Category Archives: graecismus

Graecismus

Posted on July 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

“Pathos is the boiling gale of what is αληθής blowing through the ψυχή. What could be better-founded in the soul—the home of truth—than the gale’s unrelenting admonition to believe. It blows away all preconceptions and teaches a new lesson on the wind—filling the ears and filling the head with a τυφώνας of experience erasing and replacing what went before. Memories are occluded. Hierarchies are dismantled and reconstructed in accord with the feelings commandeering your επιλογές and tossing you onto a new life course. You are transformed. You are a new person for better and for worse.”

I wrote this after I survived being run over by a garbage truck. I was trying to kill myself, but obviously I failed. After nearly a year in bed I was released from the hospital. My doctor told me to get a life and stop moping around like a “Boo-Hoo Bobby.” Just to get back at him, I had my name legally changed to Boo-Hoo Bobby. I had my last name changed to Dickweed. As Boo-Hoo Bobby Dickweed I expected to make my mark on the world. But it was more of a stain than a mark. In job interviews the interviewers would call me “Boo-Hoo” and start laughing. I couldn’t even get a job as a bag boy at Hannaford’s.

I learned how to play the guitar. I advertised myself as a Mississippi Delta blues singer. “Boo-Hoo” fit as a name for a blues singer—it was perfect. I covered John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, and Howlin’ Wolf. Then, given the shit my life had been, I started writing my own songs—experience taught me how to write songs with my feet firmly planted in hell. My song “Put Me Back in My Grave” was a massive worldwide hit followed by “You Drove a Spike in My Soul.”

The hits kept coming, but I was starting to lose the blues. Then, I wrote “Sunny Saturday” and it was a complete flop followed by “Sweet Smelling Flowers.” I had become optimistic. I had made millions, so I was able to retire in style. I went to Nashville looking for a wife.

I met a woman named “Puppet” in the hotel parking garage. She offered to cut my hair at her salon “Rocky Top.” I had no idea why she asked me, but she was beautiful so I agreed. She gave me a great trim and I proposed to her. She laughed at me and said no—no way. I could feel the blues coming on again!

I went up to my hotel room and wrote my biggest hit ever “You Cut My Hair and Killed My Dreams.” I was on the road again playin’ my guitar, whinin’ and tappin’ my foot; singin’ the blues.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus

Tagged , , , , ,

Graecismus

Posted on November 4, 2024 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

η ρητορική κυλά σαν ποτάμι (rhetoric flows like a river). It picks you up like a floating leaf and carries you where it will—you would be συνεπαρμένος (carried away). And rhetor tells us there at least two ways of looking at everything. This is the famous δύο λόγοι (two reasons) that drove Plato crazy. How could there be “two reasons” if the Truth is one? Two reasons may b a sign of error that needs to be corrected by διάλεκτος (dialectic), Plato’s remedy for σοφιστεία (sophistry).

η επανάληψη είναι η ψυχή της αλήθειας (repetition is the soul of truth). Truth is always everywhere the same. It does not vary one bit. When lies effectively affect Truth’s repetitive character, they pass for true, no matter what their substantive claims are. They may make us into dupes. “Stop the steal” is a case in point. Its repetitive ubiquity drove people to believe it was true and to instigate an insurrection by storming the nation’s Capitol Building. In addition, rumor may function to validate lies—to make them believable. Virgil’s “Aeneid” (Book iv) offers a vivid description of rumor:

“At once Rumour runs through Libya’s great cities—Rumour the swiftest of all evils. Speed lends her strength, and she wins vigour as she goes; small at first through fear, soon she mounts up to heaven, and walks the ground with head hidden in the clouds. Mother Earth, provoked to anger against the gods, brought her forth last, they say, as sister to Coeus and Enceladus, swift of foot and fleet of wing, a monster awful and huge, who for the many feathers in her body has as many watchful eyes beneath—wondrous to tell—as many tongues, as many sounding mouths, as many pricked-up ears. By night, midway between heaven and earth, she flies through the gloom, screeching, and droops not her eyes in sweet sleep; by day she sits on guard on high rooftop or lofty turrets, and affrights great cities, clinging to the false and wrong, yet heralding truth. Now exulting in manifold gossip, she filled the nations and sang alike of fact and falsehood, how Aeneas is come, one born of Trojan blood, to whom in marriage fair Dido deigns to join herself; now they while away the winter, all its length, in wanton ease together, heedless of their realms and enthralled by shameless passion. These tales the foul goddess spreads here and there upon the lips of men. Straightway to King Iarbas she bends her course, and with her words fires his spirit and heaps high his wrath.”

Gossip is a kind of rumor, equally destructive. But like everything Greek, rumor can play a positive role—the role Fame—of making people famous—or infamous for that matter. Social media has allowed rumor to move at the speed of light, affecting peoples’ perceptions of reality, by massive cyber communities, who may wrongfully lash out at people, properties, or institutions, lost in a muddle of misinformation. You don’t have to look far for a podcast whose programs spread lies. So what do we do? We find a trusted source. It’s getting harder and harder to know who to trust. This difficulty may lead to censorship and this revision of the First Amendment. The free flow of opinion and information are foundations of democracy, not lies.

What shall we do?

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus

Tagged , , , , ,

Graecismus

Posted on March 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

Homer was blind. He was a famous Greek poet. He is a great tribute to the saying “It’s all in your head.” His famous “oínopa pónton” (wine dark sea) is a case in point. I guess he was a little off. The Mediterranean Sea is actually deep blue and clear. Why wasn’t Homer corrected? One must assume he had a lot of friends, and also, they didn’t clue the poor blind man in to his error. Maybe,

But there are accounts of Homer’s “sκακή διάθεση” (bad temper). When he wrote that Odysseus would “shoot an arrow through 12 axe handles,” one of Homer’s friends, Ludicrous, pointed out that it was γελοίος (ridiculous). Homer stood up and yelled “Lead me to the traitor.” Ludicrous knew what was going to happen. He ran out the door and headed to the docks, where he bought a ticket in steerage to Crete, where he would aspire to be a liar like the rest of the Cretans.

As time went by, Homer’s contemporaries “The Cyclic Poets” found a way to remedy Homer’s “all in your head” errors, like “wine dark sea.” They came up with the idea of figurative language— language that does not “literally” mean what it says—i.e. metaphors. This liguistic discovery was a boon to poets who could claim their errors were τρόπος του λέγειν (figures of speech). This license was given solely to poets because it did not matter what they said or why they said it. For example, William Carlos Williams’ wet wheelbarrow, or Sylvia Plath’s ramblings about her “Daddy.”

In the 20th century the barrier between literal and figurative language broke down. “Everyday people” started “living by” metaphors. this movement of thought was initiated by two mischievous trolls from the netherworld of anthropology, encroaching on the field of creative writing, creating havoc, and starting to make creative writing into an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. Perhaps this trend will be an ameliorated by a rebalancing of the literal and the figurative, giving them an equal shot at your attention and belief. One would hope so.

But there are new developments. This discourse has been generated by AI. It’s like riding in a car without a driver. Your destination is a brief essay. You say a few words, and off you go.

Artificial intelligence is better than no intelligence at all.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus

Tagged , ,

Graecismus

Posted on August 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

When Aristotle caught an arrow in his teeth, Homer kýlise ston táfo tou as (tolled over in his grave) as if he was a Greek loukániko (hot dog) grilling on a skewer. “Oh we Greeks” my mother always said. She was Greek and had performed with the troupe paparoúnes kai kalamária (“Poppies and Squid”). She was one of the “poppies.” They travelled around post-WW II Europe performing their act in the Skoúro Tsírko Krasioú (Wine-Dark Circus), a Geek enterprise formed to “heal the wounds of war-time folly.”

As a “Poppy” my mother did the chorós opíou (opium dance). A giant hookah would be set in center stage with the poppies circled around it, each holding a smoking tube. Hercules would be lowered on a rope over the hookah holding a flaming Zippo lighter. He would say in broken English, “Who wants to get high?” All the Poppies would giggle and wiggle around saying, “Me! Me!” However, my mother’s role was to object: “No! This is not the way to deal with our pain. We must stand up straight and rebuild, sober and clear-eyed.” At that moment, it would start raining actual squid. Writhing and slimy they would extinguish Hercules’ Zippo. Then, the squid actors would come on the stage and shake hands with Hercules. Next, the whole cast would sing “Que Sera, Sera” in the language of whatever country they were performing in.

People cried and embraced. It is said that when Prime Minister Churchill saw the performance he thought of the basic outline for “a History of the English-Speaking People,” which won a Nobel Prize for Literature. He said the idea came to him when the lead Poppy (my mother) admonished the willing opium smokers. It reminded him of the Opium Wars and the easy defeat of the Chinese maniacs, who were subsequently oppressed by the English, and later, by the French too. Colonial conquest and ruthless exploitation went hand in hand with the English language. It has many words for denigration that are celebrated in English books, poetry, and song.

My mother lost her job when the troupe began to have difficulties obtaining live squid, whose raining-down sliminess was key to the denouement of the troupe’s performance. Fried calamari had caught on across Europe and was served everywhere as a side dish—in Amsterdam they served it in paper cones with mayonnaise, in France it was served in rubber berets with dijon mustard. It was everywhere.

The troupe broke up and everybody went their own way. My mother hooked up with an American G.I. named Salvatore. She hid in his duffel bag and sailed with him on the troop ship back to the USA. He would let her out of the duffel bag at night and they would sleep together in his hammock. They got married after he bought a license in New York after disembarking, and he lugged her to a church, where they got a priest up in the middle of the night to marry them. When my father dumped my mother on the altar, the priest started crying and he and my mother started speaking in Greek. They had grown up together in a little village in Greece. My father told the priest to “Shut up and perform the marriage!” So, they were married. They got a street sweeper to witness the marriage. He asked for a dollar afterwards and my father punched and called him a “stinking leech.”

My dad already had a job. He worked in the US branch of an olive oil import/export business, a family enterprise located in Sicily. As a tribute to our luck, my mother cooked calamari on Sundays. I knew his future in the family business was dim when my brother Fredo would never eat calamari. He would demand a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or Colonel Sanders fried chicken instead. My father would glare at him.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus

Tagged , , , ,

Graecismus

Posted on December 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve confused the cold weather cap, balaclava, with the sweet-honied Greek dessert baklava. “The robber was wearing a baklava over his face,” my police report said when I had witnessed a convenience store stick-up. I saw a knitted face-covering when I wrote it, and the police saw a face concealed by a sticky Greek pastry. When they caught the guy, he actually had some baklava on his face! He was coming out of the Greek restaurant that the police had staked out after reading my report. Come to find out, this guy was a notorious sticker-upper with an addiction to Greek desserts. This was one of those cases where a mistake led to a hoped for outcome—balaclava/baklava who could guess? My life-motto came out of this experience: “Just because you’re wrong doesn’t mean you’re not right.” It makes me feel good to say this to myself when I’m wrong. It makes me realize how contingent right and wrong are—I may be wrong today, but I may be right tomorrow. If I am willing to wait, my wrong may become my right!

Think about it! How wrong was Thomas Edison when he started figuring out how to “harness” electricity? First, he used a horse and buggy metaphor. Second, he didn’t wear a white lab coat when he first started his work. He actually used a small dog harness to get control of electricity. He would put the harness on a bell jar and yell “giddyap,” His assistant John Ott would drag the bell jar around the laboratory by its dog harness until it came loose or the jar broke. But eventually, he got it right. He had Ott put the bell jar over his head, bite down on a tin foil chewing gum wrapper, and go outside in a raging thunder and lightning storm. Ott was hit by a non-fatal lightning bolt that singed off his hair and mustache. Edison noted after what had happened, if he put a pin on top of Ott’s head, the pin would unerringly point north, and so would Ott. This should’ve been enough—inventing the human magnet—but Edison wasn’t satisfied. He wanted Ott to light up like a kerosine lamp. As an experiment, he placed a soup bowl on Ott’s blistered head, and filled the bowl with kerosine. He had Ott light the kerosine and it went up in flames. Edison blew out the lab’s lamps and Ott shone like a beacon of scientific proof. Edison had proven his headlight theorem. Now, it was time to harness electricity. He threw away the dog harness, and the harness metaphor, altogether. Now, he would use “bulb,” drawn from horticulture. Edison wrote, “The bulb produces energy, as you can see when a tulip pushes through the earth in spring. I will no longer use bell jars in my experiments. Instead, I will use bulb jars.”

And then it happened. Edison and Ott had had Chinese take-out for lunch. (Menlo Park, NJ was known for the quality of its Chinese cuisine.) As a joke, Edison stuck a bamboo skewer in a bulb jar and sealed it with sticky rice. “Watch this,” said Ott, and stuck a piece of sparking wire through the sticky rice too. The bulb jar lit up so brightly that Edison and Ott had to cover their eyes. “Eureka!” yelled Edison. “You smella,” yelled Ott, “Ha ha ha!” “Eureka! You smella! Ha ha ha!” they both laughingly said in harmony. From then on, the “bulb jar” was called the “light bulb.”

This story may be a little inaccurate, but it makes the point that what’s wrong may turn out to be right, and the other way around. Have you met up with somebody suffering from the vapors or hysteria? Have you seen a miasma lately? If you answered “Yes” to either or both of these questions, you may have been right a few hundred years ago, but not ant more. Go read an encyclopedia, or Google everything you believe. Also, read up on what it means to be out of touch with reality. Things change.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus

Tagged , ,

Graecismus

Posted on April 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

I was hit in the face by yet another enthymeme: “It’s late. You should go home.” I was getting tired of not having the missing premise made explicit. Why do I have to go home because it’s late? In this particular case, what’s the persuasive pull? Do I have to get up early in the morning? Are you just trying to get rid of me? Are you tired? All of the above? Or, are you just giving me a recurring dictate drawn from your bossy-boots topoi?

So: Now I am mad. Now I’m going home. I am going home because I’m mad. Want the missing premise? Anger induces people to separate, and there are probably two-hundred further reasons linked to that one. On that note, you could sling a sorites as wide as Oklahoma and project a towering ethos like Abraham Lincoln or Mother Theresa. Pathos would ooze from your project and you would probably win an award for a tome on something like “The Roots of Persuasive Home-Going Admonitions in Post-Modern North American Culture.”

Do you know what sarcasm is? I do.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Graecismus

Posted on August 29, 2021 | Comments Off on Graecismus

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

I felt like a million drachma! Everything is beautiful on the manic side of life. I feel like Archimedes soaking in a tub. I want to yell “eureka, eureka, eureka” over and over, throwing granola in the air like confetti with one hand and waving a little handgun with the other—a perfect combination: hope and fear, like dessert at an awards ceremony: an icy road to τρελός!

Oh, I never won an award. All the works, all the entry fees, all the submitting, all the meaningless honorable mentions—never a ribbon, never a plaque, never a cash prize. Just βλακείες, βλακείες, βλακείες ever since I was five. I started off crying when I didn’t win and advanced to donning my black hoodie and pulling out my black collapsible metal police baton that I brought in a gym bag to the event, knowing that “Plan B” was, as usual, going to be operative at the end of the event. As soon as I knew for certain I had lost again, Plan B kicked in. I slipped off to the men’s room to put on my μεταμφίεση, concealing my face and pulling out “Big Bopper” the baton to get ready to turn the tables.

I would wait outside the venue for my quarry; the soon-to-be disfigured winner. When he emerged, I lunged, swung the baton hard so you could hear it cutting through the air like the whip Mama used to use on the back of my legs whenever she felt like it, as punishment: 90% of the time I was clueless as to my transgression and Mama wouldn’t tell me. She’d say “You’ve been a naughty dog-poo William.”

With “naughty dog-poo” roaring through my head, I would severely beat the winner and gloat a little bit over my handiwork. Then I’d go home like nothing happened, clean Big Bopper, put my hoodie in the wash, pick out a Stouffer’s meal, microwave it, and stream “Ed Sullivan” reruns until bed time. This is when I felt really good, up on a manic cloud floating above it all like Zeus, invincible, αθάνατος!

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.

Comments Off on Graecismus

Posted in graecismus

Tagged , , , , , ,

Graecismus

Posted on March 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

In the present krisis I see the gleaming Acropolis, shining as the polis burns and Zeus dances wildly waving a roll of χαρτί υγείας (toilet paper) like Mr. Tambourine Man with “one hand waving free” his shadow cast across the sickly masses: They cry “Where is Odysseus? Will he ever come home to rid us of this menacing peril?” I think to myself, “This is an enthymeme from hell–a sorites without end. What’s the hidden premise? What does it all add up to? WTF?”

Suddenly I woke up on the filthy floor of my apartment. I saw fire-like shadows flickering on my bedroom wall. I looked out my window to the street below. It was deserted. The light flickering on my wall was neon flashing in the barber shop window across the street: closed, closed, closed. “What a bunch of skatá,” I said to my roommate who had been dead for two days, killed by the coronavirus.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , ,

Graecismus

Posted on August 18, 2017 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

My enthymemes tend toward the topos of antitheses. I believe the dissoi logoi rightfully capture the episteme of rhetorical decision making.  That is, if there is only one side able to be considered, a decision cannot be made, although adherence to the ‘one side’ will enable movement toward the future and provide the illusion of krisis.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , ,

Graecismus

Posted on October 20, 2016 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

One’s pathos is a function of soma. All the logos in the world won’t budge it.

This is a common topos of Western thought–the psyche/soma distinction. As long as we believe in its epistemic virtue we will continue to divide ourselves along along the line the distinction draws, which, as a matter of fact, is a deeply cultured pattern of self-understanding that opens and forecloses opportunities for accounting for experience.

Do I feel in order to think?

Do I think in order to feel?

Oh–what about ethos–your perception of my credibility? Not ‘pure’ logos? Not ‘pure’ pathos?

What then?

Trust.

  • Post your own graecismus on the “Comments” page!

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

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , ,

Graecismus

Posted on June 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

There are more jumbled thoughts slopping around in my head than there are ingredients in Aristophanes’ famous fricassée λοπαδο­τεμαχο­σελαχο­γαλεο­κρανιο­λειψανο­δριμ­υπο­τριμματο­σιλφιο­καραβο­μελιτο­κατακεχυ­μενο­κιχλ­επι­κοσσυφο­φαττο­περιστερ­αλεκτρυον­οπτο­κεφαλλιο­κιγκλο­πελειο­λαγῳο­σιραιο­βαφη­τραγανο­πτερύγων!

Or, given my seemingly endless vexations, the mandate of brevity, and my recourse to a food metaphor, let us just say that I’m a Nutella® case.

  • Post your own graecismus on the “Comments” page!

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

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Graecismus

Posted on June 29, 2008 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

There’s a kairos for everything.

  • Post your own graecismus on the “Comments” page!

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

Leave a comment

Posted in graecismus

Tagged , , , , , ,