Synathroesmus (sin-ath-res’-mus): 1. The conglomeration of many words and expressions either with similar meaning (= synonymia) or not (= congeries). 2. A gathering together of things scattered throughout a speech (= accumulatio [:Bringing together various points made throughout a speech and presenting them again in a forceful, climactic way. A blend of summary and climax.])
He was cruel, vicious, wicked, violent. A monster. A killer. A human stain! He got what he deserved. Now that he’s dead, we can put our lives back together again.
Or:
He’s a robber, a philanthropist, a farmer, a preacher, a sinner, a gambler, a winner, a saint, a liar, and my best friend. Am I in trouble?
Or:
In summer, he spent his days digging worms and feeding them to Ed (his pet Robin), practicing his acrobatics (he loved cartwheels and backflips), knitting what he called “nose warmers,” and sometimes pushing a shopping cart around in the basement, pretending he was at the grocery store and complaining about the cost of bread and milk and caviar.
At night he would go into the woods behind his home, strip naked, pound his chest, and spit at the starry sky.
Every morning he would get up, go to the kitchen, put his left hand in the toaster oven and sing the theme song from the musical “Annie.” Then, he would put two slices of bread into the toaster oven, turn it on, and wait. When the toast was ready, he took it out of the toaster oven, held one piece in each hand over his head and yelled (in French), “Let them eat cake!”
It was during the fall, winter, and spring that he worked at night in his office, and during the day, in his laboratory at M.I.T. He had won two Nobel Prizes in two entirely different fields: Physics and Literature. His teaching evaluations were through the roof. Over the course of his career he had landed nearly $20,000,000 worth of grants to support his scholarly and creative endeavors.
In short, the guy was a totally weird Nobel Prize winning genius nutcase. Not only that, he was my father and our whole family loved him. So did his colleagues. If only they knew!
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Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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