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Gnome

Posted on July 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“When you think you know, you know what you think.” I’ve used this saying to keep me on track all my life. I learned this saying from a slip of paper I found in the gutter in Boulder, Colorado when I was sitting there waiting for the Hare Krishna guy to take me to dinner where I had to sing sing “Hare Krishna” until the rice and lentils were served, along with a glass of water. I had to clean pots and pans afterward, but the free food was keeping me alive. I was grateful, but not grateful enough to shave my head.

I was living under a plastic table cloth behind the “Doozy-Duds” laundramat. When it got cold I would spend my days inside the laundramat. That’s where I met Ba-Jeepers. She was a hard-core hippie chick who worked at the head shop “Starship” down the street. She had buttons all over her clothes emblazoned with sayings like “Save the Whales,” “Flower Power,” “Keep on Truckin’,” and “Groovy.” They had a button press at the head shop and she made a button with my saying on it. She wore it all the time and told me it brought her tranquility.

Then, one day she offered to wash my clothes. She loaned me a tube top and a granny skirt while she did my clothes. I had left my saying in my pocket and it was ruined in the wash. To make up from it she had me a button made at Starship that had my saying on it. I was grateful. My saying made me feel like Descartes: “I thought, therefore I thought.” I gave lectures in the Doozy Duds. The “Thinking Thoughts Theorem” caught on. The Doozy Duds clientele started talking in circles to stay intellectually afloat with no foundation outside of their thoughts to support their thinking about their thoughts.

The Hare Krishna people got wind of what I was doing. They did not like it. They threw rice bowls at me when I walked past their temple and refused to feed me rice and lentils ever again, unless I recanted. Now I knew how Descartes felt. I wouldn’t recant.

Ba-Jeepers started feeding me and let me stay with her. We fell in love. She came from a wealthy family. They gave us money and we opened a luncheonette named “Hairy Rabbit.” It was across the street from the Hare Krishna Temple. For some reason their hostility abated. I continued to give my lectures on “Thinking Thinking” on a little stage in Hairy Rabbit. With the advent of local access cable TV, I attracted 27 followers. Meanwhile, “Hairy Rabbit” was booming. People who were sick of all the vegetarian restaurants ate at Hairy Rabbit—and that was a lot of people.

Before we knew it, we had a daughter. We named her “Light” after our favorite color, light. We franchised Hairy Rabbit, and now they are all over the USA. As a tribute to my past, we have rice and lentils and a glass of water on the menu for free for homeless people who can prove they’re homeless.

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.

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Gnome

Posted on November 5, 2024 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“Actions speak louder than fish.” Believe it or not, I have followed this wise saying all my life. I work in a fish market “Pisces’ Honk.” I don’t where the name of the fish market came from, but there’s a rumor that a delivery truck ran over a Salmon in the parking lot and it made a hoking sound. The fish market used to be named “Fish.” It was clear and to the point, and didn’t sound crazy. But Gills Blatter’s the boss—what he says goes.

One of our hallmarks is throwing fish at our customers. We got the idea from fish market in Seattle, Washington. You wrap the fish in a piece of paper and hurl it at the customer. Once, I threw a flounder at a woman in a wheelchair. Her arms were paralyzed and the flounder hit her in the face. I apologized and gave her a free flounder and asked her out on a date. It was a bold move, but she agreed. Her minder made a “disgust face.” She said, “Madam, do you remember the last time you went on a date? He was a sadist and tried to get you to sing ‘If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands’ and I had to beat him senseless with a mop handle.” Madam responded, “Yes dear, quite a mess. He was a cruel bastard. However, this man seems quite nice. Let’s invite him to dinner.”

If that flounder could’ve talked, he would’ve told Madam that I really wanted to go wild with Madam’s minder—who looked like a Viking princess. My deceptive actions spoke louder than the flounder which remained silent: “Actions speak louder than fish,” or in this case, flounder. Why didn’t I go directly for the minder? She worked for Madam and it would’ve been out of turn to go after the minder first. But this way, I could bore Madam, and act like dolt during dinner, but when Madam wasn’t looking, I’d get the minder’s attention with a wink, licking my lips and miming playing with my penis. I was all-in.

The minder blushed and picked up a salt cellar. She was about to throw it at me, when Madam asked if I wanted to spend the night. I was schocked, but I said yes, I had never made love to a woman with paralyzed arms before. We went upstairs and I was surprised when the minder followed us into Madam’s bedroom. Madam said: “We work as a team. She is my hands when I have sex. Climb on mister cute fishmonger.” I climbed on.

We’ve done this once a week for nearly one year. I am moving into Madam’s mansion—27 rooms, nine bedrooms, four servants, gourmet kitchen, seven bathrooms on 500 acres of woodland. The real deal! I had sort of followed my plan, but I got far more than I bargained for.

Tanto Midlop, the minder, has expressed her love for me. I love her too, but I love Madam also. Tanto and I have done it several times—she’s more than just a pair of hands to me.

Madam, Tanto, and John: A team. A trio. the “Three Musketeers.”“Three Coins in a Fountain,” a “Three Ring Circus,” “The Three Bears, and the “Three Stooges.” Ha ha!

In sum: “Actions speak louder than fish.” If I didn’t live by this saying, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

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.

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Gnome

Posted on March 22, 2024 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“If you can’t find your whey, try cream cheese.” My hobby is making pithy sayings. They had to be “brief and forceful” to qualify: “If you can’t stand the heat, stick your head in the freezer,” Another home run! “Drink the whole bottle of gin if you want to die,” I lust saved another life. I’m on a roll. “If you can’t read a map, stay home.” You won’t get lost now! “It only takes one match to burn your house down,” You won’t hear sirens now!

I’m writing a book. It’s called “A Garden of Gnomes.” It contains 14,000 pithy sayings I’ve written over the past 2 months. I’m so good at writing sayings I call myself “The Saying King” on the dating site I frequent, “Muskrat Love” named with permission after the song of the same title. It makes the little muskrat sounds when you log in.

So far, in six months, I have dated one woman. She stole my computer and TV and disappeared. I have video monitors all over my house, so I got her image leaving in the middle of the night with my computer and TV. She slept fully clothed on my couch, so she was able to leave without arousing suspicion. The images I gathered did not match her headshot on “Muskrat Love.” I had a couple of good images from my cameras and ran them through my facial recognition software. I entered my zip code and started the program. An alert signal went off! The program had found her.

She was the “Egg Lady” who sold eggs by the side of my road. Freda Chernobyl. She had moved here from Russia last summer. She was unmarried. I called her on the phone and told I knew everything. She gasped and asked me not to tell the police. I told her I had taken pity on her and she could keep my computer and TV on one condition: that we go on a date again & that she bring a dozen eggs. Actually, that’s two conditions.

She showed up at my door wearing a balaklava. She told me she didn’t want anybody to know she was dating me. I let it pass. We went to a Polish restaurant and had a good time, and maybe, a little too much Polish beer and vodka. We had to take an Uber home.

It was about a 15 minute drive. Her house was just down the road from mine—a five-minute walk. I turned to go and she told me to stay for awhile. Inside, the house was filled with appliances stacked along the walls. I pointed it out, and she said “Oh that. I rent out storage space to make extra money. Eggs aren’t all that lucrative.” That sounded plausible to me. (“Plausibility is 9/10 of the truth.”)

When I woke up on her kitchen floor, the house was empty and Freda was nowhere to be found. I got to my house just in time to see a Ryder truck driving away. (“When your truck is loaded, drive it.”)

Freda and her boyfriend Alexi were apprehended before they got out of town. Freda was not a real egg lady. It was a front for her criminal activities—it was a big yolk. Ha ha. Freda and Alexi are in jail for 6 months each. Freda was put in charge of the chicken coop where she supplies the mess hall with eggs. She also supplies black market eggs to inmates to throw at their enemies. (“An egg in the nest is worth two in the chicken.”)

I signed my book contract today. I will get $1.00 per book for the next ten years, thereafter, I’ll get $1.75. There was a $5,000 set up fee. I think I got ripped off. (“All that glitters is not glitter.”)

I’ll end with a few more choice gnomes:

“Itch where it scratches.”

“Fire and water make hot beverages.”

“When it’s dark, turn on the light.”

“If life gives you lemons, throw them away.”

“Truth is a slave-master. Lies will set you free.”

“If you don’t like the way you look, stop looking.”

“If you’re going like a house afire, get a hose,”

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.

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Gnome

Posted on August 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

My father taped pithy sayings all over my bedroom ceiling and walls. He thought they would “infuse” me with wisdom and help me grow up and be somebody. They glowed in the dark, so they never went away. I would try to sleep with a pillow over my head to block them out, but I nearly suffocated. I would briefly wake up at night and see in the greenish glow: “Broken crayons still color.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I would try to get back to sleep, but I couldn’t until I could figure out what Ralph was trying to tell me. If we had computers back then, I would’ve just Googled it’s meaning. I moved my pillows around and focused my attention on it, although the other glowing sayings were calling out to me. First, I had never seen a broken crayon. Mine all wore down to nubs, and then, I threw them away. Nevertheless, I could see how you could use a broken crayon, and you would even have more crayons at the same time! Two, I got the idea that Ralph was trying to tell me to use broken things. Like if you break your toy fire truck, you can use it as a doorstop, or maybe, as a paperweight. This was kind of like saying on the ceiling: “Waste not want not.” I found this comparison interesting and wrote my thoughts down in my bedside notebook. Last: I thought “Why did Ralph use crayons to make his point?” I figured that out almost instantly: he probably wrote this for his children, who would be more “connected” to crayons than their elders, making the saying that much more salient and effective.

Voila! I had cracked it: there is no hidden meaning. Ralph is telling his children, and all children to stop whining for new crayons when the old ones break. When the children take the saying to heart, it will save him, and all fathers around the world, money. What a clever man!

Unlike my father.

When my hair started falling out and my gums started bleeding he took me to the Doctor who told us the glowing posters were highly radioactive and had been banned 2 years ago for safety reasons. I was suffering from a mild case of radiation poisoning from sleeping in a room full of radioactive posters. I took potassium iodide twice a day for the next year.

My father thought he was being really smart when he pulled the posters out of a random trashcan on his way to work, and then, plastered my bedroom with them to influence me. But as Melinda Gates said: “We have to be careful in how we use this light shined on us.” If I had lead pajamas, the light shining on me would have been harmless, and all of my physical problems would’ve been averted. In the future, after I recovered, I would say that my father almost killed me with wisdom. It was true. All he would say was “No pain, no gain, dipshit” and I would lunge at him and we’d wrestle on the floor until my mother broke us up with a wet mop. Quoting Edgar Allen Poe, she would yell “Nevermore!” We never went anywhere, but at least we stopped wrestling for awhile.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is also available for $5.99.

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Gnome

Posted on December 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“Short pithy sayings” are the coin of the realm for a sleeping dog like me; up against the wall, without a care in the world, like a warm summer breeze humming like hummingbirds on a nectar picnic, or a baby sleeping on a cloud. But, we mustn’t count our chickens before they hatch, or carry coal to Newcastle, or be a lender or a borrower. But, when the going gets tough, you should get going.

Let me tell you. When I was a little boy, the going got tough. I had never heard the “going gets tough” saying. So, when the going got tough, I didn’t get going. I sat in a corner banging my head against the wall, just like my other did. The wall was dented and dirty, and we injured ourselves. Once, when things were really tough, I gave myself a mild concussion. As I lay there on the floor, I did some thinking—the kind you do when you have a mild concussion, I sang the Murmaids “Popsicles and Icicles” in my head over and over accompanied by the ringing in my ears. When I regained consciousness, the song was gone, but the ringing was still there. Mom was still unconscious and I wondered what was going on in her head—I bet it was Dean Martin’s “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie.” Mom was such a romantic—maybe it was Tony Bennet. Anyway, I was going to make lunch. I could warm up last night’s tuna noodle casserole. Dad had to work late with his Secretary again last night, so there was plenty of food left. He is a pig and would have licked the bowl clean if he had been here. He has missed dinner every night and come home at 11 for nearly a year. Dad works so hard with his secretary for us and we love him.

Oh dear! I had forgotten about my little brother. He had been locked in his room for three days. Whoops! Better let him out! He was laying on the floor chewing on his shoe and eating the contents of his terrarium. I dragged him into the kitchen and fed him some casserole and gave him a glassful of red Kool Aid to drink. It looked like he’d be able to stand up again soon. Mom started to wake up and wanted a cigarette. I wanted one too. Even though I was only nine, I lit up two, and handed one to Mom. My little brother was coming back to life, and I felt pretty good about that, but not about anything else. Then it dawned on me: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” actually means that the “tough” leave—that they go some place else.

So, I left. I went to Las Vegas by bus. Everybody always told me I had a beautiful singing voice. I was singing on the street when Wayne Newton happened by. He found my parents and adopted me. I used my real name—Roy Orbison—and became a star. All the whining and crying I had done growing up attuned my vocal chords to hitting powerful chords of woe. I guess I am grateful to my family for that.

So, don’t forget “When the going gets tough, the tough get going out the door to a new and better life.”

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is also available for $5.99.

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Gnome

Posted on April 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“The handwriting’s on the wall.” Sayings are supposed to help you with their compact helpings of wisdom. I have never understood “the handwriting on the wall” thing. I’ve seen plenty of handwriting on the walls of men’s rooms—99% of it sexual— the rest fart jokes, racist insults, reputation attacks, love letters to Trump, and quotes from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. “Who is John Galt?” they ask. I could care less. I care more about the hangnail that’s wreaking havoc on my pinky.

Another possible meaning is that something you’ve done is public knowledge—everybody knows about it and there’s no place to hide—it’s a public wall that everybody walks past and everybody reads. It could say something like “Barbara is a dummy.” That’s it for Barbara: “the handwriting’s on the wall.” There are no public walls where I live, so the public wall idea would not apply to my town—we have to use restroom walls to besmirch and libel people we hardly know.

Another possible meaning of the saying is far-fetched and not very easy to believe, especially if you live in the 21st century like we do! What if “handwriting” is a metaphor for prophecy? Something “written” before it comes—something inevitable. I don’t know why it has to be on a wall—it could be on a piece of paper. My Grandpa used the saying on me: “Son, you’re going to prison, the handwriting’s on the wall.” I think the “handwriting” was all the bad things I’d done, from kidnapping dogs to selling stolen merchandise—blenders, tool sets, lawnmowers, etc.

Grandpa was right. The handwriting was on the wall. I served 2 years in state prison for “the transportation and sale of stolen goods.” Why did it take until now to “get” what Grandpa was trying to tell me? Well it’s like they say, “Actions speaker louder than walls.”

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is also available for $5.99.

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Gnome

Posted on August 30, 2021 | Comments Off on Gnome

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” “The world is satisfied with words, few care to dive beneath their surface” (Pascal). “There are no secrets in life; just hidden truths that lie beneath the surface” (Hall), or any of a bunch of sayings that worry about surfaces, and the power they have to draw you away from the truths and realities they cover, contain, conceal and decorate. But, sometimes it’s good to be led away, or distracted from the truth.

When I was nine years old a giant pustule erupted on the back of my neck. It stuck out about two inches, was bright red, and looked like a volcano. It would erupt on occasion spurting puss that had a faint, but bad, odor—something like the air around the refineries in Linden, New Jersey where we lived at the time. Not that bad, but bad. The doctor assured us it wasn’t contagious and would go away on its own in a month or so. Nevertheless, my sister wouldn’t come near me and begged my father every day to make me live in the old tool shed alongside the house. Whenever she said that to my father, I would cry and my mother would put on a pair of rubber gloves and console me.

My father started calling my pustule a “bimple” making everybody laugh, me included. I would rather be teased than shunned, so I made up a “Bimple Dance” that I would do to the tune of “Howdy Doody Time.” I would point at my bimple, hold my nose, and make a bad smell face while I rotated my hips.

Despite my malady, I still had to go to school, but I was afraid I’d be bullied, especially by Stew Contraglio the class bully. My father felt my pain and made me what he called a “Bimple Tent” cover my bimple—to conceal it. The tent was black cotton. Mom had embroidered the Brooklyn Dodgers logo on it. It tied in the front under my chin. The “tent” was formed by an empty Dixie cup, circling and sheltering and hiding the bimple’s soft volcano shape under the tent. My cover story for the tent was right out of the fifties: my neck had been probed by space aliens and I had to keep it covered at all times to block the lingering space rays. Word got out about my alien encounter, but I declined all newspaper, radio and TV news interviews due to the “anguish” I had already endured.

The bimple healed, and only my family knew about it and it’s concealment.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is also available for $5.99.

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Gnome

Posted on March 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

Epictetus tells us that “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” I think this captures the essence of Donald Trump–mired in stupidity he continuously touts his “unbelievable” intelligence, yet he has has failed at nearly every decision point he has engaged. This is disturbing enough, but what about his supporters? They live somewhere in the ‘dupesphere’. How they got there and why they stay there, I can’t tell. If America survives all this bullshit, I hope we’ll be able to learn something from it. We must learn something from it. It must never happen again or our country might dry up and blow away.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is also available for $5.99.

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Gnome

Posted on August 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

Knowlege is power, but it won’t run a table saw.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is also available for $5.99.

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Gnome

Posted on October 21, 2016 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

Ingratitude is the essence of adolescence.

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

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Gnome

Posted on June 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

The truth does not speak for itself.

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

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Gnome

Posted on May 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

Valor is the future’s promise steadfastly kept by love of country, community, family, and friends–by a spirit that overshadows fear and death.

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

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Gnome

Posted on December 14, 2007 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

Liars are the loneliest people in the world.

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

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