Category Archives: asyndeton

Asyndeton (a-syn’-de-ton): The omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect. [Compare brachylogia. Opposite of polysyndeton.]

The street was bumpy, narrow, filled with potholes, almost impassable, cracked, and dirty. But, my FedEx truck could go anywhere. This street was a joke. I down-shifted to second gear and gave it a good helping of gas. I drove right into the pothole, thinking my intrepid truck could traverse it with a minor bump. I was wrong. The pothole opened and engulfed my truck. I was falling at least 100 MPH into some kind of abyss. I knew I was going to die. I shouldn’t have been so overconfident as I drove up the little street, but I had faith in my FedEx truck. We had ridden many roads together and never had a problem. Once we had ridden through a wildfire in California and successfully delivered a bathroom carpet set to a grateful woman on her front porch hosing down the front yard.

Or, there was the time we fell off a ferry boat docking in Seattle. We had all the doors and windows closed. We bobbed around for 10-15 minutes until the Coast Guard hauled us out with a winch. Nothing was damaged. My truck started right up and off I went to make my deliveries. There was a lobster lodged under my windshield wipers and my first customer let me boil it in their kitchen and we ate it together out on their deck. It was a wonderful experience, but now, I was on my way to my death. I made sure my seatbelt was tight and all my packages were secure.

Suddenly the walls of the pothole started to look like peacock feathers—beautiful glittering colors. My truck landed gently at “Pete’s Peacock Farm.” It was the next scheduled stop on my manifest! I was delivering a peacock egg to Pete so he could supplement his farm’s gene pool. Pete reached out and grabbed the egg and ran into his barn.

Well, my job was done there. I got back on the little road and started off for my next delivery. It was a fairly large bomb. I was a little worried, but what I had been through had prepared me. What could go wrong with a bomb?

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.

Asyndeton (a-syn’-de-ton): The omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect. [Compare brachylogia. Opposite of polysyndeton.]

“Time! Time! Time!” Mr. Hubert would yell that off his front porch. He lived alone in a small home and was retired from the NFL where he coached the Buffalo Bills for twenty-five years. He was the most decorated coach in NFL history earning the Tommy Lasorda Medal Of Honor twice for “only cheating a few times during an entire season.” Mr. Hubert told us his time thing was about calling time out during football games. He said he was protecting the United States of America by declaring time out. Our enemies such as Japan and Russia were required by the United Nations to come to a full stop when he yelled “Time! Time! Time!”

Mr. Hubert was nuts. What he had actually done for his whole working life was bag groceries at Shop Rite and work part-time as a boiler watcher—watching a dial for four hours every night, making sure it didn’t go into the red. He had a chronic stiff neck from watching the boiler and always wore a neck brace. When he retired, Shop Rite threw him a party in the baked goods section of the supermarket. He was allowed to choose a bag of oatmeal cookies, a chocolate cake, a crumb cake, or a box of jelly donuts as his going away present. He chose the jelly donuts.

After 20 years with Shop Rite, he felt a box of jelly donuts was a little stingy. He complained loudly and the manager told him to take five cans of mustard sardines, a carrot, and two cans of garbanzo beans. Also, he could keep his Shop Rite apron. Mr. Hubert was overcome with what he called “gratitude.”

He drove directly to Dick’s Sporting Goods and bought a Glock and five boxes of ammo. Things were taking a turn for the worse. Tomorrow was THE day. Shop Rite would pay dearly. The next day he arrived at Shop Rite just as it was opening. He had the loaded Glock hidden in the waistband of his pants. When he got to the produce section, he pulled out the Glock and started firing. He took out 11 watermelons, 9 cantaloupe, 11 honeydew, and at least 30 apples—mainly Honey Crisp. When he was done, he dropped the Glock and went outside with his hands up yelling “Time. Time. Time. I am not a crazy weirdo maniac lunar module danger man. I am Mr. Hubert.”

Since he didn’t kill anybody, the police gave him back his Glock and told him to help clean up the mess he had made. Mr. Hubert agreed to do as they said. He finished up around 7.00. As he was leaving, the manager caught up with him and offered Mr. Hubert a box of blueberry muffins. Mr. Hubert took the box and took out a muffin and smeared it on his face. He said: “That’s what I think of your muffins.” He walked home with muffin on his face. People yelled taunts out their car windows, calling him Muffin Man and things like that. When he got home, he pulled his Glock and shot the front door’s doorknob until the door opened. He went inside and sat down at his kitchen table and ate a half-bag of oatmeal cookies. He washed the cookies down with two glasses of whole milk. Then, he opened his shot up front door and yelled “Time! Time! Time!” out to the street. Then, he unloaded his Glock and went to bed.

Definition 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.

Asyndeton (a-syn’-de-ton): The omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect. [Compare brachylogia. Opposite of polysyndeton.]

I got an unbelievable deal on a new car. Well, it wasn’t actually new, it was one year old, but it was new to me! It only had 9,000 miles on it. It was a black Escalade CSV. It cost around $65,000 new. I paid $3500 for mine. I had gotten it from a newspaper ad. The tag line was “No bullet holes!” The guy I bought it from was named John Smith. It was on the title, so I figured it was legitimate. He said to me: “I hate to get rid of it, but I need to get rid of it fast. There could be consequences I don’t want to deal with.

This was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I was overjoyed, totally stoked,ecstatic. Ever since I was a little boy, I wanted a black Cadillac. All the mafia guys drove them. They were like four-wheeled merit badges, expressive of a major accomplishment. Now I had one! The leather seats were enough to make me cry with joy. I bought a handgun and stashed it under the seat. I didn’t know how to shoot it, but it made me feel cool. My girlfriend, Rosy, wanted to move into my Cadillac and live together. She said, riding in the car she felt like a goddess—like Venus. I felt like a mobster: Bosch suit, stingy brim hat, Gucci shoes, black cashmere overcoat, Di Nobili cigars, dark glasses.

I was waiting in the cue for a burger at McDonald’s when a guy who looked like a mobster, knocked on my window and asked “Where’d you get that car?” I didn’t answer. I pulled out of line and sped away. I swear, the guy pulled out a gun. I never saw him again. Then something started to smell. I tried to cover it with air fresheners, but it didn’t work. The smell got really really bad. I couldn’t ignore it any more. I drove out to an isolated place in the woods. I opened the back of the Escalade and the smell got worse. I opened the hatch where the spare tire was stored. Just as I suspected there was a dead body stuffed in the space. He was wearing a black suit and all the other things mobsters wear. There was a note pinned to his suit jacket: “When you find me, throw me on the ground somewhere isolated. You will be rewarded. Keep car.” So, I was somewhere isolated—the woods. I hauled out and let him flop to the ground. Underneath him was a shopping bag filled with $100 bills.

I’ve been scrubbing my car and have made some headway getting rid of the smell.

Definition 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.

Asyndeton (a-syn’-de-ton): The omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect. [Compare brachylogia. Opposite of polysyndeton.]

It was raining like crazy: slip, slop, slip, slop, slip slop my windshield wipers said as I splashed through puddles driving too fast. My mother was taking care of my dog Roofrack. If I was late she would yell at me like I was a bad dog, which actually, was Roofrack’s role in life. He specialized in peeing on chair legs and eating shoes. I thought of having him euthanized, but aside from his two bad habits, he was fun to spend time with. So, I got him his own pair of shoes and his own chair that I keep in the bathtub. When he stays with my mother, I bring along his shoes and chair.

I snapped out of my reverie when I noticed I was skidding off the side of the road into a cornfield. When my car came to rest, I was surrounded by cornstalks loaded with corn. Despite the rain, I decided to pick some—maybe fill the car’s trunk. I got out of the car, opened the trunk and started picking and pitching corn in the trunk. I was soaked, but I didn’t care.

I jumped in my car, started it up, and put it in gear. The tires spun in the mud. I kept pressing on the gas and the car sunk deeper and deeper in the mud. Suddenly, the car just started to sink on its own. It was engulfed by a cloud red smoke. I was totally panic stricken—my cell phone stopped working and I could feel it getting warmer and warmer inside my car. Suddenly, I fell out of the sky and landed softly on a giant paved parking lot extending for miles in every direction.

A scarecrow slowly rose from underground. He said, “What do you have in your trunk? Open it!” I opened it, and there it was full of stolen corn. He said, “Look around you. Miles, miles, miles, miles of paved- over earth, suffocating everything underneath it: no corn, no fields of green. Stealing corn is a start in that direction. Now, get out of here!”

My car rose like an express elevator. I emerged, on the highway like nothing had happened. I looked in my rear view mirror and got a glimpse of the Scarecrow standing in the rain, shaking his straw fist at me. A shiver went down my spine.

I pulled up to my mom’s and got out to pick up Roofrack. Mom opened the door, and there was Roofrack! After peeing on my mother’s leg, he came running to me. After all that happened, I didn’t feel up to admonishing him. I just said “Bad dog” and tried to apologize to my mother. She slammed the door.

Definition 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