Anacoloutha

Posted on April 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Anacoloutha (an-a-co’-lu-tha): Substituting one word with another whose meaning is very close to the original, but in a non-reciprocal fashion; that is, one could not use the first, original word as a substitute for the second. This is the opposite of acoloutha.

He thought he drove around her. She thought he tried to kill her. He had jumped the curb. She had jumped on the hood of the car. She rode on it. It hit a wall. She flew, but was not injured. She could not figure out what was going on. Should she report him to the police? Should she slap his face with a sock full of pennies? Should she get her big brother Waldo to beat him up? Or, should she just forgive and forget? After all, it could have been an accident.

She found him later that night at The Frozen Monkey Bar and Grill. He was sitting at the bar holding a giant glowing drink with two hands. He saw me looking at his drink and said, “It’s a Siberian Suicide; half a quart of vodka laced with A-1 Sauce, prune juice, and garnished with toasted marshmallows. I don’t know what causes the glow. Hey Eddy! What causes the glow?” Eddy (the bartender) told us it was a phosphorescent Guppy that could live in alcohol. It came from Lake Ponchartrain, near New Orleans, where the booze flows freely and the lake is 3%.

So I asked my boyfriend Clubby just what the hell he was trying to do with the running me over. He took a long draw though his drink’s straw and said “DWI.” So, maybe it wasn’t attempted murder. The bartender asked me when it happened. I told him and he told me that Clubby wasn’t drinking there that night. “You weren’t drunk, you liar. Don’t tell me you were drinking somewhere else. This is your place. This is your home!” “Ok Ok!” I had a heart attack and couldn’t drive right. I’ve quit smoking, and they gave me pills to take. I hope you can still love me,” Clubby said softly.

I was about to ask him for his doctor’s name, when I realized Clubby was a lying loser. I don’t know why he would want to run me over, and probably kill me. Heart attack! Bullshit!

Fearing for my life, I dumped him. Two days later he had a fatal heart attack while he was driving and mowed down 6 pedestrians. Nobody was seriously injured. The autopsy showed he was very, very drunk. They also found a glowing guppy blocking his carotid artery.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in anacoloutha

Tagged ,

Anacoluthon

Posted on April 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

Anacoluthon (an-a-co-lu’-thon): A grammatical interruption or lack of implied sequence within a sentence. That is, beginning a sentence in a way that implies a certain logical resolution, but concluding it differently than the grammar leads one to expect. Anacoluthon can be either a grammatical fault or a stylistic virtue, depending on its use. In either case, it is an interruption or a verbal lack of symmetry. Anacoluthon is characteristic of spoken language or interior thought, and thus suggests those domains when it occurs in writing.

I was trying to—sand dollars! They were worthless. Could I develop a sandbox corps? Seashells everywhere. Flotsam too. A barnacle encrusted piano. A rusted wheelbarrow missing it’s wheel. A plastic bust of Abraham Lincoln. A deflated Happy Birthday balloon. A tennis net. A tennis ball that I did not want to name or develop a creepy relationship with.

I was hang gliding off a cliff in Hawaii when I got picked up by a cyclone and blasted away from land. The wind had stranded me on a small island somewhere in the South Pacific. I was getting along, eating coconuts and raw land crabs. I was lucky to be alive.

I was afraid to wade into the ocean, even at low tide. There were sharks swirling around. When I stood on the shore, they tried to coax me into the water. They made promises I knew they couldn’t keep. Like, “Hop on my back, I’ll give you a ride to Tahiti.” Or, “I just got off the phone with you sister, she wants you to come home immediately. Just wade into the water here and I’ll call you an Uber-boat to take you home. Your sister is quite worried. Please, let me help you.” It was all bullshit. There’s no way I would trust a shark, even though he tried to mimic my North Carolina accent. Very clever. Very devious. Very ruthless. I knew my sister would never call sharks—they were like telemarketers. She was smarter than that. She worked running the bowling ball cleaner at Brightly Lit Alleys in our home town. Bowling ball cleaners are complicated. You start it running, drop in the ball, press the clean button. The machine automatically goes to dry when it is finished washing. When the dry cycle is complete, you pull out the bowling ball (which takes a degree of strength), and polish the bowling ball with the “special” rag made from a carefully torn up bath towel from Salvation Army Thrift Store. My sister had a pretty good set of biceps on her from liftin’ all those balls. She even got to where she could juggle two balls. Her arms were like tractor pistons. And, like I said, she was too smart to be taken in by a shark, who would surely try to lure her to its dinner table as the main course.

Anyway, my sandbox was way bigger than it needed to be. But, there was a lot of sand, and I figured it belonged to me. Then I realized it was too big to qualify as a “box.” So, I just filled the useless wheelbarrow with sand, scooping up the sand with my hands. Once I filled it, I didn’t know what to do with it. So, I sat in it and pretended I was a cat in a litter box. I was meowing joyfully when I was answered back. There was a cat sitting at the jungle’s edge. He said: “I’ve been watching you and you’re a total dipshit. Those sharks won’t eat you. Use that old “tennis net to catch some sardines, and make sure to share with me.”

It worked! Fresh sardine sushi is quite delicious. I named the cat Friday and we had a great time. He helped me build a shelter out of palm fronds and the remains of my hang glider. He also showed me how to start a fire with friction. Then, he disappeared one morning and never came back. The next day I was rescued by a fishing boat named Friday—was it just a coincidence?

I spent two years on that island. People tell me I must’ve been delirious talking to sharks and a cat. I probably was. But, I think my delirium was functional. It saved my life. At least, I think it did. But really, I think it was Friday’s chiding—making me get off my ass and take care of myself.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in anacoluthon

Tagged ,

Anadiplosis

Posted on April 18, 2023 | Leave a comment

Anadiplosis (an’-a-di-plo’-sis): The repetition of the last word (or phrase) from the previous line, clause, or sentence at the beginning of the next. Often combined with climax.

There was a special T-shirt I wanted to wear. I wanted to wear it everywhere. I had made it on the internet. It cost $18.00. It had a picture of my cat Furballerina (“Furball” for short) on it. She was a cross between a Persian cat, and possibly, a toy cougar.

There was a contest being run by the Generic Cat Food Company to find a cat-model. The cat-model’s owner would receive $100,000 and the cat’s picture would appear on all their products. There would also be a brief video of the cat eating some dry Generic Cat Food. That’s where the t-shirts come in. In addition to Furballerina’s picture with her name under it, the t-shirts say “Vote for me for Generic’s cat model 1-800-CAT-FOOD.”

I had 100 t-shirts made. I decided to hand them out in the Piggly Wiggly supermarket pet food section. When somebody would walk up, I’d holdup a t-shirt and say “Here’s a free t-shirt, vote for Furballerina.”

Then, I couldn’t believe what happened next!

An elderly woman pointed at Furballerina’s picture. She said, “That’s my cat Fluffy. We’ve been friends forever. I let her out in the morning and she comes home at six. She sits on my lap and we watch “Magnum PI” and go to bed at 8:00 pm without fail. You are trying to steal my cat so you can win some stupid contest. To quiet her down, I told the elderly woman I was an AARP detective. I told her I was investigating cat scams—everything from bogus flea collars to counterfeit scratching posts. I figured we could just keep on the way had been, sharing the cat. She didn’t need to know about that—she could go on believing that Fluffy was hers and hers alone. Hers alone, just like the “forever” she had referred to.

I thought I was out of the woods until she asked to see my AARP credentials. That did it! I bundled up my t-shirts, hugging them close to my chest, as I ran toward the doors and my escape through the parking lot. “Wait sonny” she yelled “I was just kiddin’ you.” I stopped and turned. She said, “I hate cats, I have a little Cockerpoo named CP that I adore.” I remembered my grandmother’s Cockerpoo named Rags. Such a nice little dog. They watched “Matlock” together, and “Ironsides” too.

I walked toward the parking lot. Why do I want Furballerina to win the contest? Why couldn’t I just enjoy her company instead of wanting to exploit her beauty and demeanor? I would turn the t-shirts into dust cloths. I was taking them out to the garden shed when I looked in my neighbor’s window. There was my neighbor carrying Furballerina and petting her. I went to my neighbor’s front door to demand my cat back. He said “This is my cat. She’s been living here for the past five years. Where have you been numb-nuts?” Furballerina didn’t even look at me. I was dashed. Then, around 11:00, I was in bed reading Eric Fromm’s Art of Love then there was a light scratching on my bedroom door. I opened the door and Furballerina dashed in, jumped up on my bed, and started purring. I got back in bed and she curled up against my leg. I thought to myself, thank God for cat flaps.

Furballerina wasn’t mine, but at least I was hers.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in anadiplosis

Tagged ,

Anamnesis

Posted on April 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

Anamnesis (an’-am-nee’-sis): Calling to memory past matters. More specifically, citing a past author [apparently] from memory. Anamnesis helps to establish ethos [credibility], since it conveys the idea that the speaker is knowledgeable of the received wisdom from the past.

“I won’t say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like: What I’m going to be if I grow up.” Lenny Bruce never imagined how this joke would resonate with the horrors of the 21st century’s mass school shootings. But, even in the 1950s kids were shooting each other in school. For example, “March 4, 1958, A 17-year-old student shot the future major league baseball player Joe Pepitone (who was also 17 years old at the time) through his stomach at the Manual Training High School.”

If you go to “List of School Shootings” it is startling to see how long school shootings have been going on and how little has been done over the course of history to prevent them. Just now, with the hellish gruesomeness of mass shootings, does it seem that measures are starting to be taken. But, of course, for the murdered and the survivors, it is too late.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Gorgias has inserted the bracketed words [apparently] and [credibility].

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in anamnesis

Tagged ,

Anaphora

Posted on April 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

Anaphora (an-aph’-o-ra): Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines.

I had no bootstraps. No ace in the hole. No pease porridge hot. No tale to be told. The ice of old age had settled on my heart. I was cold and lonely and losing heart. My eyes reflected the beautiful lazuli sky, blurred by time, I thought I would die—die on the sidewalk, die in the street, die of foolishness, stupidity and regret on an island of greediness flooded with pain. Flooded with the challenges of being alone. Flooded with a desire to stop the misery.

I awoke on the sidewalk and I looked at you. Covered with fur and a bushy tail too. Excuse me for saying it, but I was so hungry I could’ve eaten you. But, I had no means to whack you down or fry you up in a frying pan. But I could never catch you anyway. So, I just watched you nibble on an acorn, and go digging for more. Then, like some 19th century horror tale, you said “ You are not doomed to fail. Come, I’ll teach you to find acorns. They’re buried everywhere.” “Same old crap,” I thought. “I’m rolling into the DTs.” Last week it had been a pigeon “bearing tidings of comfort and joy.” The worst was the Rottweiler standing on my chest, telling me to get the “F” up and do the hokey pokey. I have no idea how I can remember this shit, but I do. I needed to put my pan handle on so I could buy a half-pint of Mr. Boston and check back out of this world again. The first guy I hit up gave me a dollar—there must a holiday nearby, I thought as I stuffed the dollar bill down my pants. Then, I saw a policeman coming my way. I tried to run, but my feet stuck to the sidewalk. When he got up to me, he pulled out his gun and started shooting me. I felt nothing. He shot me fifteen times and said “This is just a friendly warning. Keep up this bullshit and next time I’ll stick a hand grenade up your ass.” The squirrel started laughing. He said, “Open wide” and threw an acorn at me. It got stuck in my eye socket. I yelled “Help! The squirrel has blinded me!”

An ambulance arrived and took me away. The acorn was successfully removed and my eyesight was restored. I was at a public detox facility where all they could afford to do was strap you to a bed and check on you every few days. I had lost weight and my head was starting clear. I started remembering. The more I remembered, the more I wanted a drink. I was so burdened by guilt I thought my bed would collapse. I had killed my family in a car crash on the way to my mother-in-law’s in New Jersey. I lifted my head from my pillow and my wife and daughter were standing there. “But you’re dead!” I yelled. “No we’re not you silly boy,” my wife calmly said. “Here’s a knife. I’ll cut your restraints.” I was free! We were walking toward the facility’s exit when an orderly yelled at me “Where do you think you’re going?” “Home with my wife and daughter.” I went to point at them, but they had disappeared.

I needed a drink.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in anaphora

Tagged ,

Anapodoton

Posted on April 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

Anapodoton (an’-a-po’-do-ton): A figure in which a main clause is suggested by the introduction of a subordinate clause, but that main clause never occurs.

Anapodoton is a kind of anacoluthon, since grammatical expectations are interrupted. If the expression trails off, leaving the subordinate clause incomplete, this is sometimes more specifically called anantapodoton. Anapodoton has also named what occurs when a main clause is omitted because the speaker interrupts himself/herself to revise the thought, leaving the initial clause grammatically unresolved but making use of it nonetheless by recasting its content into a new, grammatically complete sentence.

Things were bad enough. But when it started to boil. . . . I heard the door open. It was crazy Ted, my identical twin. He insisted that we dress alike. I did what he told me because, even though I had developed some strategies, I remembered what he did to “insubordinates.” He had strangled my pet chicken “Cluck” when she failed to lay an Easter egg on demand. As the years went by, he wanted me to wear a balaclava all the time like he did—he wanted us to be known as “Dos Criminales” and “Strike terror into the hearts and minds of our neighbors.” I refused and he went crazy for the rest of the day, shaking his fist and yelling “You will die at dawn traitor.” He put chewing gum in my hair and lit my bicycle on fire, which wasn’t easy. I told our parents and Dad looked up from the puzzle he was working on and said, “Don’t worry, he is just sowing his spring oats.” I told my Dad it was actually “wild oats.” Dad mumbled into his puzzle, “Oats are oats” and I went back to think about a defense strategy that would enable me to tell my brother “No.” I figured the best strategy was to become a sprinter and run like hall after telling him “No.” I tried out for the high school track team specializing in the 100-yard dash. Whenever I was going to say “No” to my twin, I crouched down like I was at the track and field starting blocks. I’d say “No” and launch off the imaginary starting blocks. It didn’t work too well inside the house, but I would open the front door to facilitate my getaway.

Ted’s recent return to my life was unsettling. Even after 3 years in prison for lighting his boss’s house on fire and kidnapping his daughter, Ted was still the same remorseless psychopath. I thought it was just a matter of time before he murdered me. Then, a stray cat came into our lives. At first, Ted wanted to run it over in the driveway. Then, it rubbed against his leg and purred. Ted was captivated. He picked up the cat, petted it and scratched it behind the ears. Ted was a changed man. He bought a flea collar and named the cat “Cardinal” because it was “a religious blessing.” That was a little troublesome, but at that point I was open to anything. Ted plays with Cardinal with a piece of string and has taught him to roll over, play dead, and jump through a hula hoop. Ted puts on little shows for the neighborhood kids.

Maybe the cat was a religious blessing, but I still thought that Ted would murder me when he got tired of Cardinal. We had a few close calls, but nothing fatal. The incident with the drill was almost too close for comfort. Right now I hear an idling chainsaw outside my door. I yell “Think of Cardinal” and the sound starts moving away, down the hall.

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

Leave a comment

Posted in anapodoton

Tagged ,

Anastrophe

Posted on April 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

Anastrophe (an-as’-tro-phee): Departure from normal word order for the sake of emphasis. Anastrophe is most often a synonym for hyperbaton, but is occasionally referred to as a more specific instance of hyperbaton: the changing of the position of only a single word.

We was a hole digging. Digging to time’s end. Digging down far. Digging. Digging. Digging. Digging ground-hog like. Digging fast. Digging slow. Tossing dirt. Tossing stones. Digging with hope. Digging like maniacs. Digging for what was below.

We are a club—a tightly knit group of detectorists. We look for treasure left behind by Vikings, or Romans, or robbers. We formed five years ago. Our clubhouse is a pub outside of Oxford called “The Perching Titmouse.” Some of us are retirees using our leisure time. The younger working members come out on Saturdays and Sundays, sometimes leaving crying babies behind. Our divorce rate is high. We call ourselves “The Merry Runes” after the mysterious symbol-inscribed, possibly magical, Viking stones.

To date, we have found nothing ancient or very valuable with our metal detectors. The most amazing thing we found was a 1948 Sunbeam-Talbot 90 buried on a derelict cricket pitch. The car had turned to rust flakes and was worthless, but exciting to unearth. We were able to identify it by the serial number inscribed on the engine block. It had disappeared in 1949 along with its owner Reginald Burke. “Reggie” was a stickup man who specialized in fishmongers and “Necktie men”—men who sold neckties on street corners—mostly veterans injured in the war. We considered digging near the Sunbeam, looking for Reggie, but decided not to. We decided to let sleeping thieves lie—the paperwork for the Sunbeam was bad enough, but for a human, we’d probably be filling out paperwork for the rest of our lives.

So anyway, now we’re digging for gold! We seem to have detected a horde about six feet down, about 1/4 of a mile from the Sunbeam. We decided if we found Reggie, we’d leave him there and go home. But it seemed he left some treasure behind before he disappeared.

We were taking turns digging—silently, brimming with anticipation. My shovel hit metal with a dull thunk! My hands were shaking as I cleared the dirt from what I had struck with my shovel. “It’s a gold bar!” I yelled. I raised it over my head dancing around in the hole. My fellow club members were whooping and jumping around.

All of a sudden somebody yelled “Hold on chaps! That belongs to me, I am Reginald’s grandson.” He was holding a gun. “My grandfather stole that gold bar fair and square and then he disappeared. When you found his car, I knew it would only be a matter of time before you found the gold bar. Hand it over!” I handed it over, right on top of his head. When he went down, his gun went off and barely missed my foot, but he was flat on the ground. We threw him in the hole along with his gun, covered him with dirt and took off for “The Perching Titmouse” to celebrate our find with a couple of rounds of lagers, and to figure out how to make the gold into cash without drawing any attention.

Leave a comment

Posted in anastrophe

Tagged ,

Anesis

Posted on April 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Anesis (an’-e-sis): Adding a concluding sentence that diminishes the effect of what has been said previously. The opposite of epitasis.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” I thought as I stepped over the hefty dog bomb on the park’s sidewalk. The quotation from Neal Armstrong didn’t quite fit, but I thought it was close enough to assuage my anger and disgust. The dog that dropped the bomb must’ve been the size of a Shetland pony. That’s when I came up with my plan.

I applied for a grant from the NEH to study the effects super hero costumes on influencing unwanted public behavior. In my case, it was to reduce the incidence of dog bombs on the park’s sidewalks. I had formed the basis of my idea from reading comic books—most significantly, Batman, Superman and Green Lantern. The NEH granted me $55.00. I was grateful. My mother would sew my costume. It was made of Lycra so it wasn’t easy to put together. I wracked my brain to come up with a design. Finally, I settled on a big dog poop—I would be a two-legged doggy-dooley the color of “k-9 Natural,” probably the most expensive dog food in the world. I had a sculptor friend make a realistic looking pile of doo-doo in a plastic bag affixed to a bicycle helmet with “DOO-DEVIL” emblazoned on the front. I was ready to go.

I went to the park and hid behind a giant oak tree by the sidewalk. An elderly woman came walking by. She Stopped and her Chihuahua started to go. He finished his business and they started walking away without picking up the poop. I jumped out from behind the tree and shouted “I am the DOO-DEVIL! Here is a plastic bag. Pick up the poop!” She looked at me, terrified. She fell to the pavement dead.

NEH pulled my funding and the police confiscated my DOO-DEVIL costume and helmet for “further examination.” They returned it the next day.

I have become a celebrity. I am enjoying the notoriety. I will be wearing my DOO-DEVIL costume and helmet on Fox News tonight. I’ve got a concealed piece of fresh dog poop that I am planning on smearing on Tucker Carlson’s face.

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

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in anesis

Tagged , ,

Antanaclasis

Posted on April 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antanaclasis (an’-ta-na-cla’-sis): The repetition of a word or phrase whose meaning changes in the second instance.

I wasn’t feeling well. It was like I’d fallen down a wishing well and crash-landed in one foot of water. I had been up all night trying to do my incomes taxes and submit them by today. It should’ve so easy. I had purchased “Turbine Taxes” to do my taxes. On the site it sys “Get your taxes done, and go have fun! $1.00.” Every time I tried to submit my taxes, I got an error message from the IRS saying “Alert! your tax preparation software is part of a plot to overthrow the United States of America.” I didn’t believe it and resubmitted five or six times. It had to be a hoax.

Suddenly there was a pounding on my door and it flew open with the help of a battering ram. “Up against wall subversive scum!” a guy in black with a gas mask on and a MAC-10 pointed at my head yelled. He pointed at my laptop computer and yelled “We are confiscating your little tool of treason and treachery.” “But my taxes aren’t done yet” I said, my voice cracking. “What, are you trying to be funny, wise guy?” he said, tasering me in the neck and stomping on my foot. I passed out for a second and fell to the floor temporarily paralyzed. I could hear them talking as they pretty much packed up my entire house—furniture, carpets, washer-dryer—pretty much everything.

I heard one of them say “‘Turbine Taxes’ rock! This has got be the most sophisticated technologically advanced computer scam ever perpetrated!” I was slowly regaining consciousness. These guys were crooks, not government agents. I was blind-ass angry. I had a loaded Glock in my desk. If I could get my hands on it, I could shoot the shit out of all five of them. Then, I realized they were wearing bullet proof vests. It would have to be head shots. I didn’t know whether I could do it. Then, my cat Worthless started hissing and yowling in the back bedroom. He sounded like a police siren. The robbing bastards yelled “Shit” and ran out the back door empty handed. One of them dropped his weapon! I crawled and grabbed it, got to the back door and pulled the trigger. It went “click.” It wasn’t loaded. The marauders were fake, although the Taser had done a number on me.

I bought Worthless a genuine diamond-studded collar (which he immediately pulled off), a five-pound bag of catnip, an aquarium where he could fish for tropical fish, and a heated kitty bed I knew he would never use. I’d always thought of Worthless as this “thing” who would steal my place on the couch, jump up on my bed at 3:00 am, and puke on the carpet every couple of months. Boy, was I wrong. Worthless had saved our home. I changed his name to Claws.

Buy a print version of The Daily Trope! The print version is titled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99.

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

Leave a comment

Posted in antanaclasis

Tagged ,

Antanagoge

Posted on April 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antanagoge (an’-ta-na’-go-gee): Putting a positive spin on something that is nevertheless acknowledged to be negative or difficult.

Life is hard. But it’s life. It is better than death. At least that’s what I think sitting here in my big comfy chair with my remote control in one hand and a martini in the other and a full pack of Marlboro 27s on the end table waiting to be smoked. So, what’s hard about this? I’ll tell you: eventually, I’ll have to pull a “Hungry Wolf” TV dinner out of the freezer, read the microwave instructions, and put the damn thing in the microwave. Inevitably, part of the crust is still frozen when I pull it out. So, I have to shove it in for another minute. Then, the unfrozen part gets burned. What a pain in the ass! There’s just so much about making dinner that’s a pain in the ass—that makes it harder than hell just to eat. There’s a lot of other things too.

I have to drag my garbage cans to the street. Why the hell don’t the garbage haulers drive down my driveway and pick my garbage cans up? Same with my mail—up the driveway I go to get it. What the hell is the mail slot on my door for? Jehovah’s Witnesses” pamphlets? I know I’m going to hell—I don’t need a reminder from them. Then, there’s my job.

It’s not very much better than death. I am a professional birthday clown. My stage name Jabber Warble. I wear a baggy red and green striped costume, a blonde wig, and a big red nose. I don’t wear giant shoes. I think they are ridiculous.

I specialize in balloon tricks—winding up hot dog shaped balloons into animals. I specialize in 8-10 year olds: smelly little imps. I do mostly Dachshunds. I bark with a German accent and the kids love it. My most challenging balloon twist is the hot dog on a bun. It takes two balloons. Often the hotdog won’t fit in the bun laying down, so I have to ad lib. For example, I stick the hot dog in the bun at a perpendicular angle and make it fit. I tell the kids it’s a sail boat, but some of the mothers have told me it reminds them of something else that we could talk about after everybody goes home and their husband and kid have gone to the movies or somewhere else. It is really hard saying “No.” But, I need to maintain my spotless reputation. Once, a mother followed me home. She walked in the door and dropped her raincoat on the floor. She was naked underneath. She came toward insisting that I bark with the German accent. I strained my vocal chords barking. It was scary, and that’s what makes my job hell.

Anyway, life is hard, but it beats the hell out of death, or a coma. What do you do in coma? You lay there surrounded by beeping hospital equipment and tubes in your arms monitoring your descent into death, or incremental return to being awake. I think it’s pretty bad to be in that situation, even if you come back to life. It is like trying to do your income taxes on April 14th with no computer, calculator, pencil, or forms, filing for an extension the next day, and buying a plane ticket to someplace you’ve never heard of, like Belarus.

Remember: life is hard, but it could be worse. No matter how hard it gets, just be glad you’re not dead yet.

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

Paperback and Kindle editions of The Daily Trope are available at Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes.

Leave a comment

Posted in antanagoge, Uncategorized

Tagged , ,

Antenantiosis

Posted on April 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antenantiosis (an’-ten-an’-ti-os’-is): See litotes. (Deliberate understatement, especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite. The Ad Herennium author suggests litotes as a means of expressing modesty [downplaying one’s accomplishments] in order to gain the audience’s favor [establishing ethos]).

I don’t deserve you baby. You’ve been by my side though thick and thin, famine and feast, high and low, backward and forward, right and left, in and out, smooth and bumpy, rich and poor. Now, I have to add through marriage and divorce. It won’t be easy, but we’ve faced so many challenges together, and now, we can manage the Big D.

I know you didn’t see it coming. Stealth has been my catchword and the Sunset Motel has been my hideout. It has big-screen plasma TVs and room service: a hideout worthy of an adulterer with big ideas.

I’ve always had big ideas, but you never supported me—you scoffed. You drove me away. My portable potty would’ve made millions—an ice chest with a toilet seat. Or, what about the cat mop? A mop handle that you can affix to a cat and use to dust your tile and hardwood floors. You called it animal abuse and stupid. Or what about the floating baby carriage with a remote-controlled motor and steering mechanism. I managed to get a prototype built and our little Lucy had a real high seas adventure with the Coast Guard bringing her back to shore soaking wet, but unharmed! You hit me on the head repeatedly with a folding beach chair. You gave me a mild concussion and tried to convince me that I’m the biggest asshole in the universe. That hurt me more than the crack in my skull.

So, I’ve been seeing Janie the waitress from the Pancake House. We have been having lots of fun. Yesterday, we went for a sunset walk around the Best Buy parking lot. It is a huge parking lot, so we got some good exercise. Janie is so smart! She thinks my ideas are great and can’t wait to try my car registration window sticker scraper made from a cutlery-grade spatula with a razor sharp flipper. She’ll be the first to try it. We’re just waiting for her car’s registration to expire. We call it the “EZ-Scrape.”

Luckily, we sent Lucy to graduate school. Her doctoral dissertation, “Things Compared to Shit” won an award and she’s comfortably ensconced in a tenure track position at some Mid-Western University.

I’m going to burn the house down so you’ll be homeless after the divorce. I was thinking about right now. I’ve got a couple of cans of gasoline out in the car. I’m thinking of soaking all the furniture and throwing a stick match behind me as I go out the door and make my exit once and for all from your nanny negative nay-saying. I’ll pack my gym bag with some essentials. Then, I will fly like an eagle to the Pancake House.

POSTSCRIPT

He lit his house on fire and ran to the Pancake House to meet his true love Janie who he found in the back seat of a Cadillac, making in rock back and forth with a fat man with gray hair wearing a gold Rolex. He knew what he had to do. He pulled his “EZ-Scrape” prototype out of his gym bag, looked at his face in its mirror finish, opened the Cadillac’s back door and gave its razor-edge a test run that nobody in his small town would ever forget.

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

Buy a print version of The Daily Trope! The print version is titled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99.

Leave a comment

Posted in antenantiosis

Tagged ,

Anthimeria

Posted on April 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

Anthimeria (an-thi-mer’-i-a): Substitution of one part of speech for another (such as a noun used as a verb).

He was a real swinger. It was the 70s and that’s what everybody I knew wanted to be. A swinger. Which meant a cool, fun seeking, loose moraled fun seeker. It also meant they were open to a variety of sexual activities involving more than two people.

Eddie was an archetypal swinger. White disco suit with bell bottoms, swashbuckler shoes, big collared shirt unbuttoned halfway down, wide belt, and a pimp hat with a mirrored hat band and purple ostrich feather. Also, he wore three rings on each hand and a coke spoon hanging on a gold chain around his neck. Eddie made The Bee Gees look like 2-bit punks in comparison to him. He looked like he should’ve been the star of “Saturday Night Fever” instead of John Travolta.

While he could put on the clothes, and look the part, that’s as far as it went for Eddie. He couldn’t dance. He’d never snort coke. He couldn’t be cool. He was Halloweening. He was dressing up. It was all just a costume. He was off the rack. Then one night a real swinger invited Eddie to “do the dance” with him and his girlfriend. When the certified swinger said it, it was like it made Eddie’s purple plume stand up straight..

Eddie hiked his pants up and said “Ok man. Let’s make it happen, baby.” And off they went.

We had to bail Eddie out. He ended up “acting” in an adult film titled “Disco Swingers.” All the camera equipment was concealed behind the wall, shooting through a peephole. The police had somehow been tipped off and everybody was arrested. Eddie was completely freaked out. He dropped his swinger look and went back to jeans and a t-shirt. He was found not guilty due to being entrapped. After that, John Travolta got fat and the disco-swinger fad lost direction and died. Punk music emerged along with a certain FU sensibility. Johnny Rotten led the way and Eddie followed. He tore his blue-jean jacket, had a buzz cut on his head, wore safety pins in his newly pierced ears and motorcycle boots on his feet, had himself tattooed with the anarchy symbol, and frequently yelled “bollocks” at people for no reason. He sang the praises of “stickin’ it to the man.”

Now it’s the 21st century. Eddie claims he’s the oldest rapper on earth. He calls himself “Savage Tricky.” He does rap versions of doo-wop songs from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. “Blue Moon” is his signature song. He’s 72 years old and sits during his sets. He performs mainly at open mike clubs where “stinks” is the most frequently used adjective to describe his performances.

Don’t pity Eddie. He did this to himself.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in anthimeria

Tagged ,

Anthypophora

Posted on April 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

Anthypophora (an’-thi-po’-phor-a): A figure of reasoning in which one asks and then immediately answers one’s own questions (or raises and then settles imaginary objections). Reasoning aloud. Anthypophora sometimes takes the form of asking the audience or one’s adversary what can be said on a matter, and thus can involve both anacoenosis and apostrophe.

That lady’s hat is huge, not to mention in poor taste. I know Easter’s around the corner, but an Easter basket hat is totally loony—no matter when it gets worn. Right now, it’s leaking jelly beans down the back of her neck and she’s oblivious. There goes a purple one and a pink one. The chocolate rabbit’s ear has a bite out of it.

What should I do? I’ll ask her to take it off when the movie starts. “Ma’m, can you please remove your hat before the movie starts?” Without turning, she shakes her head “No!” I ask again: “Please. I won’t be able see the movie.” It’s a big “No!” again. Should I report her to the manager?

The movie’s going to start in about 5 minutes. I run up the aisle to the manager’s office. He’s sitting inside at his desk. He’s wearing an Easter Basket hat! He told me the hats were an Easter weekend gimmick. He told me if I looked around the theatre I’d see 30 or 40 of them. I told him I only saw one, and it was blocking my view. Everybody else had removed theirs out of deference to the person behind them. He told me he’d give me a refund, or a ticket to another show. I told him there is no “other show.” It was my last chance to see a movie I had waited months to see. I was really mad! I was madder than hell!

The lights went down and I dashed back to my seat. The newsreel was starting. I asked the lady again to “Please” remove her hat. She vigorously shook her head “No” again. I was losing it. I considered strangling her—not good idea. I considered tearing off her hat and throwing it in the aisle—that was too easy. Then I remembered: my girlfriend had given me a Zippo lighter for my birthday. I pulled it out of my pocket and tried to light it so I could set the lady’s Easter hat ablaze. It wouldn’t light. I had forgotten to put fluid in it. Damn! I started kicking the seat from behind. The lady was rocking forward and backward. Finally, she turned and said, “Ok. You win. I will take it off, but my ears will get in your way. I hope you can live with that.”

It was the goddamn Easter Bunny sitting in front of me! To this day, I find it hard to believe it really happened. By the way, I got to see the movie and I enjoyed it. “Harvey” is about a wealthy drunk who starts having visions of a giant rabbit named Harvey.

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

Buy a print version of The Daily Trope! The print version is titled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99.

Leave a comment

Posted in anthypophora

Tagged ,

Antimetabole

Posted on April 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antimetabole (an’-ti-me-ta’-bo-lee): Repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order.

I read the book and the book read me. This sounds pretty stupid, and maybe it is. The book has no consciousness, no agency, no nothing. It’s just a paper rectangle binding together other paper rectangles (called pages), covered with words constituting grammatically-coded sentences, paragraphs, and chapters.

Books are written to be read. That’s how they read you: with surprise and suspense and plots and all the other well-travelled literary forms that read you and seduce you—that capture and keep your interest. And, as they help the text “ring true” they have woven their way into the text’s fabric of plausibility—no matter where or when it unfurls: prose, poetry, fact, fiction, whatever.

So, you decide to read a treatise on symbolic logic. You don’t understand it. You don’t like it. You take it back to the bookstore for a refund. The bookstore doesn’t give refunds. You go ballistic and throw the book at the proprietor. It hits him in the head and knocks him unconscious. Somebody calls 911. The paramedics put the proprietor on a stretcher and carry him out of the bookstore shaking their heads. The police handcuff you. You are placed in a cell. You can’t be bailed out because of your violent demeanor. You are sharing the cell with a suspected serial killer. During the night he tries to pull out your intestines with his bare hands. The guard tells him to shut up and go back to bed. The next morning you are taken to the psychiatric hospital for evaluation. They determine you are suffering from PTSD from when you were a lifeguard in charge of the kiddie pool at a high-end country club in the Hamptons. You were prescribed medication that made you slur your words. You were released from jail. You sounded drunk. You lost your job. They didn’t even give you a breathalyzer test before they kicked you you the front door and threw the plant from your desk after you.. You stagger home and dig your grandfather’s shotgun out of the back of the front hall closet. You load it with .00 buckshot.

My God! What the hell happened?

You were not the intended reader—that’s what happened—the book hadn’t read you. It had read somebody else. Books should be required to provide a brief description of who is supposed to read them so this kind of literary tragedy can be avoided.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in antimetabole

Tagged ,

Antimetathesis

Posted on April 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antimetathesis (an-ti-me-ta’-the-sis): Inversion of the members of an antithesis.

Bad and good. Good and bad. What a waste of time making these determinations when the passage of time sheds new light and bad is made good and good is made bad. These reversals bear witness to the contingency of what matters—now it is good, then it is bad. Everything is subject to shifting sensibilities or the ongoing revelation of “truth” by the researches of science as it sweeps away folklore and banishes myth to life’s sidelines along with poetry and fiction. But people may freely believe what their communities, friends and families believe, even if it entails their rejection of life-saving medicines or procedures, resulting in death. We saw it over and over during the COVID epidemic and from time to time in communities that don’t permit blood transfusions or surgeries.

When we observe what we think is crazy, ignorant, destructive behavior we may call it tragic or stupid or evil. And we may condemn these people when their children die and we may just shake our heads when adults are put on respirators and die shortly thereafter. But where there is agency there is error, and error may go all the way around the circle of people constructing a community, and choosing, choosing, choosing. Right now there are former US military personnel filing lawsuits for cancer contracted from burn pits. Then there was Agent Orange . . .

Every choice we make is motivated by faith—there is no other way to obtain the fate that choosing projects—the future does not exist now: it exists in the throes of hope and fear and imagination—no matter how quickly we go from the present to the future: You put your key in your car’s ignition. You turn it. The car starts. Your faith is fulfilled. But, there’s always a chance it may not be—possibly in a deserted parking lot on a below-zero night.

When good and bad trade places we are reminded of their contingency: they are subject to change and can transform into each other. The clearest case I can think of right now is marijuana’s legalization. When I was in high school in the mid-sixties, a person I knew was sent to prison for a year for possession of one marijuana seed. Now, it is legal to buy it at a store in the mall. I guess it was always true that it was harmless, but that didn’t keep people from seeing it as harmful, and acting on that view. Anyway, most of the time when we act, we expect a given consequence to be brought into being by the action, but there is always a gap between what we do and what happens, however tiny. There also may be a constellation of conflicting assertions about our motivations for a given action: pulling the trigger on a handgun and killing somebody can result in the imputation of a variety of motives, from a tragic accident, to self-defense, to first degree murder. Depending on the circumstances, decisions are made about “what happened” in order to determine what to do next. All I know is we need to be aware of the contingency of deeply rooted cultural norms and their susceptibility to change or preservation. Permanence, without human assistance, is an illusion.

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.

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

Leave a comment

Posted in antimetathesis

Tagged ,

Antiprosopopoeia

Posted on April 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antiprosopopoeia (an-ti-pro-so-po-pe’-i-a): The representation of persons [or other animate beings] as inanimate objects. This inversion of prosopopoeia or personification can simply be the use of a metaphor to depict or describe a person [or other animate being].

Me: Hey Rocky! Did you get your nickname from what your head is filled with? Rocks? Ha ha! I think a better nickname for you would be Itch. You spend half your time scratching and pulling on the crotch of your pants. It is one of the weirdest habits I’ve ever seen & I’ve seen a few. Like the guy who constantly combs d his pubes with a tiny nit rake. Or the guy who had to put whipped cream on his armpits before he could go to the movies. Or the woman who drank her coffee from an enema bulb. Finally, I knew a guy who always wore three pairs of underpants.

Every one of these behaviors is a habit, and as the cliche says, “Habits can be broken.” Think of your butt sniffing dog. You broke him of the habit by punching him in the nose whenever he tried a sniff.

Your habit can broken too.

You: Really? I’ve tried everything—wearing mittens, taping it up with duct tape, wearing a pre-formed plaster cast on my crotch. Nothing works. It is like my hands have a mind of their own—they’ve torn off the mittens, they tore off the duct tape, they pounded the plaster cast until it broke. Nothing works! I am doomed to be known as “Charlie Crotch Itch.”

Me: I can help you. There are two paths: 1. You can have your hands amputated, or, you can try some of my “Hands Off!” An organic chemical compound that dulls your desire to grab, pull, and scratch. It was developed by Vikings who had unusually sensitive skin. They needed to take it so they could successfully raid their neighbors. Without it, they would stand on the battlefield itching and scratching and get whacked to death by a walrus-tusk wielding enemy.

You: Wow that’s incredible. I’d like to try some “Hands Off!”

Me: Ok. I have a bottle right here for $200.00. I’ll take a check. Take 10 in the morning, every morning, and you’re all set. The bottle has 30 tablets, so I’ll set you up with automatic refill. Give me your credit card information so I can process your recurring order.

You: Ok. This is great.

Postscript

He took the pills that night, before bed—not in the morning as directed. His penis grew four feet and strangled him. It was the first recorded instance of Peniscide. The person selling the pills was arrested, but was released to work at a chemical warfare facility in Maryland for the US Army. It is rumored he is working on a gas-emitting “Borsht Bomb” that will be deployed in Ukrainian restaurants frequented by Russian soldiers in occupied areas.

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.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added by Georgia’s.

Leave a comment

Posted in antiprosopopoeia

Tagged , ,

Antirrhesis

Posted on April 4, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antirrhesis (an-tir-rhee’-sis): Rejecting reprehensively the opinion or authority of someone.

Me: “I gotta tell you, you’re off your nut.” I said “Eating a book will not make you smarter. It will make sick. This is the most asinine idea you ever came up with. Eating Plato’s Meno will not make you one bit wiser, even if you only eat a little bit— maybe a half-page per week. Read it, don’t eat it, for God’s sake!”

You: “Lookit asshole—you are the idiot here. Stop dictating my life’s course with your inflexible “down to earth” bullshit. You are, once again, rejecting something you could benefit from just because of your life in the Nerdy Sphere, where everything is careful-careful, tiptoeing around truth like it is a piece of dog crap on your carpet. Wake up num-nuts, smell the coffee and roses, and other things that are reminders of life’s joys. Instead, you’re going around like you’re sniffing wet dogs and cans of ‘4,000 Dead Fish Heads’ cat food.

I learned about book eating on the internet: ‘Swallow the Truth.’ There was a picture of the bearded Swami Litterati sitting in a red Cadillac convertible on a tropical beach. The website explained the benefits of ingesting books—how they would literally be digested by your body, and eventually your brain without having to put in the effort of reading. ‘Swallow the Truth’ has a cookbook for sale for $15.00. I purchased one. It shows how you can include book pages in a variety of dishes—making them really easy to swallow. My favorite is ‘Paperback Pizza.’

I have been eating Plato’s dialogues for the past year and I’m almost done. I’m still waiting for the ‘message’ to come through, but I have learned something very deep: Having faith in something that has no discernible affect on your life, is the faithfullest faith you could ever have, and if faith is all you need, nothing else matters—just faith with no return—with a foundation in futility. So, as I eat the dialogues to no effect, there is a lesson: futility is the pinnacle of human experience. Living life with no expectations of a return for your efforts will set you free. So, now I’m going to eat a page out of Plato’s Gorgias. I’ve moistened it and sprinkled it with powdered sugar to improve its taste. Here goes!”

Me: To impress me, he wadded up the page and stuffed it in his mouth and tried to swallow it whole without chewing. He started choking. I gave him the Heimlich Maneuver. I tugged and lifted and hugged and hugged. He was going limp and turning colors. I reached in his mouth to fish out the paper wad and he bit me. The ambulance arrived. The EMT guy had a thing like a drain snake with tweezers on the end. She shoved it down my friend’s throat, twisted it, and pulled out the paper wad. He took a big breath. My friend was going to live!

I went to see him at the hospital and he blamed me for what had happened. I told him to go fu*k himself and left, slowly wadding up a quarter-page of Heidegger’s Being and Time. I was sorely tempted to pop it into my mouth. But instead, I threw it on the floor and crushed it with my boot.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in antirrhesis

Tagged ,

Antisagoge

Posted on April 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antisagoge (an-tis-a-go’-gee): 1. Making a concession before making one’s point (=paromologia); 2. Using a hypothetical situation or a precept to illustrate antithetical alternative consequences, typically promises of reward and punishment.

Ok, it’s true, the swimming pool has turned into swamp. But more importantly, it has become a local attraction since my friend Dr. Preedle accidentally discovered a heretofore undiscovered organism chuffing around the deep end. Once people found out about it, they came flocking around to see the amazing Preedle-Paddle-Rectus. The fence around the pool is working to stem the flow of curiosity seekers. Since started charging admission, we’ve made $500! The hats, key chains, t-shirts, and travel mugs are doing well too. We’ve named the organism “Bloppy” after his gooey exterior. We don’t have to feed him or do anything except make sure the pool is full of algae-laden dirty water. Bloppy has beautiful blue “eyes” (we’re not sure they are actually eyes—Dr. Preedle was working on this). Whenever people look into Bloppy’s eyes their bodies slump a little and they seem to find peace. I have experienced it a couple of times and I never felt better in my life. This is another selling point—we call it “Slimelightenment.” Bloppy seemed to enjoy making people whole. And he could smile, with his human-like lips.

He was as big as a watermelon. He was transparent—you could see his internal organs. He didn’t seem to have a heart, and that did not bother us because he was alive. As far as the other organs went, we were clueless. He had what looked like tentacles on his rear that propelled him around the pool very fast when he moved them. Also, almost miraculously, he would swim to me when I called—he had learned his name.

Then one morning I went outside to say hello to Bloppy. Dr. Preedle’s white lab coat was floating in the pool. I looked all for him—the University, the “Mean Beans” coffee shop, and few other places he frequented. I went back home and sat down by the pool, making sure the “Closed” signs were up. Bloppy came swimming over and I looked in his eyes. My anguish over Dr. Preedle melted away. All of a sudden Dr. Preedle’s hand emerged from below the water. Bloppy squeaked. “Uh-oh” I thought.

I was making so much money, I could not risk losing Bloppy and closing everything down. I pulled what was left of Dr. Preedle out of the pool, dragged his remains to the garden, and buried him. What was I going to do? I started bringing homeless people home under the pretext of a good meal and a swim in my pool. I would push them in the pool and Blobby would feed on them. There were always leftovers I had to dispose of. I had filled my garden with bodies, so I started driving them around in my car, and shoving them out in mall, school, and church parking lots.

I became the most notorious serial killer ever, even though nobody knew it was me. “I” was known as the “Parking Lot Killer.” I knew they would catch me eventually. All the parking lots were under observation, and some smart detective would eventually make the connection between the fact that all of the bodies were wet, and my famous swimming pool Bloppy concession. But I was stuck and nobody put two and two together yet, and I vowed to stay in business until they do. Besides, the homeless population is going down. Most people think that’s a good thing and so does Bloppy, who has put on weight and looks really healthy.

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

A paper version The Daily Trope is available from Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes.

Leave a comment

Posted in antisagoge

Tagged , ,

Antistasis

Posted on April 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antistasis (an-ti’-sta-sis): The repetition of a word in a contrary sense. Often, simply synonymous with antanaclasis.

I thought I had cracked the woodchuck code by shifting to another animal with “wood” in its name. I new I would be beaten down by the woodchuck aficionados, and probably banned for life from “World Punsters” who want to preserve ancient puns and sayings like jam—like a jam on the road to change. What they get is progress toward no progress. When I unveiled my new “wood” question, woven into a pun at the annual meeting in Amsterdam, the audience threw mayonnaise covered french fries, and whole conical paper containers, at me like they had planned it ahead of my scheduled presentation. Soaked in mayonnaise, and accompanied by loud boos, I lifted my bullhorn and read: “How much wood could a Woodpecker peck, when a woodpecker pecks wood.” A wooden shoe went flying past my head. The delegation from Italy threw a headless woodpecker onto the stage. The Japanese delegation threw exploding origami woodpeckers. The Americans threw Woodpecker puppets with nails driven into their heads. There were hundreds of countries represented, but suffice it to say, there was hostility beaming from every corner. I was terrified. Then, somebody in a giant woodpecker suit came bursting through the entrance pushing a shopping cart.

“Get out of the way scum!” the giant woodpecker yelled, scaring the cowardly audience. It made it to the stage and told me to get into the shopping cart. People yelled obscenities as as we pushed our way to the exit. We ran to the University of Amsterdam where I had lectured 10 year before. The woodpecker took off its head. It was the girl who had called me a fascist for wearing a black shirt with my suit when I had lectured there. She had aged, but she was just as cute now as she was then. I was covered in mayonnaise, or I would’ve given her a big hug. As a joke, she started licking the mayonnaise off my face. We were both laughing, and things got serious. So serious, in fact, that I have made Amsterdam my home. I have continued my literary endeavors, and Sanna (the woodpecker) supports me. Currently, I’ve started revising aphorisms to align them more accurately with life’s 21st century vagaries. I’m working on “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” My latest revision is “When the going gets tough, get going out of there.” I am making my revised sayings into wall hangings painted onto small pizza pans. I think they have great potential for the kind of moral realignment that world desperately needs.

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

Paperback and Kindle editions of The Daily Trope are available on Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes.

Leave a comment

Posted in antistasis

Tagged ,

Antisthecon

Posted on April 1, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antisthecon (an-tis’-the-con): Substitution of one sound, syllable, or letter for another within a word. A kind of metaplasm: the general term for changes to word spelling.

I had a “cheeseborer” for lunch. I called it that because it bored right through me. It was like a cheese and beef flash flood. When I ate one, I made sure to sit by the restroom door.

Despite the trouble they gave me, I ate them anyway. Their taste was irresistible. People who ate at Stamper’s would fight over the tables by the restroom door, knowing they were going to have a torrential emergency soon after finishing their BM Burger (what I called the Cheeseborer). I started thinking about other foods where taste, not a quick poop, was the incentive for eating it, regardless of corollary consequences. The only thing I could think of was confections. Committing tubby-cide by sitting on the couch eating Little Debbie cakes all day, every day. There are probably hundreds of other examples, but what is so compelling about the BM Burger, given the risk involved—the risk of crapping all over yourself in a public place?

Most people lead a pretty hum-drum existence. Seizing on the BM-Burger’s excellent flavor as an excuse, they eat one, knowing they will experience the thrill of running to the restroom—with preliminary gas leaking from their butt, and pulling down their pants in a primal struggle, with the image of not making it pressing on every part of their body, weighing it down with terror, terror that is an incentive to pump the legs and cry out with animal sounds upon reaching the toilet intact. In one melodious whoosh, it’s over. It’s like scoring a goal or throwing everything you’ve got in a wishing well. You have to flush three times to make it all go away and prepare the toilet for the next person.

Stamper’s is at the leading edge of the emergent sport of Toilet Dashing. It is mainly a man’s sport, but some women are involved too. I think it’s just another fad like Rubic’s Cube or bell bottom pants. On the other hand, it could be a matter of mass psychosis like the dancing mania that swept across Europe from the 14th to the 17th centuries. If it takes on the scale of dancing mania, Toilet Dashing could spell the end of civilization as we know it with towns and cities awash in excrement and people hobbling around with their pant half down.

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

Paperback and Kindle editions of The Daily Trope are available on Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Antithesis

Posted on March 31, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antithesis (an-tith’-e-sis): Juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas (often, although not always, in parallel structure).

There are a lot of different ideas that people have about everything—maybe more than similar ideas. The opposites of life are always inhabited by peoples’ points of view, no matter how much they may lie to “preserve the peace.” Peace vs. war. You would think, if they weren’t threatened, that war would be the last thing anybody wants. Aside from self-defense, one would think peace is the highest goal imaginable in geopolitics, but again, unless a nation-state is the victim of aggression.

Last night, I was watching Stinger missile strikes leveled against a Russian artillery battery located in Ukraine. The onslaught was merciless, destroying the battery, tanks, helicopters, and killing Russian soldiers fleeing the attack on foot. The “footage” could be fake, and it probably was—a good piece of anime—very realistic. If fake, it is representative of a desire. After all, the Russians invaded a sovereign nation—a democracy with no interest in war. Why shouldn’t we want to see the Russians defeated, blown to hell and sent home in meat wagons?

Thanatos and Eros are in constant conflict. Thanatos always wins in the end. We are conscious of our mortality very rarely—maybe if we’re sick or badly injured. But every day that we’re living, we’re dying. It is just a matter of time. We do what we can to forestall it. There are myriad cons purporting to enable us to prolong our lives. We may be obsessed by “secrets”of longevity—like water from holy springs or “special blends” of whatever.

My secret is to sit on my couch with my cat looking out the window for at least 2 hours per day. (sometimes longer, but never shorter—the cat sleeps through it all). Every day, I try to find something that’s changed outside, and then, put it on the Thanatos/Eros scale. I am looking forward to spring when there’s a whole lot of Eros going on. I live under a flyway that Canada Geese use. Last night the first flock of spring flow over, honking noisily. It sounded like they were saying “life, life, life” as they flew over my garage. What else could they be saying? “Honk?” Maybe. But they’re on their way to build nests, mate with their life partners, lay eggs, raise goslings, and fly South in the Fall.

So anyway, I head into the kitchen to take my supplements, drink two glasses of maple water, and have my pickled beet sandwich for lunch. After lunch, I’ll head out to the garage and smoke five or six cigarettes to balance things out.

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

There are paperback and Kindle editions of The Daily Trope available on Amazon under the title of The Book of Tropes.

Leave a comment

Posted in antithesis

Tagged ,

Antitheton

Posted on March 30, 2023 | Leave a comment

Antitheton (an-tith’-e-ton): A proof or composition constructed of contraries. Antitheton is closely related to and sometimes confused with the figure of speech that juxtaposes opposing terms, antithesis. However, it is more properly considered a figure of thought (=Topic of Invention: Contraries [a topic of invention in which one considers opposite or incompatible things that are of the same kind (if they are of different kinds, the topic of similarity / difference is more appropriate). Because contraries occur in pairs and exclude one another, they are useful in arguments because one can establish one’s case indirectly, proving one’s own assertion by discrediting the contrary]).

I didn’t know where I was going until I met you Eddy. Now I know I’m going to hell. I was good. You were bad. Now, we’re both bad. I feel like a duck out of water. A bird without wings. A dump truck that can’t dump. I don’t know if I can go back to being “Big Nice John”—what my friends used to call me. Now they call me “Big Rotten John” and look the other way when they see me on the street. The “rotten” will never go away, the “nice” will never return. But maybe if I can think of a way to redeem myself, I can push “rotten” away and pull back “nice” across my soul like a blanket of goodness, giving me peace. If only I hadn’t forgotten to feed my little brother’s fish for two weeks when he went to camp. Everybody thinks I did it on purpose, Eddy, because you told me to and I did your bidding like some kind of wind-up robot. You know I didn’t and you won’t say so because you want to look like you’re in control of me. For the 5-millionth time, I forgot to Fred them, and you know it!

Now, I am buying new fish to replace the dead ones. Swimming around in the aquarium they will erase my brother’s traumatic memory of seeing his starved fish floating belly up. The smell was surely memorable too. I cleaned the aquarium and filled it with clean tap water and dumped in the fish. The Blennies were ugly. The Clownfish were striking. The Pipefish were crazy. It was a pretty good collection of fish. I went to my room to wait for my brother to come home.

When he got home he went into his room. I expected a big “wow!” Instead, he screamed “You rotten bastard! You are so cruel. You should be shot!” He ran down stairs. I went into his room and all the fish were dead. I picked the pamphlet up off the floor “Caring for Your Salt Water Fish.” I hadn’t read it. It looked like I had struck another death blow when I filled the aquarium with tap water. I went downstairs to beg my brother’s forgiveness. “Hands up!” he yelled. Somehow he had found Dad’s .45 and was aiming it at me. “It was an accident! Please believe me. I would never murder your fish on purpose. I bought those fish for you. I didn’t read the instructions for setting up the tank. That was stupid. I am stupid. Please forgive me.” My brother believed I had set him up with the dead fish, like the horse’s head in the bed in Godfather. When I heard that, I got on my knees and begged him not to kill me. At that moment, Mom came home from the grocery store. She yelled at my brother: “Drop the gun you idiot!” My brother immediately dropped the gun. My mother picked it up off the floor and aimed it at my brother and yelled: “Go to your room, or I’ll shoot!” Mt brother ran up the stairs. I told my mother what had happened and she told me she was surprised I wasn’t dead on the floor when she got home. She told me I had to do my brother’s laundry and clean his room once a week for 2 months. I started to complain and she aimed the gun at me and told me to shut up. She told me to invite Eddy over for a good old pistol whipping—to jog his memory about my first fish kill. Mom’s maiden name was Gambino. She knew how to handle bullshit.

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

Paperback and Kindle editions of The Daily Trope are available at Amazon under the title of The Book of Tropes.

Leave a comment

Posted in antitheton

Tagged ,

Apagoresis

Posted on March 29, 2023 | Leave a comment

Apagoresis (a-pa-gor’-e-sis): A statement designed to inhibit someone from doing something. Often uses exaggeration [or hyperbole] to persuade. It may combine an exaggeration with a cause/effect or antecedent/consequence relationship. The consequences or effects of such a phrase are usually exaggerated to be more convincing.

“If you keep doing that, the palm of your hand will grow hair,” my father told me. I asked him what he was talking about and he said, “Come on, don’t screw around with me. Your hand is not for that.” I was still puzzled. I used my hand for a lot of things and I had no idea which of them would cause hair to grow on my palm. I decided to ask my mom. She was usually more straightforward than Dad was. I asked, “Mom, what would cause hair to grow on the palm of my hand?” She looked really alarmed. “Do you have it? Are you growing hair there? Oh God, I knew this would happen at some point as you got older.” She pulled her apron over her her head and shook her head while she said “No, no no.” I told her I had no palm-hair and she was relieved. I decided to leave her alone. Poor Mom.

I went to see the school nurse. If anybody could help, she could. She told me not to worry about it—it was a myth and I could do it all I wanted to do it and no hair would grow on my palm. However, there could be other consequences from the repetition. I was relieved, but I still didn’t know what “it” is. So, I asked the nurse. She said, “Here, look in my medical dictionary. You’ll learn a lot and eventually you’ll find the answer. It was daunting. There are tons of medical words in the medical dictionary. After two days of looking, the only thing I could find that seemed relevant was “carpel-tunnel syndrome.” Now I understood! I was an obsessive video game player, and that could cause carpel-tunnel syndrome affecting my wrist and hand. The “hair on the palm of the hand” thing was Dad’s way of getting me to back off on the video games. I was so relieved. I went upstairs and booted up “Naughty Nurses” on my computer, drifting into my daily revery about the school nurse. At that moment I realized what Dad was talking about! I looked at the palm of my hand, turned off the computer, and started sorting through my baseball card collection.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added by Gorgias.

Paperback and Kindle editions of The Daily Trope are available on Kindle under the title The Book of Tropes.

Leave a comment

Posted in apagoresis

Tagged ,

Aphaeresis

Posted on March 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

Aphaeresis (aph-aer’-e-sis): The omission of a syllable or letter at the beginning of a word. A kind of metaplasm.

‘Oly moly! That’s a Gray Wrinkle Beak! It is so rare that nobody has ever seen one—except for me. I’m taking pictures with my I-Phone. I will be on the news! Every birdwatcher in the world will envy me. I will be the talk of the town and A-Number One. I want to get a picture of the Wrinkle Beak in flight. I walk toward it. It does not move. I get closer and closer and see why it does not move. It is a meticulously crafted fake. Even up close, it looks real. This has to be the work Captain Tweet, rare bird maker.

He thinks he’s funny. He has been on television a number of times, and explains how his work induces the thrill of discovery’s priceless feeling that, for a short time, puts you in the center of your world, alone with the consequences. Most people opt to take pictures and think about all the money they’ll make selling them, and the TV appearances too, not to mention a few pages in Audubon Magazine. And then, almost as quickly as they come, they are shattered by the ersatz bird revelation.

That’s how I felt: shattered. I have been an avid bird watcher all my life—ever since my parents gave me a cheap pair of plastic binoculars on my 9th birthday. They’re a little nicked up now, but they still work. Captain Tweet had pretty much ruined my life-long hobby. I would show him.

I bought a drone. I disguised as best as I could as a Pterosaur—a prehistoric flying reptile with a 35-wingspan. I put my creation on the roof on my car and headed for Tweet’s. He lived about 400 miles away. I would be there by sunset. I had a sort of hazy plan—I would circle my Pterosaur over his house. I copied my Pterosaur from a dinosaur book that I’d had since I was a kid. I was riding along listening to “Talking Heads” when suddenly my car left the ground! I looked out the driver’s side window and could see flapping wings. I looked down and we were about 50 feet off the ground and following the highway. I was totally flipped out. As we neared Captain Tweet’s residence (shaped like a birdcage), I saw State Troopers surrounding it, with assault weapons aimed at us. One of them had a bullhorn. He said: “Attention, you are harboring a dangerous prehistoric bird. Land without further ado or we will be forced to shoot you down.” At that, we went into a nosedive, straight for Captain Tweet’s house, Tweet came running out of his house shaking his fist. We clipped him and crashed into his house. It started burning and I got out of my car and ran to the curb. As I ran past Captain Tweet, I noticed his head was gone. It must’ve happened when we clipped him. Luckily, I wasn’t driving, so I wasn’t charged with anything.

I will never know how my fake Pterosaur did what it did. But now, birdwatchers are safe from Captain Tweet’s debilitating antics. To be sure, he was an artist, but he used his art for evil ends. May he rot in hell, and be pecked all over his body by an Ivory Bill Woodpecker for all eternity.

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

Buy a print or Kindle version of The Daily Trope! They’re titled The Book of Tropes and are available on Amazon for $9.99 (or less).

Leave a comment

Posted in aphaeresis

Tagged ,

Aphorismus

Posted on March 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

Aphorismus ( a-phor-is’-mus): Calling into question the proper use of a word.

Me: You keep calling me “hun.” I haven’t said anything up to now because I don’t want to ire you or otherwise make you floss and fume. I am not a hun. I am from New Jersey and was raised Catholic. There was a gang called “The Huns,” but I couldn’t join because I had a red motor scooter and the gang rode big noisy motorcycles. So, please stop calling me “hun.”

You: God, where do I begin? I understand most of what you say, but as usual, your gibberish index is high. First, when I call you “hon” it’s short for honey—H-O-N. It has nothing to do with Huns—H-U-N-S. Huns were crazy people who swept into Europe from South Asia in the 4th and 5th centuries and nearly wiped it out. Some people say they were after the closely guarded secret recipe for cannolis when they sacked Rome. They failed, and cannolis remained a regional dish with their recipe held by a handful of Romans who disguised it with mozzarella cheese and hid it under straw in Buffalo corals when the Huns invaded.

So, again, “hon” is short for “honey,” the sweet sticky liquid that bees produce. When I call you “hon” I’m calling you sweet—a term of endearment, because I love sweet things, and people like you who’re sweet. In that vein, I could call you sugar too, Hon. Now, let’s look at me “flossing and fuming.” We’ll let fuming go, but “flossing” is totally off the mark. Flossing is what you do with a piece string after you brush your teeth. I think you’re actually going for “fussing,” which is usually used along with fuming to denote a quality of anger and deep consternation. “Flossing and fuming,” on the other hand would refer to an oral hygiene regime undertaken in anger. I can imagine it’s possibility, but clearly it’s not what you intended. You misused the word.

Me: Ok ok Ms. Language Police. You understood me, that’s what matters. I guess my problem was that I misunderstood you when you called me “Hon.” Hun and hon sound the same. My mistake could be expected. But I guess calling me Hun should’ve rung a bell, but I sort of thought you were calling me bad ass, which is a compliment where I come from. I could see myself in a black leather jacket, jeans and boots, and couple of tattoos, instead of this stupid blue blazer and gray pants and a striped tie and wingtips I have to wear to work as towel boy in the hotel restroom. My boss is a bully. I would commit pesticide if I wasn’t afraid of what would happen to me in prison. I’d tear the hand drier out of the wall and beat him over the head with it.

You: Oh, you’re such a wild man. I understand what you’re trying to say, Hun. You’d like to ambush the patrician in the bath! I understand you and that’s good enough for me.

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

Paperback and Kindle editions of The Daily Trope are available at Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes.

Leave a comment

Posted in aphorismus

Tagged ,