Hendiadys (hen-di’-a-dis): Expressing a single idea by two nouns [joined by a conjunction] instead of a noun and its qualifier. A method of amplification that adds force.
I am resting comfortably at Leghorn Institute. My days are mapped out with therapeutic activities, like shredding Lance Armstrong bracelets to be recycled into Taylor Swift zipper pulls. Today, I shined my shoes, sat on pick-up sticks and made a clay dart that I threw at the wall and was punished for doing so. My punishment was to play solitaire quietly for three days and let Butty the Institute.s goat butt me twice. Last, I had to stay blindfolded for a day. Nobody helped me around and I fractured my nose on the wall.
Dr. Vorgall, the Institute’s Director makes all the punishments up. He is what is called a “sadist.” He is proud of it. He starts every day on the PA system with “Who wants to feel some pain today? Do something bad!” So, how did I end up in this place?
I was a member of a subversive group opposed to distance learning. Any college or university with an online presence was a target. We called ourselves “Bricks Mortar” after real centers of learning—with walls and floors, roofs and windows, parking lots and quads. we felt that sitting alone in one’s bathrobe (or worse) would not provide the optimal educational experience. Can you imagine studying Plato via email? Or painting via your computer screen? You might as well just watch Bob Ross’s “Joy of Painting” and not be able to ask him any questions, like “What color is that?”.
Bricks and Mortar’s new president, Sally Wingle, wanted to notch things up. She was tired of listening to us sit around and whine. We needed to “Take it to the streets.” We needed to be destructive, like anarchists. So, we made balls, like snowballs, out of brick chips and mortar. We would make slings like Samson made, and hurl our “Samson’s Balls” at buildings housing on-line learning facilities, mostly, we broke windows and ran away. But one day, the Administration at Vapor U. were told we were coming. The police were waiting clothed in riot gear. I was slinging Samson’s Balls when I was hit over the head with a truncheon and knocked unconscious. When I woke up I was crazy. Leghorn Institute had admitted me because I had a crack in the top of my skull and I clucked like a chicken and my head bobbed up and down when I walked. Dr. Vorgall was interested in pain’s place in the transmigration of souls. Clearly I had become a chicken after having my skull cracked. Dr. Vorgall had a pottery chicken beak made, and super glued to my face. As my head healed, it kept me from talking—I could only go “Buck, buck” because of the beak’s tightness. Then one day I was scratching around in the playground and I sneezed and my beak blew off. I could speak! I was mad and went to Dr. Vorgall s office and yelled “I’m not a chicken. I am a man.” “Oh yes, I see,” he said. He told me if I kept my mouth shut, I would be moved into a 500 square foot suite with a sauna and jacuzzi and a70” plasma TV and more. I took his offer and strutted down the hall to my new room, clucking loudly. If I was a rooster, I would’ve crowed.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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