Daily Archives: February 10, 2026

Homoeopropophoron

Homoeopropophoron: Alliteration taken to an extreme where nearly every word in a sentence begins with the same consonant. Sometimes, simply a synonym for alliteration or paroemion [a stylistic vice].


My Uncle Fin was our worm man. He thought he was a worm whisperer. He got down on his knees and relentlessly tried to call worms out of the dirt. He failed, but he never gave up. He was a fisherman!

He had learned his “worm call” from a science fiction movie named “Planet of the Worms.” In the movie, there was an inscription on a cave wall that the last surviving humans had left behind: “Berm worm squirm firm.” The astronauts could see the worm-berms everywhere on the planet. One of astronauts repeated the cave inscriptionwhich turned out to be a worm spell: “Berm worm squirm firm.” He cast the worm spell and instantly, the worms started coming out of the ground and wriggling around in circles. The astronauts killed all the worms with flamethrowers and turned “The Planet of the Worms” into “The Planet of the Berms.”

Uncle Fin’s worm whispering was based solely on the cave inscription from “The Planet of the Worms.” He got down on his knees in our backyard. He said to the ground “Berm worm squirm firm.” We were shocked when a worm came out of the ground and said “Let’s go fishin’ numnuts!”

My Uncle was so excited he started jumping up and down and squished the talking worm by mistake. Now the worm was just a thread of pink goo on the ground. He was dead, but there was still enough of him to use for bait. We immediately took off for “The Lake.” We were “goin’ fishin’!”


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

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