drinking four shots of cod liver oil at bedtime every night. The cod liver oil was to fight Vitamin D deficiency, the primary cause of bowlegs, Iceland’s most prevalent physical malady. You would frequently see bowlegged women and men on the street. Otherwise beautiful or handsome, their bowlegs would cause them to rock back and forth when they walked, often making observers feel seasick. Knowing their chances of landing a wife or husband were close to zero, they would lament their failure to drink the cod liver oil when they were children, as they foolishly resisted their parents’ admonishments.

There is a genre of Icelandic music centering around Vitamin D deficiency. It was sort of like the American Blues. “Ég get ekki drukkið lýs”(I Can’t Drink No Cod Liver Oil) is one of the most haunting songs sung by the all-bowlegged band “Nature’s Wrath.” They wear special trousers that roll up like curtains, revealing their naked bowlegs at the end of each of their sets. Nature’s Wrath brought tears to my eyes when I saw them perform at the Reykjavik Civic Center. Here are some lyrics from the song:

“I can’t drink no cod liver oil

It tastes like a walrus ass and gives me boils

I threw a tantrum, clamped my jaws, and rolled around on the floor

My mother gave up and yelled at me ‘No cod liver oil for you no more.’

Oh mothers spank your children so they won’t do as I have done

So they won’t be bowlegged and spend their lives in therapy in The House of the Nordic Sun.”

By the way, I am a private detective working for the “American Association of Faceted Stones.” I came to Iceland to track down a fermented shark smuggling ring. They don’t eat it. They open jars of it in jewelry stores. The stench drives everybody out and the thieves scoop up the jewelry. Fermented shark is illegal in the United States. That’s why they have to smuggle it. It is perfectly legal in Iceland. The top fermenter is Gunnar Batson. I’ve had my eye on him. He has recently patented an odor-proof vest that looks like a traditional tweed vest, only it’s a little puffy—ideal for smuggling. Gunnar is flying to the U.S. tomorrow. I will be there along with Interpol customs agents to arrest him.

In the meantime, Helga and I are headed to the nearby hot springs where we’ll luxuriate in the warm bubbles and take turns reading Halldór Kiljan Laxness’ “Salka Valka” aloud to each other in its English translation.

If it wasn’t dark or light all the time, or if there wasn’t the risk of becoming bowlegged, I could learn to love Iceland.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in epilogus

Tagged , , , , ,