Category Archives: homoioptoton

Homoioptoton

Posted on July 8, 2025 | Leave a comment

Homoioptoton (ho-mee-op-to’-ton): The repetition of similar case endings in adjacent words or in words in parallel position.

Note: Since this figure only works with inflected languages, it has often been conflated with homoioteleuton and (at least in English) has sometimes become equivalent to simple rhyme: “To no avail, I ate a snail.”

I had applied for the job 3 months ago. I wanted to be a cod chucker at the local fish market. I had been a pitcher on my high school’s regional championship baseball team. I was 59-5 for my career. I figured I could unerringly pitch dead cod to customers and hit the mark every time. I could even throw knuckle- and curve-fish. It would be fun and I was sure to get a reputation and become famous in South Bristol.

My family had settled in South Bristol in 1698, fought in the Revolutionary War and built boats there since the late 1700s. We were planted and rooted, and buried all over the local cemetery.

The next day I got a text message from “Tuna Tails.” They wanted to interview me for the chucker job. Since I would be working closely with 4 other chuckers, they thought it was best that I take a test to see if I was the right kind of person to chuck “in harmony.” I was to show up the next morning at 6.00 a.m. Chuckers started early.

When I got there, there were 8 other people there to take the test. We went in a room one at a time and took the test orally from Mrs. Tail, the wife of the owner of the fish market. It was a personality test called “Briggs and Patton.” It sounded a lot like “Briggs and Stratton” the small-engine manufacturers that power everybody’s lawn mowers. The questions were unusual. For example:

1. The chucker next to you squeezes your ass. What do you do?

2. You chuck a cod and the chucker next you distracts you by tickling you under your arm. What do you do?

3.The chucker next to you grabs your cod and chucks it. What do you do?

4. The chucker next to you hits you in the back of the head with a cod. What do you do?

There were 200 questions like this. It took about an hour-and-a-half to complete the test. I did not get the job because I gave the same answer to all 200 questions: “Tell the boss.” They said I sounded like a whiny squealer and didn’t want their employees to come running to them every time a fellow employee bothered them.

After that, my dad bought the fish market and got rid of the Tails. Now they have a car wash with a lame name. It’s called “Spray Day.” We renamed the fish market “Sea Hunt” in memory of Lloyd Bridges.

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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Homoioptoton

Posted on March 17, 2024 | Leave a comment

Homoioptoton (ho-mee-op-to’-ton): The repetition of similar case endings in adjacent words or in words in parallel position.

Note: Since this figure only works with inflected languages, it has often been conflated with homoioteleuton and (at least in English) has sometimes become equivalent to simple rhyme: “To no avail, I ate a snail.”

“To mime is to climb. Like a bug on a wall starting to fall and quickly swatted leaving a stain, signifying death’s infallibility like a mind-freezing tale pouring from a poetic pail to further muddy the earth’s already profane surface.”

This passage is from “Linda Lou” written by the famous poet Gosh Bissle. It was written solely for his 8-year-old son Alfonso to decorate his birthday cake in Helvetica font. It was baby-blue and bold. Gosh stuck his finger in the cake and licked it as he struck the match to light the cake’s candles. Given that he was trying to lick his finger and light a match at the same time, the lit match fell from his grip and lit his shirtsleeve on fire. Luckily there was a bowl of Fizzy Clementine punch on the table. He stuck his arm in the punch and effectively extinguished the flames, ruining Alfonso’s birthday celebration, but saving himself.

For what he had done, his wife Susannah stuck his head in the punch bowl, hoping she might drown him. But she realized he made pretty good money with his poetry and relented. Gosh choked and sputtered and ran out of the dining room door, to his study. “I am inspired” he said quietly to himself as he sat down and picked up his pen, and flattened a piece of parchment he was about to write on. He squirmed around in his chair, kept looking at the ceiling and out the window at the washing blowing on the clothesline. His mind was blank, like the parchment in front of him.

Then, a bolt of light shot through his brain. “I’m having a stroke!” he exclaimed and fell to the floor, writhing and foaming at the mouth. His family gathered around him, knowing there was nothing they could do. Suddenly, his eyes opened wide, and he asked “What’s going on?” Susannah told him he had been dying of a stroke. He said, “Not any more. Now please take your leave. I’ve got work to do.” Alfonso and Susannah left him alone.

He wrote: “Love is a Titan wearing hand-made pants, carefully stitched and nicely draped and hung in a cedar-lined closet in my chamber. Suddenly my left arm is fraught with unforgiving pain. Full of sorrow, I will die now of a heart attack.”

Gosh Bissle was dead. Although he wrote only 12 known poems, they all received critical acclaim. The hand-written manuscripts were worth millions, so Susannah and Alfonso are well taken care of. It is rumored that there is a bound volume of additional poems of Gosh’s somewhere.

Some medical experts have concluded it was Gosh’s lifestyle that killed him before his time. He refused to eat vegetables and ate a bucket of whipped cream before bed every night. Just now, science is showing us a connection between a healthy diet and longevity.

I will leave you with one last twinkling example plucked from the darkened sky of Bissle’s galloping genius:

White Room

The wet and balmy wind I pushed forth through the rearward seams of my fine satin pants was like a Jamacian ceiling fan parsing the air with it mahogany blades—ancient, dearly bought at Manilla’s lumbermart, leaving behind massive stumps where the Manananggal dance to draw in men to to tear apart and eat.

The sun rises like a balloon full of urine collected from sheep in quarantine at the train station, where I await my conveyance to Edinburgh. I nervously rub against other passengers on the platform, moving my hips rapidly and thinking of you.

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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Homoiopoton

Posted on August 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

Homoioptoton (ho-mee-op-to’-ton): The repetition of similar case endings in adjacent words or in words in parallel position.

Note: Since this figure only works with inflected languages, it has often been conflated with homoioteleuton and (at least in English) has sometimes become equivalent to simple rhyme: “To no avail, I ate a snail.”

I was having hopes where I was a superhero. Not just any superhero fighting villains or saving the world. No! I was Reduplicative Man. I knew the way to San Jose. I was wise for my size. I can do tricks with sticks. It’s not nice to have lice—to have a crotch cricket in your thicket.

Eventually, I was commissioned as Reduplicator Man. My mentor’s name was Strapsky. He had taught hundreds of Reduplicators since his induction and early career partnering with Hetch to help people get their lives back on track. They roamed the cosmos in their red and white Black Hole Cabriolet until they crashed in San Fransisco, Earth. Hetch was seriously injured and had to be star-lifted home. Strapsky stayed behind and obtained a red and white Corvette that he was going to drive across the USA on Route 66–back to Chicago. But he needed a partner. I was summoned, and we met in a bar in North Beach and knew immediately that we were meant to be.

Meant to be what?

I was a novice, and Strapsky filled me in: When people think straight thoughts, they get stuck in rationality’s dead end. They “therefore” their lives away. They use “seeing” as a metaphor for thinking. They think with their eyes, as in, “I see your point of view.” we Reduplicators teach people to think with their ears. The struggle to rhyme adjacent words enables lines of thought to emerge that would otherwise go unknown. As rhyming alternatives to linear ways of thinking emerge, people may be liberated from conclusions that are dysfunctional. Once liberated, they are free to cascade—to free-fall into universes of meaning and revel in the options they poetically invite. When they make negative or horrendous rhymes, they realize they made them, and accordingly, can unmake them.

Strapsky’s greatest success was Lao Tzu who found enlightenment in his ear. He never wrote down his rhymes. Instead, he recorded what they yielded. For example: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” He told Strapsky it was in his ear as “My knee makes me free.” He massaged his rhyme and came up with his wise saying.

The first stop on our trip was Los Angeles where we knew there were a lot of disturbed people aching for us to give it to them in the ear. We put an ad in the personals section of the LA Times: “Need help? Give us a yelp.” We included our motel’s phone number in the ad. We quickly found out the ad was too vague: we got hundreds phone calls seeking help for everything from obtaining a fake I.D., to a problem with chronic constipation. We held a “Rhymorama” together in our room and came up with: “Broken love? We are your dove.”

The next morning we got one response. It was a women who was frantic. Her husband was a professional blackmailer. He had most recently blackmailed Tommy Lasorda, who was the Manger of the L.A Dodgers at the time. Her husband Gill had obtained a photo of Mr. Lasorda wearing a Yankees hat. She was disgusted, but couldn’t get it, or her husband, out of her mind. We took her phone number and began a “Rhymarama” out by the motel swimming pool. We went around and around for at least an hour, drinking gin and tonics and smoking Cuban cigars—Cohibas. Then, we heard it. Neither of us could take complete credit, but there it was: “Turn him pink whenever you think.” We called her immediately. We put it in her ear and she started laughing. We decided that laughing was better than crying, so our job was done.

Similar things happened 100s of times as we made our way to Chicago. When we got to Chicago Strapsky was summoned back home. He left me with the Corvette, a Bank of America credit card, and a load of fond memories.

  • A Kindle version of the Daily Tope is available on Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes.

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

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Homoioptoton

Posted on December 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

Homoioptoton (ho-mee-op-to’-ton): The repetition of similar case endings in adjacent words or in words in parallel position.

Note: Since this figure only works with inflected languages, it has often been conflated with homoioteleuton and (at least in English) has sometimes become equivalent to simple rhyme: “To no avail, I ate a snail.”

I was beginning to wonder why I wondered at all. If I answer my wonder’s call, as usual, I would go nowhere, get no answer, sit and stare, and eventually not care. I was determined to stop wondering, but as soon as I made the decision, I began to wonder. I couldn’t stop myself. I wondered about the weather. I wondered why my neighbor’s dog kept barking all the time. I wondered about snowflakes’ uniqueness. I even wondered about the price of tea in China! Then it hit me!

I had taken a philosophy course in college. Among others, we read Aristotle. I had just remembered a quotation from him that had relevance to my condition. Aristotle wrote: “Philosophy begins with wonder.” My endless wondering is the beginning of philosophy! I thought: if philosophy begins here, it is time to get started. I would write a philosophic dialogue featuring Plato and a gas-station mechanic. It is reprinted below.

Introduction
The dialogue takes place in a gas station bay. There is a 1957 Chevy up on the lift. The garage mechanic is working on it. His name is Mr. Grunt. Plato has come to pick up his car, a robin’s egg blue 1960 Ford Thunderbird.

Dialogue
Plato: Hi Mr. Grunt. What are you doing?
Mr. Grunt: Hi Plato. I am replacing the muffler on this  car.
Plato: Your tools look pretty nice.
Mr. Grunt: Yes, they are pretty nice. 
Plato: Do you love them?
Mr. Grunt: Yes, I love them. They are bright and shiny and they enable me to make a living.
Plato: Do you have a wife? 
Mr. Grunt: Yes. I love her and kiss her goodbye when I leave for work in the morning.
Plato: You have said you love your tools. Do you kiss them goodbye when you leave for home in the evening? 
Mr. Grunt: No. I would never kiss my tools.
Plato: If you truly love your tools, you would kiss them, just as you kiss your wife, whom you truly love. 
Mr. Grunt: Here are your car keys. Please pay what you owe me and leave. 
Plato: Very well Mr. Grunt. Don’t forget to kiss your tools before you go home!
Mr Grunt: Kiss my ass.

The wonderings throbbing in my head are starting to abate. Now that I am a dialogue-writing philosopher, I can take on the Big Questions that have vexed me. Like, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make sound? Or, what about the Cretan who tells us all Cretans are liars? Is he lying? Or, how many people make a band? Or, you can’t put your foot in the same river twice.

But I still wonder. I wonder why we fall in love. I wonder how many pickles make a clutch. I wonder where my blue sock is. I wonder why we use silverware. And of course: I wonder how much wood a woodchuck would chuck if he could chuck wood.

Tomorrow I will start writing a new philosophic dialogue between Plato and a police officer who pulled him over for doing 50 MPH in a school zone. I am thinking of having the police officer shoot Plato.

  • A Kindle version of the Daily Tope is available on Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes.

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

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Homoioptoton

Posted on April 23, 2022 | Leave a comment

Homoioptoton (ho-mee-op-to’-ton): The repetition of similar case endings in adjacent words or in words in parallel position.

Note: Since this figure only works with inflected languages, it has often been conflated with homoioteleuton and (at least in English) has sometimes become equivalent to simple rhyme: “To no avail, I ate a snail.”

“The Brady Bunch” blared on YouTube while I ate my lunch—I had a hunch that Greg Brady’s latest invention was designed to give Alice some kind of relief from her vexing responsibilities. It is hand-held and battery-powered and makes a buzzing sound when it’s turned on. We find out near the end of the episode that it is a hand-held vacuum cleaner for sucking up crumbs and other things from under and between furniture cushions. This episode had put me to sleep—it was boring and it had me snoring. Suddenly, I woke myself up by the snarling sound I was making and I thought, “If that jerk Greg can invent something so can I.” I started to think—what doesn’t the world have that it needs? It would have to be simple. I would make it in the garage at my dad’s workbench. He always had four or five projects going, mainly because he never finished any of them. He’d been fixing the kitchen sink drain for two years and my mother had gotten used to putting a mixing bowl under it to catch the drippings. My father spent most of his home-time sitting in “his” chair looking at his laptop: an antique computer the size of a two-inch thick chessboard. He had to plug in an antenna to pick up wi-fi. It was pitiful. Then, I got an idea: I could make a device that would send an electric shock through Dad’s chair and get him up off his ass. He would thank me.

I found an old electric extension chord. I cut off the socket end exposing two copper wires. I took the license plate that Dad kept hanging on the wall—his old vanity plate “LETSMAMBO.” I ran a wire through each of the license plate’s top two screw holes— one on the right, one on the left. I was done. I didn’t know what to call my invention, maybe “Watts Up” would be a cool name, or maybe “Butt Jumper”? Anyway, I went into the living room and slid the wired up LETSMAMBO vanity plate under dad’s chair cushion. I would hide by the chair and plug it in when he sat down.

He came into the living room and sat in his chair. It’s like he didn’t care—another night in the chair. I shoved the plug into the outlet. My father screamed and all the house’s electricity shut down. Not only was my dad out of his chair, his chair was smoking, and so was the seat of dad’s pants, and he was squirming around on the floor, cursing. We called 911 and he was taken to the hospital to have his butt examined.

I thought, all great inventions move through trial and error, and reconsideration of basic assumptions, before they come to fruition. Dad threw me out of the house after I nearly fried his butt, but I’ve continued to develop and redevelop my invention. I have been using guinea pigs, which aren’t cheap. I’ve yet to kill one, but they are all a little singed. I wear a white lab coat with my name embroidered on it in red letters when I work at night. Like all great inventors, I suffer for my vision and sacrifice everything for my hope. I work as a ticket-stub tearer at the local movie theater. My meager earnings go into my dream. Luckily, my mom sends me cash to supplement my wages and keep me going. Now I know how Tesla and Eli Whitney felt.

  • A Kindle version of the Daily Tope is available on Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes.

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

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Homoioptoton

Posted on October 17, 2016 | Leave a comment

Homoioptoton (ho-mee-op-to’-ton): The repetition of similar case endings in adjacent words or in words in parallel position.

Note: Since this figure only works with inflected languages, it has often been conflated with homoioteleuton and (at least in English) has sometimes become equivalent to simple rhyme: “To no avail, I ate a snail.”

He was running amok with a blowtorch. He lit up the front porch. It went up like a gasoline-soaked pile of leaves, flames licking the eaves as if to be burning the whole house down; hot bubbling paint dripping and oddly sticking to the charring wood.

Everybody cheering, for the old cranky man was thwarted–no front porch–no old man screaming! No more obscenities hurled at every adult and every child within earshot (and beyond).

It was cruel, yes, but it was necessary–everybody on the block agreed.

The firefighters came and put out the fire, but little did anybody even imagine that there would be a ‘next round’ of cranky old-man ire.

6.00am, Tuesday, October 17, 2016: Person walking past the cranky old man’s house. Second-story window flies open: “Hey you ass$ole, get the fu%k off my fu*king sidewalk.”

When I heard the news, all I could say was, “Here we go again, goddammit.”

The Cherry Street Neighborhood Association called a special meeting for 7.00pm. Everybody already agrees that murdering the cranky old man is probably right. The BIG QUESTIONS ARE: how are we going to do it, who exactly is going to do it, and should it be done during the day or during the night?

I arrive promptly at 7.00pm. The discussion moved quickly.

“Nobody wants to spend their life in prison, but nobody wants to spend their life being cursed every time they walk down their street.

Who will volunteer to murder the cranky old man?

Should we hire a professional assassin?

Maybe we should just have the cranky old man’s vocal chords removed? There must be a veterinarian in the neighborhood who could silence the cranky old man for good.”

The meeting-hall doors burst wide open.

“You sh%t for brains bastard motherfu#king toad-ass slime-bucket fu#k-faced sh*t eaters need to get a fu#king life!”

It was the cranky old man!

Ed Wallace (mild-mannered insurance salesman) pulled out his Glock.

“Blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam.” Fifteen times!

Every shot missed.

“Fuc* you deadeye” yelled the cranky old man as he hobbled out the door, two middle fingers extended in the air.

The Cherry Street Block Association took a vote.

“Remove vocal chords” got the most votes. They would kidnap the cranky old man, blindfold him, and take him to the Joyful Noise Pet Clinic for silencing by Joel Gruber, a successful veterinarian who lives in the Cherry Street neighborhood.

It was risky and cruel, but it had to be done. The cranky old man was not one single tiny-teeny-weeny bit of fun: he was a menace–an earsore that had to be silenced by the removal of his disgustingly vulgar vocal chords.

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

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

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Homoioptoton

Posted on June 16, 2014 | Leave a comment

Homoioptoton (ho-mee-op-to’-ton): The repetition of similar case endings in adjacent words or in words in parallel position.

Note: Since this figure only works with inflected languages, it has often been conflated with homoioteleuton and (at least in English) has sometimes become equivalent to simple rhyme: “To no avail, I ate a snail.”

I have often thought that ‘something’ is like the stuff stuffed in sausages by somebody some place, where vagueness might fill an empty thing that does not sting, that has no weight, that could be a sort of freight shipped on a shadow cast on moving liquid with an underneath beneath it.

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

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

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Homoioptoton

Posted on March 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

Homoioptoton (ho-mee-op-to’-ton): The repetition of similar case endings in adjacent words or in words in parallel position.

Note: Since this figure only works with inflected languages, it has often been conflated with homoioteleuton and (at least in English) has sometimes become equivalent to simple rhyme: “To no avail, I ate a snail.”

We have come to the edge of hope. Here we stand, looking ahead toward the steep divide, down a rock-strewn slope. On the upward breeze of sunset’s onset we are inspired by the smell of wild heliotrope. As sunset’s orange shadows start to stretch across the hard terrain, at last, in the day-ending glow we see what we had begun to think was a brutal hateful joke–the chiseled steps of the ancient long-lost stope!  As the stars begin to appear in the humid sky, we fall asleep on billowy beds made of freshened hope. We dream of gold–a snoring band of bliss-filled hyperopes!

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

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

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