Monthly Archives: May 2026

Adnominatio (ad-no-mi-na’-ti-o): 1. A synonym for paronomasia[punning]. 2. A synonym for polyptoton. 3. Assigning to a proper name its literal or homophonic meaning.

I worked out day and night. I had so many muscles, I could hardly move. If I wasn’t careful I’d rip my shirt if I raised my hand in class. My name was Jimmy, but everybody called me Gymmy. The two names sounded the same and everybody knew it was Gymmy, not Jimmy, that they were calling me.

I would give muscle shows in the school cafeteria, showing off my pecs while my classmates ate their lunch. I would pose like my idol Buffy Tinkton who was the 10-time world Champion Muscle Modeler. People would cheer when I did a bicep bulge, and when I made it bounce up and down, the girls would swoon and scream and beg to touch it. I used to say when I struck a pose, “Who wants to meet my meat?” When I asked that question, some girls started to cry and fell to their knees with arms outstretched. I found out that “meat” was a figure of speech for penis. I was shocked at the number of girls who wanted to meet my penis. I made dates with all of them and started to lose my “tone” after spending too much time out of the gym. Accordingly I put an end to the “Meet my meat” frolics. There were a lot of angry girls who were separated from my meat.

I started getting threatening letters from a girl named Blade Slicer. She kept threatening me with castration if I didn’t “give her the meat.” This was insane. I was a senior in high school and my antics were wearing me down. When I should’ve had an internship, I was waving my meat around in my backyard toolshed. I was through. But Blade Slicer wouldn’t relent.

I was out in the toolshed changing the oil in my dad’s ride mower. There was a loud and rapid knocking on the door. I couldn’t imagine who it was, but I opened the door anyway. It was Miss Ball my art teacher—the word on the street was “you can have a ball with Miss Ball.” She said “I am Blade Slicer and you’re about the become Stubby Pecker.” She had a battery powered carving knife. I asked her why she was doing this and she said it was because I gave her impure thoughts and I reminded her of her brother. I thought; “That’s pretty impure.”

She fired up the meat carver and told me to “take it out and stretch it out.” I complied. It was like my meat was cowering in my pants. It was just as scared as I was. She got close to me. The meat carver was humming in my ear. I pushed her as hard as I could. She fell backward and dropped the meat carver on her foot. It cut through her flip flop and carved off her toes. She screamed. I stuffed my meat back in my pants and ran outside and called 911.

Miss Ball was taken to the hospital to have her toes sewed back on. She filed a lawsuit against the School Board. She won the suit and got a $1,000,000,000 settlement for “aggravated temptation by gym-conditioned meat in the classroom.” With the payout looming, the school cancelled its lunch program. It was sad, but nobody starved to death.

I’ve stopped working out. I’m getting spindly and I have loose skin hanging under my biceps. Somehow, Miss Ball and I have developed a friendship. When she wants to get together she texts me “let’s meet.” We both know what the means.

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.