Monthly Archives: October 2025

Adynaton

Posted on October 31, 2025 | Leave a comment

Adynaton (a-dyn’-a-ton): A declaration of impossibility, usually in terms of an exaggerated comparison. Sometimes, the expression of the impossibility of expression.

“I can’t tell you how much I love you. It’s like trying to write a book with a hot dog. It’s like trying to climb a ladder with no hands. It’s like buying a house with no money,” I told her for the trillionth time.

“One trillion” is a lot of times to do anything. When we hit one-trillionth I took her out to dinner for pizza and a large glass of water. I told her that pizza is round like the circle of life. That the ham and pineapple are like the poignant moments we encounter on our never-ending journey around and around, beyond life into the immortal void of many splendored nothing.

While I was talking—sharing all I knew—she fell asleep with her face in the pizza. I woke her up and wiped the pizza off her face with a handful of napkins. “I dreamed I was riding in a yacht. Suddenly, we were blown up and I turned into little me’s glowing in the dark like a swarm of battery powered bees. All but one me was caught in a net by a man in a bathing suit. That’s when I woke up,” she said.

I said, “I woke you up.“

I let her know how indignant I was that she had such an amazing dream while I was trying to enlighten her about pizza’s symbolic significance—the mystery of the circle—like the wheels on the bus that go around and around—that must go around and around to propel the bus toward it’s mystic destination, often a citadel of learning replete with lessons in arithmetic, personal hygiene, woodshop, and gymnastics. As they say, “The circle will not be broken.” It would cause a flat tire on the road of life, inducing a bothersome delay, or even a complete cancellation. A tragedy.

She laughed at me, and told me my crazy monologues were what she liked the most about me. She also told me she liked how I dressed. I wore blue ski pants, anteater cowboy boots, and a sweatshirt that said “Hell” on the front. Sometimes, I wore a balaclava and a Superman cape when we made love on the kitchen floor. Our relationship was so nuanced!

So, even though I dressed cool, I remained a mystery to her. My love was like a dark room where she was blinded by the shade. We were like two winged milkweed seeds floating on a breeze, held together by nothing, liable to be separated by the same breeze we were floating on.

She looked at me and had tears in her eyes. She hit me on the head with a rock and ran away. I see her at the grocery store every once-in-awhile. She ignores me.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Aetiologia

Posted on October 30, 2025 | Leave a comment

Aetiologia (ae-ti-o-log’-i-a): A figure of reasoning by which one attributes a cause for a statement or claim made, often as a simple relative clause of explanation.

Pop tarts again—I liked them ok, but Mom had been giving them to me in my school lunch for two weeks. I kept asking her why and she kept telling me that I’d find out in a “jiffy.” I wasn’t sure what a “jiffy” is—I think it was something people said in the 1930s, but to what end I didn’t know. Everybody I asked (including my teacher) told me it had something to do with peanut butter, and possibly, a kangaroo. From this, I concluded it was Australian.

I was so lucky! Ms. Dundee down the street had emigrated with her brother from Australia just six months ago. Her brother was crazy. He wore a cowboy hat with a hatband made out of Platypus bills. He wore a giant knife in a sheath on his hip. It was at least 20” long and was blood-stained. He hunted alligators in the swamp outside of town. He sold the skins to a cowboy boot company in Texas. He sold the meat to wild game restaurants around the United States. His favorite restaurant was “Bloody Mess.” It specialized in “anything that bleeds, from voles to buffaloes.”

Anyway, I asked Ms. Dundee what a “jiffy” is. She laughed and said “It means quickly.” She had a pile of scratch-off lotto tickets sitting on the table. She said “Watch me. I can scratch these off in a jiffy.” She went to work—her scratching finger was a blur. In fact, her fingernail started smoking! She hit $5,000 on the last ticket. We went wild. We had to drive to the state capital to cash it in. We got to Albany late. We stayed together at “Blackmail Bob’s” a motel notorious for ruining peoples’ lives. We didn’t plan on doing anything wrong. The next morning we received a computer file showing us engaged in all kinds of crazy stuff from Ms. Dundee riding me as a horsy to me doing sexual things to Ms. Dundee with the bedside telephone.

Since we were in Albany, we took the file to our Senator. She took one look and told us it was AI—it was clearly fake and there was nothing to worry about. So, we went ahead and cashed the ticket and drove home.

When we got home I told Ms. Dundee to wait. “I’ll be out in a jiffy.” I went inside and filled a box with spare pop tarts. I handed the box to Ms. Dundee. She took a big whiff and moaned.

I had fallen in love with Ms. Dundee. We shared a pop tart.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Tagged definitions, elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Affirmatio

Posted on October 29, 2025 | Leave a comment

Affirmatio (af’-fir-ma’-ti-o): A general figure of emphasis that describes when one states something as though it had been in dispute or in answer to a question, though it has not been.

“I know you all want help believing what you should believe: there is a twist in life’s plot. You go through life eating cake, riding your expensive lawn mower and cheating on your wife—the “holy grail” for normal, well-balanced males. I know you want it. I know you need it. I know you love it. It’s no lie: you men have running tabs at “Humps” the premier cheatareia out on Rte 22. You can’t fool me. I might see you at the liquor store with a woman waiting in your car. In fact, I did see you at the liquor store with my wife in your car: YOU! Joe Smeezewap!”

Things started to heat up—all the blabbing so far was a preface. Mr. Melanon was going to blow—no more hiding behind hypothetical meandering clap-trap.

Melanon: “What the hell were you up to with my wife at “Humps” Smeezewap?“

Smeezewap: “None of your beeswax.”

Melanon: “See this? I’m going to taser your ass until it goes up in flames!”

Smeezewap: “Not so fast asshole! This pen can poke you full of holes—one for each time I plugged your wife at Humps. Ha! Ha!”

They fought hand to had—taser vs. pen. They grunted and pushed back and forth. The taser wasn’t charged and was useless. Smeezewap poked Melanon several times with his pen. He had gotten from Stateside Savings and Loan when he bought his new car. He had no idea of the utility that the pen afforded beyond writing and stabbing. Now, he was already thinking that it would make a great mini-rolling pin or even a powdery substance shorter.

He shoved the pen in Melanon one last time and took off. He was going to run home to kill his cheating wife before the police showed up looking for him. The time was right for the long-postponed murder of his wife who he knew had been cheating with the flea laden dog Melanon. When he got home his wife was already lying on the floor dead with a bleeding dent in her head. Mayor Dimford was standing over her in his underpants holding a bloody fireplace poker.

Smeezewap: “Mayor Dimford! You’ve killed my wife.”

Mayor Dimford: “You’re damn right. She knew too many secrets. She had to go. Now it’s your turn! Bye bye Smeezy!”

Smeezewap: “The hell it is Dimshit!”

Smeezewap shoved his complimentary pen straight into Mayor Dimford’s heart. It sprayed blood all over him and he ran upstairs to take a shower. That’s when the police showed up. They pulled him out of the shower and asked him if he had killed anybody. He said “No” that he had been taking shower since 8:00 am and didn’t hear or see anything aside from water running and the soap and washcloth slopping around. The police told him to finish his shower—he was off the hook. His alibi was “watertight.” Ha Ha!

People wonder why Smeezewap has his complementary pen framed and sitting on the fireplace mantle.

His wife’s #3 boyfriend was charged with the murders. He was extremely jealous and was seen brandishing a complimentary pen at Home Depot inscribed with the “Humps” logo, signing a sales contract for a snow blower. He was arrested, tried, and convicted of murder. He pointed the finger at Smeezewap, but everybody just laughed, including the judge.

Smeezewap bought Humps and enjoyed ruining peoples’ marriages.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Aganactesis

Posted on October 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

Aganactesis (ag’-an-ak-tee’-sis): An exclamation proceeding from deep indignation.

“You goddamn prick bastard son-of-a bitch asshole mother fu*k’in’ shit-eating clap-dicked liar.” I was practicing for the “Foul Mouth Roundup.” It was a contest at the State Fair sponsored by the “Old Sailor’s Home” down by the bay where the seaweed grows and the old sailors spend their time swearing and playing Battleship. Most of them sailed on salt water, on cargo ships or fishing boats, fishing mostly for lobster, shrimp, tuna, and cod. The rest of them sailed the Great Lakes, the fresh water, from Buffalo to Cleveland transporting automobiles, hot dogs, and carbon drill bits. When they pulled into port there were hundreds of people to greet them. Hungry for a hotdog, they’d go down to the docks to hoot and holler as the ship pulled in. The sailors would throw frozen hotdogs. The residents of Cleveland would bring their own buns and mustard, and set up grills on the docks. It was crazy. Everybody loved it. Except the salt water sailors had no such tradition. The Old Sailor’s Home was in Cleveland, so the fresh water sailors kept up their tradition. The saltwater sailors felt left out, belittled, and disrespected.

This is where the “Foul Mouth Roundup” got its start. The salt water sailors would curse out the fresh water sailors from the front porch of the Old Sailor’s home as they left for their hot dog fest at the docks. The fresh water sailers would turn around and curse out the salt water sailors as they left the Old Sailor’s Home. They did this for years, and then, out of nowhere the fresh water sails extended an invitation to the salt water sailors. The salt water sailors accepted. Since “good” swearing is a hallmark of sailor-hood, they decided to preserve the swearing in the form of a contest. Whoever could string together the rudest and longest strand of swear-words in 15 seconds would win a six-month supply of hot dogs. Ties would be honored—no matter how many. You had to be 18 to attend and participate in the contest.

Goddam those teenagers! They’ve learned a ton of swear words from video games and movies like “Sacarface” or “The Wolf of Wall Street.” I learned my first swearwords from my Uncle Vince who was a retired Naval Commander. We’d go riding in his Cadillac convertible pretending it was a boat. He wore a captain’s hat, and had a ship’s wheel as a steering wheel. We would “dock” at “Ponzi’s Bar” and have a few drinks and catch up on the family “scuttlebut.” After we had a few drinks, we’d haul anchor and ride down Main Street taking turns swearing. These were formative times for me.

When I’m competing again this year, I’ll be thinking of Uncle Vince and lamenting his passing 2 years ago. He rammed into a boat trailer with no stop lights. To his credit, he swore at the driver until he died,

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Allegory

Posted on October 27, 2025 | Leave a comment

Allegory (al’-le-go-ry): A sustained metaphor continued through whole sentences or even through a whole discourse.

Some made loud cheers. Some made soft cheers. Some made long cheers. Some made short cheers.

It was a megaphone—an old-fashioned amplifier predating the bullhorn. It filled the air with a waste of sound. They were juggled. They were aimed. They were directed, spewing sound to the hills and flatlands and everything in-between. Everything was important. Everything needed amplification, but especially cheers to motivate the masses: Rah Rah! Hooray! Yippee! Hey Hey! Huzza Huzza! Go, go, go!

Some made loud cheers. Some made soft cheers, but everybody made cheers. It didn’t matter whatever the cheers were for. It was the tone that mattered. The way they sounded were considered as separate from what they said. It was hard keeping up with conversations. The meaning of what people said was eclipsed by how they said it. No body cared. Listeners were striving for “sensitivity,” the holy grail of human connectedness. “I hear you man.” Words themselves were considered secondary in the construal meaning. It was tone, tone, tone.

I told my wife I loved her and she told me how insensitive I was. The regime of the megaphone had reached into the 21st century. People were beginning to trade speech for tone. In order to project more “tone,” conversation had become a talking operetta. Some people were able to conjure impromptu doggerel: “Let’s go swimming in the pond, of that I’m very fond.” Or, “Let’s go to Wendy’s for dinner. It is always a winner.” If you liked what you heard you would quietly hum, “That gave me a toner,” no matter what your gender. It was looney. It was babble.

At this point, I started the “Plain Prose Movement.” My wife called me a “callous raccoon” and told me to “fly to the moon.” Typical “Toner” bullshit. I hummed “eat me weasel breath” in her face. It gave her a toner, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t watch while she mooed and twirled a dishrag over her head with one hand and held her megaphone high with the other.

I couldn’t gather a critical mass of people to create the movement. They didn’t understand me. Not one. So, all alone, I stood on a street corner chanting “Words speak louder than actions,” and “Say it, don’t spray if.” I was ridiculed and abridged dictionaries were frequently thrown at me. I had two mild concussions. After an attempt they made at “publishing” me, I gave up the “Plain Prose Movement.” I was rescued by a blind person who covered me in braille and gave me a red-tipped cane that had “Truth” carved on it.

Now I hear they’re writing a “Toner” translation of the Bible. I think the end of the world is at hand and nobody else does. Well, all I can say is “They ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie.”

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Tagged definitions, elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Alleotheta

Posted on October 26, 2025 | Leave a comment

Alleotheta (al-le-o-the’-ta): Substitution of one case, gender, mood, number, tense, or person for another. Synonymous with enallage. [Some rhetoricians claim that alleotheta is a] general category that includes antiptosis [(a type of enallage in which one grammatical case is substituted for another)] and all forms of enallage [(the substitution of grammatically different but semantically equivalent constructions)].

I would’ve gone there yesterday when my mind were throbbing like my heart, but I have learned to ignore it and kept on going like nothing is wrong. One of these days I’ll die, flopin’ up and down by the side a’ the road like a fish out of water. I gone close to death. I could smell it. I could taste it. But most importantly, I could feel it.

My brain was twisting around like a carnival ride—like the flying motor boats—three feet off the ground, going fast, headed nowhere. Maybe I did die. I’m in some kind of hotel up in the air somewhere. It is jam-packed with people. It is perfectly quiet. People are dancing wildly anyway—jumping up and down and whirling around. The name of the place is “Purgatory.” I think it has something to do with religion—I ask the guy sitting next to me. He turns and faces me. Holy shit! It’s Queequeq from goddam “Moby Dick!”

The outer-spacecraft version of him has a roller coaster tattooed on his face with the roller coaster actually transiting it with little people raising up their arms and screaming with joy. I was awestruck. Queequeq told me to “stick a whale up your ass.” I thought that was pretty rude and told him so. He apologized and gave me a brief definition of purgatory: “Purgatory is an intermediate state after death in Catholic theology where souls are purified before entering heaven. It is considered a process of cleansing from the effects of sin, a state for those who die in God’s grace but are still imperfectly purified.”

Wow! That was good news! I was Catholic! I thanked Queeque and we shook hands. He slammed down a shot of Jim Beam and started walking toward the door. The bouncer said “Wait a minute big boy, you’re going nowhere.” Queeque started running toward him and went up in a puff of smoke. He was gone. “He went to hell” said the bouncer, “You can’t leave here for heaven until God summons you—until you’ve cleansed your soul.”

Sitting on a bar stool in outer space drinking rum and cokes didn’t seem to me the path to salvation. But who am I to second-guess God? I was dead. I didn’t have much of a choice—especially if I tried to dash out the door. But then I noticed that one of the pole dancers was checking me out. She was beautiful. This is what I needed: a pole dancer in purgatory. I could do a lot worse.

What if I’d gone straight to hell?

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Alliteration

Posted on October 25, 2025 | Leave a comment

Alliteration (al-lit’-er-a’-tion): Repetition of the same letter or sound within nearby words. Most often, repeated initial consonants. Taken to an extreme alliteration becomes the stylistic vice of paroemion where nearly every word in a sentence begins with the same consonant.

Crows cawing in the middle of the night. They were crowing away like they were having a convocation in the field across the street. I didn’t usually get too irritated by things like this, but my girlfriend had gotten up and was getting dressed. She couldn’t stand the noise and was going to go home. She wanted me to call her an Uber.

I resisted and told her all would be well. I took my double-barrel shotgun down off the gun rack and grabbed a box of shells—number six birdshot that would send the noisy bastards to their graves. I had no idea how many were out there, but I was sure when I fired the first shot they’d all fly away.

I got outside and saw that there were hundreds of them. They had shredded the scarecrow in the field and were all turned facing me. I remembered the movie “The Birds” and laughed to myself. I was getting ready to fire my first round and one of them flew past me and tore a button off my shirt. All the crows cawed like he had won a victory over me.

I yelled “Bullshit” and raised my shotgun to my shoulder, ready to kill a crow, and chase the rest away—back to Wisconsin or somewhere. Then, a crow swooped down and pecked me on the forehead. It bled. It hurt. I tried to get a shot off at the crow who had pecked me. I missed it. The entire flock started circling over my head. Most of them were clutching corncobs with their feet.

I knew what was coming! I ran across the street to take shelter in my house. My girlfriend was on the porch yelling “Where’s my Uber?” A crow soared in and let its corncob go. It hit her hard in the face and gave her a bloody nose. She was crying and cursing me. Just then, the crows swooped toward the porch like a shining thundercloud. We barely made it inside. I had dropped my shogun on the lawn, so we had nothing to fend off the crows with.

They started pecking on the front door and were beginning to penetrate the wood. My girlfriend and I huddled together on the living room couch. Our phones didn’t work. We were sure we were going to die. We talked about whether we would go to hell together or separately.

Then, suddenly it was dead silent. The crows had stopped cawing! We were going to live! I opened the front door and there were crows all over the porch. That was it. We were going to die after all. Mauled by crows.

The crows took off and circled over my home shitting on it until all of them had a chance to go. My house was coated with an inch-thick coating of crow-do. I do not know why they did it: they annoyed me until I took action, then they shit on me and my girlfriend and home. I know I’m not the only one that crows have shit on. It has happened to the White House in Washington, DC. I have a theory.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Allusion

Posted on October 24, 2025 | Leave a comment

Allusion (ə-ˈlü-zhən):[1] A reference/representation of/to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art . . . “a brief reference, explicit or indirect, to a person, place or event, or to another literary work or passage”. It is left to the reader or hearer to make the connection . . . ; an overt allusion is a misnomer for what is simply a reference.[2]

The answer was blowin’ the wind. My cat boat was out front. I was going to win my 5th race since I started doing this two years ago. This was the big one! If I won, I’d get the job driving the tourist tram around the harbor loaded with summer pukes “oohing and aahing” at the beauty of it all. My favorite stop was going to be the “Help the Animals Thrift Shop.” They took all kinds of donations to help animals stuck in shelters—mainly dogs and cats, but there was a turtle and a rabbit too.

I loved to look at their inventory. There were two left rubber boots with fish scales all over them. There was a lobster buoy with a love poem carved on it: “Lobsters are red, bluefish are blue, I love you.” I always wondered how it ended up there until I met Bluefin Bill. He was ninety-seven years old and had only one eye. He lost his eye when a swordfish jumped into his lobster boat. He picked it up to throw it back. It slipped in his hand and its “sword” stuck in his eye and blinded it. Bleeding, he beat the swordfish to death and invited some friends over that night to eat it. Cleaning it, he sliced it up the belly. A snail shell necklace fell out that had a mermaid pendant attached to it. Although he had been blinded in one eye, he believed it was a sign. He thought maybe if he carved a love poem on one of his lobster buoys the mermaid would see it and fall in love with him. It was a stretch, but she did! She lived in a big tank in his living room until she died of old age two years ago. What a shame.

This was the best story ever. I was saving my money to buy the love poem buoy. In the meantime I could marvel at the rest of the inventory. There was a tea set with pictures of different insects in the cups. I liked the grasshopper the best. Then, there was a hat made out of a horseshoe crab painted turquoise blue. One more thing: a locked treasure chest. It was not for sale. For $10 you could hit it once with a length of pipe. If you broke it open, it was yours. It had been there 50 years. It was dented, but it was never broken open.

I almost lost the race. I took a shortcut through “The Devil’s Darning Needle” off of Ocean Point and ran aground. A large wave came along and lifted me off the ledge, and I sailed away and won the race. I couldn’t account for it, but the wave looked like it was smiling at me.

I started my tram-driving job on Monday. The Smiling Crow souvenier shop was our first stop. It had little lobster buoy necklaces strung on fishing line and hung on a rack. They were inscribed with the blind lobsterman’s love poem: “Lobsters are red, Bluefish are blue, I love you.” You read it and look at it and it’s like you better find somebody to love and that’s amore all rolled in to one. I bought a buoy and vowed to wear it all the time.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Tagged definitions, elocutio, example, examples, figures of speech, rhetoric, schemes, trope

Amphibologia

Posted on October 23, 2025 | Leave a comment

Amphibologia (am’-fi-bo-lo’-gi-a): Ambiguity of grammatical structure, often occasioned by mispunctuation. [A vice of ambiguity.]

My dog was on the front page of the Sunday newspaper. He sat on Pete Hegseth’s face drooling and wagging his stubby little tail. Yesterday he sat on Donald Trump’s face and the day before that, Pam Bondi’s face. I thought nothing of it. My dog Lucky had proved his stupidity countless times. The face-sitting is just another example of his random weirdness that I couldn’t attribute any intention to. It has a veil of intention wrapped around it, but it’s just random bullshit. End of story.

The next day when I came downstairs in desperate need of coffee, Lucky was wearing a pair of glasses and looking out the living room window. He was growling, so I looked out the window. There was a squirrel sitting on the porch railing eating a chestnut.

How the hell did he get a pair of glasses on? Moreover where the hell did he get the glasses from? I almost asked him, but that would be capitulating. I wasn’t about to ask my dog where he got the glasses from and how he was able to put them on by himself.

Lucky started barking indignantly. His bark sounded clearly like “Fu*k you, fu*k you!” It was another weird anomaly to pay no attention to, but the weird anomalies were beginning to pile up. Now, he has started to chase his tail. All I can think is that he’s moving toward dementia, another write-off, this time with a rational explanation. Lucky is seventy years old in dog years. He’s starting to fall apart. I decided to buy him a life-insurance policy.

I called “Play Dead” the premier dog life insurance policy company. The policy cost $200 per month, but, when the time came, Play Dead provided a ten-foot high marble monument with a likeness of your dog sitting on it, with the epitaph of your choice chiseled on the granite base.

The insurance saleswoman rang the doorbell and I let her in. Lucky saw her, took one look, and ran whining into the kitchen. Her name was “Pinky” and she told me she had “just moved here” and was from Moldavia and had a work visa. She wore a cheap-looking dog collar around her neck and had a dog leash draped across her chest like a bandolier. She also wore a necklace made from big bone-shaped dog biscuits and she had black Poodle hair. She was beautiful.

She said, “Before we do anything, sign here and write your epitaph here. I complied: “Lucky never barked without reason, but now he is silent.” I cried as I wrote it down, stolen from an ancient Roman dog’s grave. When I looked at Lucky hiding under the kitchen table I realized I had been selling him short—he was more dog than I gave him credit for.

I called him into the living room where he barked and growled at Pinky. She pulled a gun and aimed it at me. Lucky stopped growling and barking. She told me he’s nearly the last of an incredibly rare breed, “The Zockenpinscher, a German hound bred to vex their master by doing weird things. The vexation induces a more open mind—which obviously hasn’t worked on you.” She put her leash on Lucky and backed toward the door still aiming her gun at me. I yelled at her “You’re nothing but a flea-bitten mutt!” She went out the door and I never expected to see either of them ever again.

I looked up Zockenpinscher on Google and found out that, given his rarity, Lucky was worth $1,000,000. $1,000,000 and I treated him like a common dog. $1,000,000 and I hit him with a rolled up newspaper when he was bad. $1,000,000 and I yelled at him just to see him roll over on his back and hear him whine. But, he was gone and would never be back—I couldn’t make amends to him.

All of a sudden there was scratching at the door. “Oh my God it’s Lucky!” No such luck. It was the neighborhood nuisance raccoon sitting on his butt waving a chicken bone. I slammed the door and looked at the picture of Lucky hanging over the fireplace. I was filled with regret.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Posted in amphibolgia

Tagged definitions, elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Ampliatio

Posted on October 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

Ampliatio (am’-pli-a’-ti-o): Using the name of something or someone before it has obtained that name or after the reason for that name has ceased. A form of epitheton.

They still called me Speedo, although I hadn’t worn a Speedo in 10 years. I used to love my little banana hammock. I loved to see how it affected the people who came to see me swim 1500 meters, making smoke on the water. My arms are freakishly long. They nearly reach my knees. I used to pull through the water like a porpoise. But now, I’m like a drugged manatee, swimming like I’m swimming through pudding. I can’t even reach 1500 meters without sinking and being hauled out by the life guard who each time said that is was the last time. He was getting a hernia from hauling me out. Since the end of my competitive swimming days, I had gained 145 pounds— I weighed 345. I was heavy. The manatee comparison was apt. I wore size 50 baggy swim trunks imprinted with pastel colored surfboards.

Yet, I couldn’t stay away from the community pool, no matter the fool I made of myself. One day I did a belly flop and landed next to a little kid. She almost drowned and I was nearly banned from the pool for life. You can imagine how I felt. I began to realize when people called my “Speedo” they were making fun of me. And why not? All that was left of my former glory was the key to my locker with my old Speedo hanging inside. I cried quietly as I sat on the bench, memories roiling my mind. I often thought of Jessica, my former girlfriend who was now happily married with two children. One of her children, the boy, is named Speedo after me, but her husband doesn’t get it. He’s a high school dropout who clips coupons for a living,

Jessica had recently bought me a space heater and given me a copy of the story about Jim Morrison’s electrocution in a bathtub in Paris. It was interesting, but I had no idea why she gave those things to me. I read the story several times and finally realized that Morrison had probably died when a plugged-in space heater fell in his bathtub when he was in it.

Now I got it.

Jessica wanted me to copy Jim Morrison’s death. But I didn’t have a bathtub—all I had was a shower, and besides I wasn’t sure I was ready kill myself. Although I was close—very close. Then it dawned on me that I could electrocute myself in the community swimming pool. I could hold the space heater over my head and walk to the deep end, submerging the space heater when I got there. But then, I realized that the pool was always packed with other people. I wasn’t looking for collateral damage. I would hide in the locker room until everybody left. It was awkward carrying the space heater around. I told everybody who asked that it was an Easter gift for my mother. The extension chord was a little awkward too. If anybody asked me about it I told them “Think about it!” And that was the end of that.

Everybody had left the pool. I was there all alone. I plugged in the space heater. It started glowing. This was it. I held it over my head and walked toward the deep end. Soon I would be dead, unburdened of my useless life. Damn, the extension chord was too short to reach the deep end. I climbed out of the pool and threw the space heater in. There was a rat swimming across the pool and the space heater made a direct hit. There was a flash and the smell of burning hair and the dead rat floated belly up.

Seeing the rat’s electrocution was a real inspiration. I went to Home Depot the next day and got a longer extension chord—one that would surely reach the deep end.

POST SCRIPT

He succeeded with his plan. They found him floating belly up with his eyeballs popped out. His funeral’s eulogies given by his friends were replete with swimming metaphors and the word “Speedo.” Jessica gave the most moving speech—centering untruthfully on his desire to die like his rock’ roll idol Jim Morrison.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Anacoenosis

Posted on October 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

Anacoenosis (an’-a-ko-en-os’-is): Asking the opinion or judgment of the judges or audience, usually implying their common interest with the speaker in the matter [and illustrating their communally-held ideals of truth, justice, goodness and beauty, for better and for worse].

Don’t we all love to travel? New sights. New sounds. New smells. What about this:

“I’m a travellin’ man. I’ve made a lot of stops all over the world.”

When Ricky Nelson was singing this song in my ears on my iPhone, I wanted to go onto Orbitz and book a flight somewhere. But, I could barely pay my monthly phone bill. I was dying to go somewhere. I hadn’t gone anywhere since my high school class trip to the Chicago Stockyards where we watched cows being slaughtered and butchered. Each of us got a free hamburger patty in a little plastic bag compliments of the slaughterhouse. Our teacher, Ms. Corbett had me take a picture of her with cow intestines wrapped around her neck.

She was a biology teacher, so she had license to dig into the cow parts. In addition to the intestines, she collected an udder, an eyeball, and a hoof. She told me they would be freeze-dried in her home freeze dryer and added to her “private” collection of animal parts, and whole small animals. She invited me on a “private field trip” to view her collection when we got back to town. I said “yes” and she made me promise to keep it a secret. I promised.

I got to her house at noon the next day as agreed. I was wearing rubber gloves like she told me to. I rang the doorbell and Ms. Corbet answered it. She was wearing rubber gloves and a stained apron—I think it was blood-stained.

She welcomed me inside and I saw there were three shelves on each of the living room walls. Each contained animal parts, and also, small animals. I recognized a set of lungs, a few hearts, a squirrel balancing a ping-pong ball on its nose, a duck ashtray and then OH MY GOD! It was the Zambini’s Chihuahua wearing a little sombrero! They lived down the street and had lost their dog 4 years ago. They’d been looking for it ever since. There were posters on every telephone pole for miles around. His name was Jorge and you could hear them calling for him nearly every night, to no avail.

Now I had found him on a shelf in Ms. Corbet’s living room! I had gasped when I saw him, so she knew that I knew. She pretended she was clueless and invited me into the kitchen. I complied. There was a big box with a glass door plugged in next to the toaster oven. It had a label on it: “Cleveland Freeze Dryer.” She pulled a knife out of a drawer, pointed it at me and told me to get into the freeze dryer and get on my knees and pose like a begging dog. She was going to make me into one of her specimens. I was big, so I would probably be displayed in a place of honor—probably in the middle of the living room. I was really scared.

I told her that freeze-drying Jorge was bad enough, but freeze-drying a person would earn her a life sentence in prison. She relented and stabbed herself in the eye instead. It was the most bizarre thing I will ever witness—especially seeing her running around the living room with the knife handle sticking out of her eye socket, and then, jumping out of the living room window and running off.

Her body was found the next day in the Walmart women’s dressing room. She had been trying on pajamas imprinted with penguins. The knife was still sticking in her eye.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Anacoloutha

Posted on October 20, 2025 | Leave a comment

Anacoloutha (an-a-co’-lu-tha): Substituting one word with another whose meaning is very close to the original, but in a non-reciprocal fashion; that is, one could not use the first, original word as a substitute for the second. This is the opposite of acoloutha.

It was time for bed. It was time for the couch. It awaited me, lately, like an old pal. I would just roll over from watching TV, stretch out, and go to sleep for the usual round of nightmares delivering terror and sorrow to my shattered life.

My wife was upstairs reading a book. The love of my life had turned me off like a light switch. I was person non gratis. I was a stain on the carpet. I was a bad smell. It was totally my fault. I had moved her teacup collection to make room for my “American Rifleman” magazine collection. It was a manly magazine that featured scantily clad women holding rifles. I couldn’t get enough of “Tammy” holding a Winchester .30.30 between her legs with one hand and fanning her face with the other. This is what did me in. It wasn’t enough that I had displaced my wife’s teacup collection. She burned all of my “American Rifleman” magazines and cancelled my subscription. She “sentenced” me to one month on the couch, cleaning up the kitchen, and doing the laundry, in addition to my usual chores—mowing the lawn, taking care of the garden, washing the car, etc.

As I settled in on the couch, I waited for the nightly nightmare to begin. I fell asleep.

I was in a chicken coop. I was a chicken struggling to push out an egg. The rooster was pecking me on top of my head, drawing blood and berating me for being so slow. I turned around a blew the egg in his face. It broke on his beak and dripped down his chest. The farmer came in the henhouse and saw the egg on the rooster’s beak. He yelled: “How many times have I told you to leave the eggs alone. It’s over!” He picked the rooster up by the head and swung him around over his head until the rooster’s neck was wrung. He said: “I hope you’re not tough and stringy like the last rooster was.” I scrunched down in my nest box and thanked God I wasn’t a rooster.

But I was too quick—I was a chicken, and a fox was digging under the fence. He got under and was coming toward me with murder shining brightly in his little eyes. I ran into the coop and he was right behind me. He caught me by the middle and held me up like a trophy. I could feel his teeth puncturing my thin chicken skin and crushing my ribs as he shook me around.

I woke up on the couch in a cold sweat, feeling like a badly wounded chicken. I couldn’t move and there were spots of blood on my PJs. I was dying. Then, I woke up again—this time for real. I was OK! It was just my nightly nightmare. I wanted it all to go away. I wanted my pre-“American Rifleman” pre-Tammy life back again. I had one week of my couch sentence to go. I knew I could do it, but would my wife be the same loving person when I came back to bed? Would she let me out of the house? Time will tell. Time will tell.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Anacoluthon

Posted on October 19, 2025 | Leave a comment

Anacoluthon (an-a-co-lu’-thon): A grammatical interruption or lack of implied sequence within a sentence. That is, beginning a sentence in a way that implies a certain logical resolution, but concluding it differently than the grammar leads one to expect. Anacoluthon can be either a grammatical fault or a stylistic virtue, depending on its use. In either case, it is an interruption or a verbal lack of symmetry. Anacoluthon is characteristic of spoken language or interior thought, and thus suggests those domains when it occurs in writing.

I was going to. . . . was my birthday. I put on my pointed party hat and prepared to blow out candles on mom’s homemade cake. As usual it would be soaked with rum and laced with LSD. Mom was a child of the sixties and believed that Acid was the soul of celebration, and rum was the “sunshine of our love.”

Mom worked at Cliff’s and was so full of hope and love that she bought 50 scratch-off “Take Five” lotto tickets every day. She had won numerous regular “Take Five” tickets and forty dollars in cash over the past three years. Yet, she kept on playing, day after day, week after week. She was an inspiration. A role model. A saint.

The Acid was kicking in. My cake on the table was bubbling and changing colors like a rainbow. Mom and Bill Timmons our neighbor had taken off their clothes and were climbing onto the table. Suddenly, mother grew small wings and started hovering over Bill. He was laying there singing “Some Enchanted Evening” in German with a Bavarian accent.

It was time for me to get the hell out of there. I retreated to the living room which had become a dark cave with torches burning, mounted on the walls. I closed my eyes and yelled “Get me the fu*k out of here.” Suddenly my long-dead dog Villanova descended to the middle of the living room. He wagged his tail and told me I should be grateful for a mysteriously wonderful and happy birthday.

We sang happy birthday and I went to sleep on the couch.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Anadiplosis

Posted on October 18, 2025 | Leave a comment

Anadiplosis (an’-a-di-plo’-sis): The repetition of the last word (or phrase) from the previous line, clause, or sentence at the beginning of the next. Often combined with climax.

I was struggling with gas. Gas that alienated my friends, banned me from elevators and, due to the lingering smell, department store dressing rooms. Despite the presence of the smell in real time, I had to have a chip implanted in my head that would trigger a stink alarm. It was mandated after I was convicted of stinking up public places and causing severe nasal and mental discomfort in adults and children. It was unprecedented and an unbearable burden to bear.

Even in the fresh air, my gas would stink. People on the sidewalk would wrinkle up their noses and run away coughing, some even vomiting.

Maybe the worst part of the whole thing is my butt hole. I suffer from “flaccid sphincter syndrome.” What this means is that the muscle that keeps normal peoples’ butt holes closed does not work right on me. Before going out I have to administer six or seven enimas to myself, to clear pending poops so nothing “falls out” while I’m out in public. After that, I have a special charcoal filter I push up my butt. It works really well unless I blow a really robust air biscuit and blow my cork. The blown cork will release the stench and subject me to the ire of nearby people—which can be substantial.

Once, I was riding on the subway when my cork blew. People fought to vacate the car. The man standing next to me put a handkerchief over his nose and beat me in the face with his briefcase until my nose bled. When he was done and left the subway, I reached down into the back of my pants, found my cork. and shoved it back in. Of course, it was too late, but I thought I wouldn’t blow another whopper that day.

I was wrong.

I had a blowout when I was standing in line for tickets to a Taylor Swift concert, “Rosy Posy.” It was actually fortuitous. Everybody ran away retching, and there I was at the front of the line. I took out my credit card and the salesperson, who was choking with snot pouring out of his nose, and tears streaming down his face, closed the ticket window and told me to go away.

This is typical. I’m just walking around stinking up the world. I had to do something beyond enemas and the charcoal cork up my ass. I put an ad seeking help in the “New York Post.” I got lot of responses from people who were clearly scammers. But, one seemed for real, offering a remedy for free.

She came to my stench-soaked apartment wearing a military grade gas mask and carrying a small bottle of pills labelled “Windless.” She told me to take one-a-day and I would become windless. I’ve been taking the pills for five months. My gas has abated and my sphincter has tightened up. The side effects are minimal—drooling and anal itch that cortisone does not remedy—I use a mixture of olive oil and baking soda to quell the itch. Also, there’s the tumor on my left butt cheek. All of these side effects are minimal compared to the relief “Windless” has given me.

It is wonderful living in a stink-free world. I never miss it. Every once in awhile I blow a tiny fart that reminds me of days gone by. I take my old cork out of the kitchen drawer, look at it and quickly put it away.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Anamnesis

Posted on October 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

Anamnesis (an’-am-nee’-sis): Calling to memory past matters. More specifically, citing a past author [apparently] from memory. Anamnesis helps to establish ethos [credibility], since it conveys the idea that the speaker is knowledgeable of the received wisdom from the past.

As the ancient Greek Potacles said, “In-between is the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end.” My mother shared these words of wisdom when she would throw the book she was reading onto the floor and dump her full ashtray on top of it. The ashes made an aesthetically pleasing grey cloud that was accented by her filter-tipped smokes. She would make me clean up the mess. I would cull out a couple of the longer butts and go out in the garage and smoke them. They had Mom’s lipstick on them. When I smoked them, I imagined I was kissing Mom. It was a perverse pleasure—nicotine plus the taste of Mom’s lipstick. I didn’t care. I didn’t want it to end. I stuck the cigarettes in my mouth greedily, with my eyes closed passionately twirling the lipstick-coated butts around between my lips. One day I put four butts at once between my lips. It was overwhelming. I fainted and fell to the garage floor.

When I awoke, I was laying on my back in an ambulance with Mom holding my hand and praying for God to let me live. As we rode along, I told Mom what I had been up to. She told me I was disgusting and told the orderly to let her out of the ambulance on the corner of Chestnut Street. I was bereft. My soul had been torn out. I wet my pants.

My mother had me incarcerated in “Son of Sam.” It was named after a famous serial killer. It was a “hospital” specializing in “depervification.” I was a certified pervert. SOS was perfect for me.

My therapy consisted of the same regime every day. First, they would stick lipstick-saturated cigarette butts up my nostrils. Then, they tickled my nose with a pubic hair until I sneezed and the cigarette butts shot out of my nostrils, landing in a bowl of kerosene where they were lit on fire and destroyed. This triggered something deep inside of me. It was intense self-disdain, and anger, and regret. The procedure awakened my better angel that had been sleeping on the feather bed of my moral neglect. He was confirming my new desire, holding aloft a black walnut—one of the toughest nuts to crack. But now, I wanted to torture small animals and I said so. My better angel disappeared in a puff of red smoke. I faked being cured by throwing up over and over and yelling “I’m sick.” It worked.

I checked out of SOS and booked an Uber to the pet store at the mall, “All Creatures Creep and Crawl.” I purchased 3 hamsters and headed home to dismember them and shove them down the garbage disposal. I was back on the perv train, destination total horror!

Mom was a thing of the past.

POSTSCRIPT

The perv was detained in a raid by ICE on his apartment complex. ICE found a chipmunk head in his jacket pocket along with a half-dozen rodent feet. His home was searched, uncovering unspeakably cruel and abusive horrors. He was sentenced to 300 years in prison, and rightfully so.

In a gruesome reprise, there are currently 3 copycats operating in the TRI-State area. We beg them to cease and desist. We know all of you have been circumcised and may be suffering from Bi-Polar “Circumcisional Mushroom Pecker Syndrome.” RFK JR. has assured us that his diagnosis of your condition is infallibly based on his “ironclad opinion” as a part of his crusade to ban circumcision. He can heal you with a quick surgical procedure., making your dick look like a banana again.

Turn yourselves in! Stop the carnage!

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Anapodoton

Posted on October 16, 2025 | Leave a comment

Anapodoton (an’-a-po’-do-ton): A figure in which a main clause is suggested by the introduction of a subordinate clause, but that main clause never occurs.

Anapodoton is a kind of anacoluthon, since grammatical expectations are interrupted. If the expression trails off, leaving the subordinate clause incomplete, this is sometimes more specifically called anantapodoton. Anapodoton has also named what occurs when a main clause is omitted because the speaker interrupts himself/herself to revise the thought, leaving the initial clause grammatically unresolved but making use of it nonetheless by recasting its content into a new, grammatically complete sentence.

I had . . . it was a nightmare—a timeshare nightmare. All of the people I shared it with were slobs, leaving it for me to take over each summer with trash cans overflowing, dirty dishes stacked up, and bad smells saturating the air. It was like walking into a recently inhabited crypt with a badly embalmed corpse packed in a half-closed drawer.

After spending the day cleaning the place up, I decided to call a meeting with my co-tenants. I had never met them before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I could only imagine! Stained t-shirts filled with holes, shorts caked with hand wipings of every kind, faint odor of excrement, yellow teeth, snow-storm dandruff, etc.

There were three co-tenants. As far as I could see they were all offenders. We met at a restaurant named “Onion Rings on the Lake.” They all showed up 15-45 minutes late. As they shuffled in they didn’t fit my musings at all. Beautifully and sharply dressed, it was like watching a fashion show or a beauty pageant. One woman was wearing a diamond the size of a ping-pong ball.

I was shocked. Then they started lecturing me on time-share hygiene, like I was the offender, when I’d actually been cleaning up their shit for the past five years. They were adamant. I was the super-slob.

Maybe it was true. I had cleanliness “issues” ever since I was a little kid. My parents were mandated by a court order to send me away to hygiene camp—“Shiny Orifice.” Among other things, I had to practice picking up a garbage bag, cleaning my fingernails, scraping residue off my shorts, pooping and wiping silently, and flossing my teeth. It was hard for me as a free range slob. I escaped 9 times and never quite finished the program.

I went into the Onion Rings’ men’s room and took a good look at myself in the mirror for the first time since I was released from Shiny Orifice. It was me! One look and I could tell—my t-shirt, my hair, my teeth, my off-color orifice. I was the offender.

Clearly, though, I thought I’d been cleaning the place up, but I wasn’t. How could that be? I vowed to find out and then remedy it. I got a therapist when I got home. She would unravel the mystery and my insurance would cover it. I told her my story. She pulled an orange peel out of the wastebasket and rubbed it on my nose. I grabbed it and sat on it. She stuck her fingers in the holes on my t-shirt. I yelled, “Stir your fingers around faster.” She did, and I had a very embarrassing orgasm in my crusty pants.

She said “Ooh I know what’s wrong with you! You have ‘Oppopsychopakinosis.’ You think you’re tidying up when you’re making a mess. I am writing a prescription for you that will bring things into the proper order. It is called ‘1,2,3’ and you can pick it up at CVS pharmacy.

The meds have been a godsend, but I’m still seeing my therapist to stay tuned up. I go in for the “fingers in the t-shirt holes” treatment once a month. Needless to say, I have fallen in love with her. I wish we could walk hand in hand in a landfill holding hands together on a swinging bag of garbage.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Anastrophe

Posted on October 15, 2025 | Leave a comment

Anastrophe (an-as’-tro-phee): Departure from normal word order for the sake of emphasis. Anastrophe is most often a synonym for hyperbaton, but is occasionally referred to as a more specific instance of hyperbaton: the changing of the position of only a single word.

“Flying through time—flying over dawn’s horizon like a fat bird struggling to stay aloft—measuring the moments, the minutes, the seconds, the hours, the days, the years, the weeks, stopping never, rushing into the future, fleeing from the past, painting the illusion of the present on the surface of nothing—no now, only a stream, a river invisible swirling into yesterday bereft of now. Nothing stops, it only goes until your consciousness dies and you are turned into ashes and scattered on water or earth.”

I was having crazy thoughts. I was driving to Elizabeth, NJ from Toronto, Canada. I was bringing my mother’s ashes “home.” She had gown up in Elizabeth in the 1950s. She grew up in the Polish section of the city. Her dad ran a deli that had sawdust on the floor and a giant pickle barrel.

Her urn started rattling as we neared the Delaware Water Gap. At first I thought there was something loose in the back of my SUV.

Mom moved to Canada when I was eight. She worked in a snowshoe factory. She took care of all phases of gut manufacture and the production of snowshoe webbing. She hated New Jersey—hated it enough to leave me, her toddler, behind.

She left me with Aunt Katrina. Aunt Katrina was very protective. I had to take a bath every night and change my underwear every day. I had to tuck a napkin in my collar when I ate dinner. She accompanied me to school until I graduated so I wouldn’t get “killed” by the members of “Hell’s Kielbasa,” an adolescent banana-seat bicycle gang that picked on smaller people in our neighborhood. They never actually killed anybody.

Suddenly I heard a voice say “Katrina is an asshole. New Jersey sucks.” I heard it clearly from the back seat where mom’s urn was. The voice said, “Stop here!” The voice said, “Dump me in the Delaware River! Do it or I’ll blow up you and you your stupid car!” It was my dead mother, so I complied with her wishes. I carried the urn down to the river and dumped it in—the ashes floated away like time passing into the future until it sunk.

When I got home to New Jersey, I filled the urn with ashes from my barbecue grill—a clever ruse. I felt like a good son. After her funeral, we scattered the ashes in the Elizabeth River. My Uncle Chuck said they smelled like hot dogs, but he didn’t push it. That’s the closest I came to being busted. Mom was on her way to the Delaware Bay, ending her voyage in the Atlantic Ocean.

R.I.P. Mom!

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Anesis

Posted on October 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

Anesis (an’-e-sis): Adding a concluding sentence that diminishes the effect of what has been said previously. The opposite of epitasis.

I was going to ride a horse! For 25 cents in the slot it bucked up and down for five minutes. I always wanted to be a cowboy: home, home on the range where the sheep and the beavers play.

I dropped the 25 cents in the slot. Nothing happened. Suddenly there was a cracking sound and I was bathed in red light. My play clothes tore off and I was dressed in cowboy clothes—white pearl snap shirt with horseshoes embroidered on it, broken-in Levi’s and lizard skin boots. Finally, I was wearing a giant white hat that came over my ears. Me and Tony (the horse) were bucking across the prairie. His electrical chord had grown to at least two miles long, so he could buck just about anywhere.

We bucked into a box canyon. We were trapped in it by the “Cannibal Pioneers.” Their story was a sad one. They were on their way to California. One of their members fell off his wagon and was crushed to death. The cult’s credo was “Waste not want not.” So, they ate him. They found him to be quite delicious. So now, they travel the countryside eating hapless travelers and farmers. Given their diet, they are all at least 20-30 pounds overweight, and many of them have heart problems,

Tony and I were going to make a break for it. I had another quarter I could use to get us out of there. I dropped it in the slot and we began bucking like there was an earthquake. We bucked at the assembled miscreants. They made way for us. They were human-eating cowards.

The wind blew and my cowboy clothes were torn off and replaced by my shorts and t-shirt and Birkenstocks. I was excited by my adventure! I told my mother about it and she made me eat a handful of her meds—the ones that keep her sitting on the couch all day. As I sat on the couch all day, I relived my adventure, but I changed it so the “Cannibal Pioneers” ate my mother.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Antanaclasis

Posted on October 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

Antanaclasis (an’-ta-na-cla’-sis): The repetition of a word or phrase whose meaning changes in the second instance.

I put my cat down and put him down while doing so. Putting him down was one of the worst things I could do to him. When he was insulted the hair stood up on his back and his tail stuck straight up in the air, and he hissed too.

I had called him a “kitty litter eater”—the equivalent of “shit eater” for a person. He had spilled his water on the kitchen floor for the 10th time. I was wearing my socks around the house and I stepped right in the puddle. I slipped and fell down and hit my head on the refrigerator. I was unconscious for about five minutes. When I woke up, I let him have it, “You fu*kin’ kitty litter eater! Get the fu*k out of here or I’m taking you back to the pet shelter where you belong with all the other bad and idiot cats who can’t find a permanent home!”

He struck his insulted pose and jumped toward my face. I dodged him but he came back at my ear and raked it with his front paws. With my ear bleeding, I got up off the floor and kicked him as hard as I could. He got stuck between the refrigerator and wall. He was struggling like crazy, squirming and yowling.

There was a knock at my door. I looked out on my porch and it was Mrs. Pesky, the nosiest human on earth. She asked me what the noise was. I yelled back “My cat is stuck and I’m helping him get free.” She said in a high pitched voice “I think you are killing him.” Maybe she was right, but I told her to go away, or I would tell her niece she was up to her old tricks again—last time she was polishing peoples’ doorknobs for $2.00 with what she called her “soiled knickers.” She promptly left. She lived with her niece and needed to stay in her good graces.

I noticed Fartore (my cat) had gotten free and was rubbing up against my leg—a sure sign that amends were being made. Somehow I had to figure out how not to insult him. He was sensitive and I was insensitive. I started attending “Blurters Anonymous.” It helped people who spoke before they thought. My goal was to reach the status of “Tongue Biter.” I learned to bite my tongue before I say anything to Fartore. It works, but my tongue is sore. However, we have peace on the home front and I have discovered a mouthwash that effectively soothes my tongue. All is well. By the way, Mrs. Pesky got hit by a car

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Antanagoge

Posted on October 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

Antanagoge (an’-ta-na’-go-gee): Putting a positive spin on something that is nevertheless acknowledged to be negative or difficult.

I was an optimist. I could not see the “bad” in anything. I had cut my thumb off when I was a kid. Now I couldn’t hitchhike. No more wandering. No more getting lost. No more being picked up by weirdos in the middle of no where. All good!

My brother glued my butt to the toilet seat. No more falling off the toilet! No more wiping from behind—I went the clean way from front to back. My father unbolted the toilet seat so I could walk around. I became Mr. Popularity wearing a toilet seat glued to my ass—I even met the mayor of our small town Binnville. He told me to stay away from his daughter or he would have the state police assassinate me.

I didn’t listen.

Now, I was a hunted man. Milly (the mayor’s daughter) loved me as much as I loved her (so I thought). She couldn’t explain her feelings for me and the toilet seat. However, she did say that she might love the toilet seat more than me. I found that to be weird, but love is love any way you put it. She liked to hold on to my toiled seat when we walked together. She said she felt like she was steering us toward a happier life. I was moved.

Then the state police caught up with us. They threw smoke grenades at us and we escaped in a cloud of smoke. This was a turning point in my relationship with Milly. I couldn’t risk her life just so she could fondle my toilet seat covered ass. I told her so. She started crying and sobbing very loud. She sounded like a bear grunting. Then there was a bear grunting. It came running out of the woods knocked Milly down and started dragging her away. I faced my toilet seat toward the bear and ran backwards at it. I hit him on the side of the head and he dropped Milly and started toward me. There was a shot and the bear dropped dead.

I looked behind me. It was Snarky Montana. His flintlock was still smoking. He said, “I’ll be sawing’ thiss baby up for dinner tonight. Care to join me?” Without hesitation we accepted his invitation. We had piles of bear meat smothered in wild mushrooms and Black Walnuts.

My toilet seat had come loose in the encounter with the bear. It fell off when I got up from Snarky’s table. Milly grabbed it and hugged it and kissed it moaning and rubbing it up against her own ass. At that point I realized it was the toilet seat she loved, not me.

As life goes on, there is always something to learn and be grateful for. Since the toilet seat fell off, the State Police have ended their quest to kill me. Milly’s been “put away” where she’ll be better off. They’ve mounted her toilet seat on her toilet in her room, where she spends most of her time sitting and wiggling around. Her father died of a heart attack chasing Milly down Main Street the time she escaped. My dad sells a line of toilet seats on the internet—he sells every kind of seat you can imagine, from heated to sandpaper.

So, if a little rain falls in your life, sop it up and wring it out in your toilet.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Antimetathesis

Posted on October 11, 2025 | Leave a comment

Antimetathesis (an-ti-me-ta’-the-sis): Inversion of the members of an antithesis.

“Bad is good” I say this in the spirit of ass-backwards visionating. Like a dunk slam or candy poison or the sweet stink of mole meat chugging in the garbage disposal. Well, maybe not. I’m struggling to mean what I said. Maybe I should just shut up, like a zip lock bag or a lunch box or a can of tuna.

I’ve tried a week to break my head jam. It’s like a log jam woven into neurons twisted, glowing, floating. My hairdresser Manitoba Pete tells me I need a therapist and drugs to keep me on track— small little pills to comfort me and maybe give the opportunity to meet angels.

I did it.

My therapist was so beautiful I could hardly keep my dick in my workout pants. She looked me in the eyes and asked me if I felt uncomfortable managing the bulge in my pants. I told her it was temporary and would go down in a minute. She nodded and asked me why I was seeing her. I told her my hairdresser Manitoba Pete had recommended it right after cutting my hair and farting real loud.

She said “Hmm, I’m going prescribe to a rocking horse and some very small pills.” She wanted me to ride the rocking horse three time a day for one hour each time, and take 11 little pills per day. I couldn’t do the math on the pills, so she told me to take one per hour.

If I said anything while I was riding the rocking horse I was to taser myself in the armpit and keep on riding.

I’ve been at for six months now. My therapist tells me I’m doing well; maybe in a year I’ll be cured: “Keep riding cowboy,” she says “and keep taking those little pills.” I love those little pills!

Every time I take a handful I imagine I’m having sex with my therapist. I think it may be better than the real thing—she moans in my head and everything. I will be telling her about it next week. It is high time. I bought her candy.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Tagged elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, schemes, trope

Aposiopesis

Posted on October 11, 2025 | Leave a comment

Aposiopesis (a-pos-i-o-pee’-sis): Breaking off suddenly in the middle of speaking, usually to portray being overcome with emotion.

I was riding my electric bike. Humming down the highway of life, I felt the wind in my hair and my pants flapping around my legs—like a pants leg massage, keeping me limber, although the electric motor made it unnecessary.

I was rolling along at 3 MPH, the landscape a flying blur. I was on my way to Home Depot to buy a clamp. I wasn’t sure how it would work. I was thinking that maybe a nail or a screw would work just as well, but I did’t have a screwdriver or a hammer. It had to be a clamp.

The door jamb to my upstairs bedroom closet had come loose and the doorknob had stopped working. It took too long to get a shirt out of my closet.

Suddenly the battery went dead on my bike. Its big fat tires made it nearly impossible to pedal manually. I was in front of Mrs. Breenlap’s house. She was always really friendly to me so I figured I would ask if I could charge my bike up in her house. She told me it was ok, but I had to take off my shoes before I came inside. I complied.

When I got inside a man wrapped the charger wire around my wrists and told me to stand with my nose against the wall. He handed me two string beans and told me to stick them in my ears. I couldn’t do it with wired wrists. Mrs. Breenlap apologized for the man’s behavior and told me he had invaded her house 2 years ago and wouldn’t leave. She told me he was harmless as he pulled the clamp out of the Home Depot bag. He clamped my legs together and pushed me down. He covered me with a blanket and ran out the door. Mrs. Breenlap yelled “You, you look. . .” She helped me up and untangled the wire from my wrists. We sat on the couch waiting for my bike to charge. She told me to put my head between her legs and make growling sounds. I complied out of curiosity.

Soon, my bike was charged and I went my merry way. I shouldn’t have given Mrs. Breenlap my phone number. She has been sending me a steady stream of nude selfies. She looks pretty good for a 70-year-old woman. I have 200 selfies of her. I pasted them on the ceiling above my bed.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Apocope

Posted on October 10, 2025 | Leave a comment

Apocope (a-pok’-o-pe): Omitting a letter or syllable at the end of a word. A kind of metaplasm.

I’m goin’ crazy. My world is comin’ apart. Yesterday, I had a conversation with my dog Buffer. He wanted to tell me how shitty his dog food is. I told him I get it from Dollar General and it’s only a year past the sell by date. There’s a nice picture of a smiling golden retriever on the bag. It’s red though. It makes his poops red and even though I scoop them right up, they embarrass him. God. What a pain in the ass.

After I got done with Buffer, I took a look in the mirror before I went grocery shopping. What I saw scared the hell outta’ me. My face had turned into 6-inch wide lid from an olive jar. All the writing was backward, but I was pretty sure they were Mezzetta brand Italian olives. I used them in my tuna and egg salad sandwiches, but I never imagined their lid would replace my head. But now, as a certified psycho, I was used to having these kinds of experiences. The shock quickly wore off and I just walked away to take the bus to the grocery store,

I got on the bus. An elderly woman looked at me and screamed and passed out. I looked at my reflection in the bus window, and holy hell, my head was the lid of an olive jar. The passengers were all cowering and begging me not to kill them. I tried to assure them I would not kill them, but I spoke in Italian and they couldn’t understand me. Next, there was a voice outside the bus. It was a policeman with a bullhorn: “Everybody off the bus with the exception of Lidhead. Lidhead, put your hands up and don’t move.” I had an itch on my butt. I scratched it and he shot me in the lid. Scratching my butt was considered moving. I found out the hard way.

But, I woke up. It was all a dream! I ran into the bathroom to look in the mirror. Now, my head was a yellow golf ball with a permanent smiley face and crossed eyes. I smashed the mirror with my shoe and ran downstairs to talk to Buffer about what to do. He said he liked my Scottish accent and recommended I get a job in the pro shop at Green Meadows Golf Course. I followed his advice. I am doing well. I had surgery on my crossed eyes and now I drive a golf cart and caddy for some of our celebrity clients like Donald Trump, who screamed like a little girl when we first met. He denies it, and I don’t care.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Apodixis

Posted on October 9, 2025 | Leave a comment

Apodixis (a-po-dix’-is): Proving a statement by referring to common knowledge or general experience.

“This blister on my heel is the result clog dancing with my clog dancing club the “Free Form Floor Bangers.” She said it was “only common sense” to come to the conclusion she did. She’s been clog dancing since she was 3. She was 46 now. You’d think with all those years of floor banging, she’d have the right answer about her heel’s blister. But she didn’t. It was her 18-year-old son.

He resented her almost constant clog dancing. She’d clog dance into the living room. She’d clog dance to the kitchen. She’d even clog dance to the car to drive him to school. He was deeply embarrassed when then went grocery shopping and she would clog dance up and down the aisles handing him things to put in their shopping cart. Things came to head when she showed up at the door with a little named Riley. He was smoking a clay pipe and his clogs had huge brass buckles. They went upstairs to Mom’s room and “clogged” for a half-hour. There was no music—just the squeaking of the bed. After they were through, Riley came down the stairs buttoning his pants. As he went out the door he leered and said “She’s me pot ‘o gold, son.”

That’s when he decided enough was enough. He put on an ice skate to stomp on her toes and cut them off, and end her clog dance days forever. But, he slipped on the stairs and spent 2 months in the hospital. When his mother visited him, she would clog dance into his room. She couldn’t understand why he threw his bedpan at her and told her to stop visiting.

So, she hired their next door neighbor’s daughter Flourine to visit him. She had just turned 20 and was hyper-aware of her beauty—she was like Venus with arms. The son, Mort, was aware of it too. She would sit on the side of his bed and twirl her fingers in his hair. It drove him crazy and he vowed to make her his girlfriend when he got out of the hospital.

The day came.

Due to his fall, they had had to take a 2” section out of his left leg. Needless to say, he had a severe limp. Flourine dropped him like a hot potato, or more like a crushed up Kleenex into a trashcan. He was devastated and angry too. That’s why, in his feeble mind, he decided to “go after” his mother and try again to put an end to her clog dancing once and for all.

That’s when he put the tiny pebble in her clog. It gave her the blister that stopped her clog dancing. But he knew it was only temporary. The blister would heal and she’d be back at it again—endless clog dancing from hell. Then, he got the idea to “prune” her—to trim off one of her feet. He had a set of battery-powered pruners that his father had left behind when abandoned the family. He decided to “harvest” her left foot because she always said she had two of them—he’d leave a spare—ha ha.

That night, she told him she was giving up clog dancing! He was filled with joy. She was getting too old to dance in a line with 12-14-year-olds at fairs and on St. Patrick’s Day. But what was worse, the blister on her heel had caused “complications” that affected her clogging capacities in a negative way—causing excruciating pain and vomiting whenever she danced.

Her pain and vomiting was the best news he had ever had! However, every once-in-awhile he would hear her crying out in pain and vomiting late at night down in the kitchen. It was so infrequent that he was able to ignore it.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Apophasis

Posted on October 8, 2025 | Leave a comment

Apophasis (a-pof’-a-sis): The rejection of several reasons why a thing should or should not be done and affirming a single one, considered most valid.

After the hitchhiking disaster—trying to hitch from Topeka to Bombay—I decided to do something about my decision-making skills. I didn’t even get out of Kansas on my way to Bombay. I was holding a sign that said Bombay. People blew their horns as they drove by by, some giving me the finger. It was depressing. Somehow I knew I’d never make it to India, but I wasn’t sure why. Then, this weird looking guy driving a vintage yellow Oldsmobile from the 60s pulled up. He was wearing a white turban with a huge ruby pinned to the forehead. His teeth were red and he was smoking a hookah mounted in the middle of the car’s front seat. He told me he was from Bombay, and he would gladly drive me there. I thanked him. After ten minutes he pulled over and kicked me out of his car. He yelled “Om Namah Shivaya” and burned rubber as he pulled away. I was really mad. I gave up on going to Bombay.

That’s when I realized that I needed to contemplate my decisions and think just as hard why I should not do something as why I should do something. It is called “pro and con.”

Hitchhiking to Bombay from Topeka:

Cons:

Standing by the road too long
Being subject to the weather
Crossing the Pacific Ocean
Having adequate snack foods

These are all powerful cons. If I had thought of them in the first place I would’ve decided not to go and saved myself a lot of trouble. Worse, I should’ve thought why I wanted to go to Bombay in the first place. In fact, it is not even called Bombay any more. So, I didn’t even know where I was going!

So, thinking of the cons has really affected my decision-making in a positive way! So far, I’ve filed for divorce, given my cat away, and run for office in my district. In each case, I couldn’t think of any cons, even though I tried. My wife is serving time for trying to kill me. My cat is a furniture shredder and a night howler. Being a Representative will benefit my constituents by electing a fantastic decision maker. I call myself “The Chooser” now as a tribute to my pro and con outlook on life.

So, when you’re trying to make a decision, consider both sides. Right now, I’m trying to decide whether to take bribes from rich people who want me to do their bidding as their Representative. I’m considering two-step decision process. One, I take their money. Two, I move to Costa Rica, where I can’t be extradited. Ha ha! This is why I’m called “The Chooser.” See you on the beach.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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