Category Archives: maxim

Maxim

Posted on June 25, 2025 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“If your pants fall down, keep walking.” This was inscribed in Latin on our family crest: “Si bracae tuae decidunt, perge ambulare.” There was also a picture of a man from behind with his pants down walking up a staircase to heaven, with two angels with lyres playing from above. The man wasn’t wearing underwear, so his butt was naked. It shone like the sun with a halo of light encircling it.

We came from humble origins. The crest is post penury when our ancestors established the “Waygone” distillery specializing in 100 proof grain alcohol. Their motto was “Keeping the peasants down” and it was distributed free by the nobles to keep the peasants “half crocked” and unable to do anything about their “despicable” circumstances. Whole families (including infants) were give a ration of Waygone every day. They worked a little more slowly than they would’ve otherwise, but they wouldn’t run away.

My ancestors were dirt poor before the founding of Waygone. They were unwashed and ill-clothed. They worked as wipers at the public restrooms using scraps of newspaper to tend to the hygiene needs of the local citizenry. They were poorly paid and barely able to survive. They obtained their clothing from discards thrown out of peoples’ windows into the street. The clothes were already worn to the edge of disintegration, but my ancestors were desperate. They couldn’t be picky, so they wore what they found. Among other things, often the clothes were far too big for their starving frames. This was always the case with the breeches. Hence, their pants fell down. But that did not deter my great, great, great, great grandfather. He would stumble and pull up his pants, stumble and pull up his pants, etc. and keep on walking. After years, eventually he came to a mountain of grain that had been discarded because it was “bad.”

When he had been stationed in Crimea he had learned about vodka and how make it for him and his friends from stolen grain. He made a deal with “Gargantuan Bakers” to share liquor profits from the vodka he could make from their discarded grain. All they had to do was provide him with the equipment he needed to make it. It was readily available from Ireland.

He embezzled enough money over the course of five years to buy the distillery and nearby grain-growing farmlands. Along the way, he bought a pair of pants that fit, made up the family motto, and commissioned the family crest. He became a multi-millionaire, and we live on his legacy today.

If he had just sat on a curb with his pants down, we would have nothing.

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

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Maxim

Posted on October 17, 2024 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“A wise dog keeps its nose to the ground.” This proverb was passed down through our family. Its meaning was lost sometime around the beginning of the 20th century. By the time I first heard it nobody knew whether it originated on my mother’s or my father’s side of the family. My mother was German-English. My father was Viking—that’s all he would tell us. His name was Ragnar and he was bipolar and often ran amok. When he was amok, he would break things and got into fights at the corner bar, “Lefty’s.” Lefty had lost his right hand in WWII when it was run over by a tank on D-Day. He was able to use his veterans’ benefits to open “Lefty’s” and make a good living. Dad’s brawls would always get him banned from “Lefty’s” for a week. During his exile, Dad would stand outside “Lefty’s” giving everybody the finger as they went in. My father’s ancestors were lost in time. His mother and father abandoned him when he was an infant. He was raised in an orphanage—nobody wanted him because he was unruly and would spit at possible adoptive parents when they came to meet him. He worked assembling spiral notebooks until he was 16 and put out on his own. He wanted to be a professional boxer, but he hated getting hit. So, he went to work for the telephone company. He fought in WWII and lost most of his hearing.

I never quite figured out how my mother expressed her ethnicity. She had OCD. I figured that was from the German side of her family. We traced her German lineage back to Bavaria. Her great-great, great grandfather was known as Herman Barnshovel. On her mother’s side, we traced her great, great, great, grandmother back to Dublin, where she was a spy for the British. Her name was Mary O’Stale. Evidently, she was awarded a medal by the Crown, and sent to Bavaria for her own safety, where she met Herman. She got a job in a strudel factory, at the behest of the British Crown. Mary and Herman settled in Munich and had 11 children.

I took up an interest in genealogy after I graduated from college with a degree in anthropology. I would spend the post-graduation summer seeing what I could find out about the origins of the family proverb. I couldn’t find out anything about the family proverb by researching my father’s ancestors—they were forever gone. But, Dublin and Munich could be starting points.

Mary O’Stale was impossible to track down given her secret life and the alias she lived under as a spy. It was off to Munich. “Barnshovel” is a rare name, so Herman was pretty easy to find. This I didn’t know: He was seriously wounded in a taxi-horse stable when rustlers attacked and stole the horses while he was shoveling shit. He had irritated the rustlers when he shook his shovel at them and called them “dummkopfs“. He was wounded in the upper arm. Weirdly, there was a picture of him in the newspaper captioned “Shitshoveller Wounded” (Shitshovellr Verwundetsitting). He was sitting in a hospital bed wearing a t-shirt. The family proverb was tattooed in German on his forearm; “Ein kluger Hund hält seine Nase am Boden.” Eureka! I needed to do more research to see if I could find the origins of the proverb. I found that Herman had a Beagle named Beethoven that he trained to chase rabbits and run field trials. Of course keeping “their nose to the ground” is necessary for the hound’s success in sniffing out rabbits. As a metaphor it is similar to keeping your nose to the “grindstone.”

When I got back to the States, I bought a Beagle and got a tattoo on my forearm of the family proverb in the original German: “Ein kluger Hund hält seine Nase am Boden.” I’m having a family crest made, and my sister is considering getting tattooed too.

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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Maxim

Posted on March 3, 2024 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others einclude adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“A wise man is not a wise guy.” I live by this basic ancient truth. It is noted, that Neanderthals lived by the maxim too. There is a Neanderthal painting on a cave wall in France of a man in a playful pose being beaten over the head with a jawbone. It would seem that wisdom was not valued—that wise guys ran the caves and routinely murdered smart people by beating them on the head with jawbones. Some people claim the Biblical story of Samson is derived from Neanderthal cave paintings. But this can’t be true. The Bible is a much more reliable source of holy stories with powerful symbolism that is true because holy people say so to give you a chance to exercise your faith, which enables belief in otherwise unbelievable things, like Samson slewing 1,000 Philistines with a donkey’s jawbone. I don’t believe it, So it must be true. At least, that’s what I think.

As a boy, I lived on a quiet street in New Jersey. Beautiful maple trees, and flower gardens and close cropped lawns. There was a Philistine family that lived up the street from us. I delivered the newspaper to them and collected on Mondays. I had little envelopes to put the collection in and put under the doormat. Mr. Mitini would put troubling notes in my collection envelopes along with the money, like, “There’s blood on your hands.” I told my Dad and he told me not to worry, as long as I got paid. Then, one Monday, Mr. Mitini came to the door when I was dropping off the collection envelope. He had on a striped bathrobe and had a jawbone in his hand. He asked, “What did we do wrong?” I ran away and stopped delivering the paper to the Mitinis for two weeks. When I resumed delivery, Mr. Mitini apologized and looked normal. Everything was fine after that.

This experience motivated me to become an archeologist, studying the Philistines. Theirs is a tangled history, just like all the other cultures I study in the period I study. For a pretty exhaustive introductory account of the Philistines, see: https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/article/what-we-know-about-the-philistines/

I haven’t read all of it yet. As a scholar, I’m pretty lazy, but I managed to get tenure here at Roy Orbison University. Our school song is “Crying.” It fits because we’re chronically short of funding. Talking about funding, I ‘m trying to get funding for a research project in Las Vegas. Most people would agree that visitors to Las Vegas are Philistines. I am interested in determining the accuracy of the appellation in light of the overarching truth of my other studies. I need $500,000. I am certain I will double it and pay every penny back to Roy Orbison U. I’m meeting with the grants committee tomorrow. I think if I offer each member $1,000 if they finance me, I’ll get the grant.

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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Maxim

Posted on July 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“Life is a landfill.” I grew up in poverty. I came of age in poverty. I am still in poverty. I will always be in poverty. I know what it’s like to have one uncooked turnip between four people. The gas and electricity have been shut off for weeks. My mom tells us we’re having “crunchy turnip” and we all pretend it’s the best thing ever, even though it gives us diarrhea and we only have one bathroom. We’re lucky we live in Florida or we would need shoes and winter clothes. I have a pair of flip flops and hand-me-down gym shorts that I hold up with a duct tape belt. In addition I have three t-shirts. My favorite one has a picture on the front of Nickerson’s Hardware Store with a woman in a bathing suit swinging a hammer and smiling.

The technical term for Dad is “lout.” He stands on the front porch and calls people names as they run past the house trying to avoid him. He called my teacher “Ms. Dipstick” as she ran by. She stopped and turned and yelled back “You’re a pimple on the butt of humanity!” Nobody had ever had the nerve to yell back at him. Everybody stopped running and turned toward my father, and waited. They weren’t disappointed. Dad turned and whipped out his butt and yelled “Kiss this!” Ms. Cornweather gave him a double middle finger and continued on her way. She had earned my undying respect. After that, Dad threw cherry bombs off the porch at passers by. It’s a wonder that nobody called the police. Some people thought he was in cahoots with them. He had served on the police force for two weeks. He had “executed” a Poodle named Pierre for what he called “homicidal barking.” Of course, the Poodle’s owner demanded that Dad be terminated. When the man came to the police station to register his complaint, Dad taunted him by speaking in a French accent: “Are vous upsetez mon-sewer? Havez some soufflé.” The owner of the Poodle lunged for Dad and grabbed Dad’s gun. He pointed it at dad and said “Now you die, you murderer.” Dad barked at him and held his hands up like cute little paws. The man dropped the gun and left the police station sobbing. Dad was fired on the spot. Dad’s brother, Mayor Weed. He made sure Dad wasn’t charged with anything and was given a commendation for “protecting and defending.”

Mayor Weed is our landlord. We have never paid rent because there are “certain secrets” that Dad knows. We try to prod them out of Dad. All he will say is “I don’t want him to go to prison.” That’s a pretty big hint! Mom always says “You have to humiliate me, don’t you?” It’s pretty intense.

Last night, I fell through the living room floor and landed on the washing machine in the basement. The house has termites. The Mayor rented us two anteaters from the Zoo. We keep them in the basement and they do good job with termites that fall out of the ceiling beams, but there’s no way for them to get up into the beams. I looked in “Popular Mechanics” and found plans for an Anteater beam ramp. I’m on my way to Nickerson’s hardware store to try to steal the components, and also, possibly meet the girl on my T-shirt. I started a fire in a back room, grabbed everything I needed and made my way home. The girl hadn’t been there. I was disappointed, but I wouldn’t let it kill me.

I got the ramps built and you could hear the anteaters grunting and skittering up and down them night and day. They were getting fat. Then it happened! The Mayor, “out of respect for my father” was giving me a job he called “No Show.” I was responsible for “staying away” and being paid by direct deposit every week. That was pretty good. I am writing a book now. It’s titled “Blackmail” and Dad is helping me. Our two rental anteaters are going to town. They’ve started sticking their heads though the hole in the living room floor with their little babies, and making little whiny sounds.

By the way, we’re still living in poverty. Since I got the “No Show” job the Mayor has made us start paying rent.

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 available for $5.99.

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Maxim

Posted on November 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“Blow your tuba parallel to the ground.” Whenever I was off on my way to do something—play baseball, go to the grocery store, go on a date—anything that took place in public, my father would utter these words of wisdom. When I asked him what he meant, he’d say, “Come on, don’t mess with me. I’m your father shit for brains.” What he did tell me was that “Blow your tuba parallel to the ground” was a saying whose meaning was passed down through the years in the family from the oldest male who was a father, to his oldest male son who was a father, from generation to generation. There would be a secret ceremony in the garage, in the parked car’s front seat, where the saying’s secret meaning was revealed. I was the oldest son, but I didn’t have a son yet.

The years passed. I went to college, and then on to State University for a PhD. in Anthropology. Given my family background, I specialized in “sayings.” I studied the ancient Camdenite culture of Southern New Jersey. They had left inscriptions carved in trees throughout the region. It had taken linguists years to decipher their language. Able now to translate the trees’ inscriptions, I set about compiling their sayings, looking for themes that would shed light on the hierarchy of the good giving meaning to their lives.

The first thing I discovered was their equivalent of the English f-word was most prevalent. It was used in a contracted form to modify nearly each word in a sentence, as in “F-in eat the f-in clam.” This saying, along with a few others like it, appeared over and over again in the context of advice concerning male romantic endeavors. Most of the tree sayings were simple and basic, aside from the romantic sayings (as above) that were oblique, cryptic, and metaphoric and referenced activities of a sexual nature (as above). The more straightforward and utilitarian sayings were clear and down to earth: “Put your f-in spear away on an f-in rainy day.” “Don’t f-in piss on the f-in fire.” “F-in go outside to f-in fart.” I think these sayings can be taken literally, but they may also have deep figurative references that speak to the soul of Camdenite culture—a culture beyond my understanding as a 21st century bearer of a multi-faceted wi-fi and Zoom-enmeshed in all the f-in mind-game crap you have to put with to get a goddamn f-in PhD. So, I finished my dissertation as fast as I could, and graduated. My dissertation was titled “Differently Cultured Differences in Ancient South Jersey Sayings: F-in ‘A’ Mother F-er.” My dissertation won the “New Jersey Cultural Award for Making New Jersey Look Interesting.” There was a $200 prize and I didn’t start my professor job for a month, so I decided to go home and see if I could wrest out of my father the meaning of “Blow your tuba parallel to the ground.” In a way, it would top off my studies.

I arrived on a Friday afternoon. I rang the doorbell. My father answered the door.

So, standing right there on the porch, I asked him about the saying’s meaning for what seemed like the hundredth time, followed by: “All I can say dad is I don’t know the meaning of the advisory saying you’ve been plying me with all these years. How can I take its advice if I don’t know what is?” He put his hands together in a monk-like prayerful pose and said “That’s the f-in point, son.” Now I was even more confused. I was angry. I turned and stomped off the porch and headed for the bus station. As I turned the corner, I heard him yell, “Blow your tuba parallel to the ground.”

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 available for $5.99.

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Maxim

Posted on April 8, 2022 | Comments Off on Maxim

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

When I was young, my father said to me: “Son, two birds in a bush are worth more than one bird in the hand. Two birds will mate and have baby birds that you can raise and eat.” My father was a rebel and thought it was funny to twist maxims. His favorites were “A stitch in time is part of an acid trip.” Or, “Beggars can be boozers.” Or, “One man’s meat is another man’s McMuffin.” Or, “You’re never too old for Viagra.”

Dad died 2 years ago. He choked to death on a McMuffin. I am working on a screenplay about his life. It’s titled “Maxims in Pajamas: Leave Your Baggage on the Bus.” It is a struggle to write. What I’m tying to do is make Dad’s life look a little less worthless than it actually is. So, I’m cataloging his maxims and trying to interpret them in ways that make sense. So far, I have been unsuccessful. So, I’m going to follow some advice I got from “Jiminy Cricket’s Rubbing Legs of Wisdom.” He was extremely insightful. I like this one the best: “Dress like a person and talk like a person and you will still be an insect.” Right after he said this, he was crushed on a sidewalk at Disneyland. What could be more poignant? Although he has was’t crushed on a sidewalk, my father died a violent death—choking on his favorite sandwich. I like to think of my father as a lost soul who made lots of mistakes. There’s a maxim buried in there somewhere. Maybe, “It takes great ability to conceal your ability” fits him best. I like to think he worked hard on being a loser; that it was no accident he screwed everything up. It was his role in life and he did it well.

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 available for $5.99.

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Maxim

Posted on August 11, 2021 | Comments Off on Maxim

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“Too much prudence makes you a prude.” Loosen up. Chill out. Tell a joke. Make a silly face. Chuck a moon.

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 available for $5.99.

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Maxim

Posted on February 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

Sometimes its better to be sorry than safe. Come on, loosen up: you only have one life to live. Try a little danger! Jaywalk. Speed. Pee behind a tree. Sleep naked!

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 available for $5.99.

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Maxim

Posted on August 1, 2017 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

He who laughs last didn’t get the joke.  Get it? 

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 available for $5.99.

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Maxim

Posted on July 21, 2016 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

Yes, we’re all standing up to our knees in recrimination, accusations and vituperation. And yes, we all know, as the ancient sage La-zee Too wisely said, “When the going gets tough, it’s hard to get going.”

Today, it’s so hard to get going many of us are considering quitting once and for all!

Well, let me tell you, that wouldn’t exactly be a bad thing. We’ve been putting up with this crap for months and months now–months and months of taking it on the chin, in the gut, and over the head.

So, let’s just quit. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, especially if we can pretend there’s a higher purpose being served by our quitting, being disloyal, and running out on the promises we made.

Hey I’ve got it! Let’s use “self respect” as our back door!

Check this out: No self-respecting human being would put up with the way we’re being treated; especially being called bad names by our enemies!

It’s like the famous Japanese Chef said, “If you can’t stand the heat, don’t sit near the hibachi.” Well, we can’t stand the heat and we’re moving away from the hibachi–far, far away where names can’t hurt us, promises don’t need to be kept, and we can regain our self respect.

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

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Posted on May 9, 2014 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“Love of wit makes no man rich.”

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

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Maxim

Posted on December 16, 2007 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“Where the river is deepest it makes the least sound.”

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

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