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Bdelygmia

Posted on October 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

Bdelygmia (del-ig’-mi-a): Expressing hatred and abhorrence of a person, word, or deed.

I hate Santa Claus. I hate the Easter Bunny. I hate Cupid. I hate the Tooth Fairy. I hate them all from the drunken “Ho, Ho, Ho!” to the tinkling bells and the hands rummaging around under my pillow—waking me up in the middle of the night to leave me a dime—a stinking dime after my father pulled out my tooth with a pair of pliers, because he got sick of waiting for it to fall out on its own. I bled all over my pillow and flushed my dime down the toilet.

Then there’s Santa in his big fake red suit, with a giant white beard made of acrylic. A complete hoax. I had to sit on his lap and tell him what I wanted for Christmas. I was so nervous I peed all over him. He yelled “Goddamn you, you little shit—what, do I look like a f***ing urinal?” Then he shoved me onto the floor and pushed me away with his foot. He threw a candy cane at me as I crawled toward the door and yelled “Get out of my house dickhead and never come back, or if you do, wear a diaper!”

Then there was the Easter Egg hunt. We held it in the back yard. I couldn’t wait to find a couple of eggs. I loved to peel them and sprinkle on a little salt. It was fun dying them too, but this year for some reason, my father took over the dying. I wasn’t even allowed to watch. I looked for eggs for two hours and couldn’t find any. Our yard was small, so basically, I covered every inch of it. I was confused.

My dad walked up to me with an egg and handed it to me: “Here. You’ve learned your lesson, Chip. I read an article in “Mental Illness” magazine about how dashing our children’s expectations prepares them for the rigors of life and the vale of disappointments it consists of—where happiness is fleeting and depression is the norm.” I was 6 years old and his “lesson” has scared me for life. I mistrust everybody and cry a lot.

Cupid! Spawn on the Devil, lording it over Valentine’s Day—with the wimpy heart candies inscribed with asinine sayings suited for saps and idiots—low-level puns and sappy cliches: “Way 2 Go” sounds like something somebody in a coma would say if they could speak. Then there were the cards—the goddamn cards. The only one I ever got was from my teacher, after I stayed up late making them for my classmates. My teacher took me aside and told me she liked me a lot, and maybe, when I turned 18 we could go to the movies together. That would be in 8 years. I thought she was making fun of me, so I demanded my card back. She picked up a pair of pointed scissors and lunged at me. I jumped out of the way and she stumbled over her wastepaper basket and fell on the scissors. She bled to death while the class watched.

The school psychologist found out what my teacher had said to me, and I was put into counselling. It was group counselling. It was one hour of nutsarama per week. I think the other three kids were psychotic and should’ve been taking medication. Elton thought he was a frog and would answer any question with “Ribit.” He had a piece of cardboard shaped like a lily pad that he sat on. Mary would answer “Who the hell do you think you are?” to anything anybody said. Carl would make a gun with his finger and go “Bang!” every five minutes. I had to spend one month meeting with these people because of goddamn Valentine’s Day and my idiot teacher’s accident. What was the result?

I have a name for my illness: Heortophobia (from the Greek heortḗ, “holiday”): fear of holidays. I’ve set up a blog where I pretend to be a psychologist specializing in heortophobia. I give advice like “Change your religion” or “Eat one rabbit every week” or “Take up archery.” The “Tooth Fairy” is a challenge. Technically, it is instrumental in celebrating tooth loss as a right of passage. but what’s a five- or six-year old kid going to do? Suck it up, but demand a higher per-tooth payout!

My greatest success in maneuvering through the hell of my malady is to celebrate holidays from other cultures. I am looking forward to traveling to Sweden in November to celebrate “Gullight Absukte” {Sweet Face) where everybody wears blond wigs and blue contact lenses, juggles little meatballs, and tells jokes about Danish people.

Last, I don’t why, but Thanksgiving doesn’t scare me. Maybe it’s the tryptophan.

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

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Bomphiologia

Posted on October 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

Bomphiologia (bom-phi-o-lo’-gi-a): Exaggeration done in a self-aggrandizing manner, as a braggart.

I am the greatest—that’s what Muhhamid Ali said, and it was true. I guess it was bragging, but I loved it as a kid. I remember watching him box. His hands were so fast that he could knock out an opponent and you wouldn’t even see him throw the punch. It was like magic.—brutal magic. He inspired me to become a fighter—ultra pinfeather weight. I weighed 96.5 lbs. my punch was more like a pat. I stood 5’9” tall. Ultra pinfeather weight class was created for vegetarians, in the wake of the social reforms undertaken in the 1960s. Many of my fellow boxers were anorexic as well and felt they had found their niche in the boxing ring,

I was knocked out 11 times in my first 12 fights. The fight I won was against I guy with terminal lung cancer, he was close to the end. All I had to do was bump into him and he went down for the count and died in the hospital at 10.00pm that night. I felt bad, so I went to the hospital to see if any of his family was there so I could apologize for contributing to his death. There he was, laying in the hospital bed still wearing his boxing gloves. A fat woman came into the room and handed me her business card: “Stormy Weather, Gymnast, Ultimate Porka-Cise, Tenafly, NJ.” She said: “You killed my son Flip. You took him over the finish line. For that, I’m grateful. You saved me thousands of dollars in medical bills. Now, he’s swinging his mitts up there among the stars. I can see his special twinkle out there—whoops no, it’s a plane coming into Newark Airport.”

She was clearly crazy. I told her I was giving up boxing. She said, “Oh, why don’t you come to work for me? “Porka-Cise” is a growing vibrant business with a bright future.” I hesitated for a minute, but I took her up on her offer. You had to weigh a minimum of 300lbs to join Porka-Cise. I didn’t know why, but you also had to have documented heart and blood pressure problems.

The next day, I learned why. Stormy had a 400 pounder on the treadmill going as slowly as it could go. Suddenly it ramped up to 60 degrees and 40 MPH. The client, who could barely walk anyway, kept up for about 5 seconds, screamed, clutched her chest and flew into the wall, dead. The other clients mocked her—sarcastically calling her “Treadmill Terror” and “Loser.”

Two days later the dead client’s husband came by with a gym bag with $110,000 cash stuffed in it. He handed it over to Stormy and said, “Thanks for helping me get rid of her. Now I can have my ice cream again without it being gone ten minutes after I bring it home.”

I was reeling! I was ready to go to the police. Stormy held up the bag and said: “This is half of the life insurance payout on old fat-ass Nelly. Your share is half.” I rethought my moral indignation and saw how we are providing a service to people who are burdened by other people, who are weighing them down. Ha ha! “Weighing them down.” Ha-ha.

This was the best job I ever had, until I fell in love with Carol, a 320 pounder with black hair and green eyes. When it came time to crank her up. I couldn’t do it. Carol’s mother was getting restless, she needed the insurance money to get out of debt and start over. At that point I had killed 11 clients. I couldn’t understand what it was about Carol that made me want to let her live..

I couldn’t stand the pressure from Carol’s mother. So, I put Carol in the back of my pickup truck and we took off for Arizona, where she could blend in with the other fat wives of the retirees. I had saved a ton of money, so that wasn’t a problem. The problem was Carol. I couldn’t stand taking care of her. I told her if she didn’t lose 160lbs I would leave her out on the desert. She laughed at me, so I left her out on the desert with enough water to keep her alive. I went back one month later and she was still alive. She had lost a bunch of weight and looked great! She thanked me and we went back home.

That night, she cleaned out the refrigerator.

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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Brachylogia

Posted on October 22, 2023 | Leave a comment

Brachylogia (brach-y-lo’-gi-a): The absence of conjunctions between single words. Compare asyndeton. The effect of brachylogia is a broken, hurried delivery.

Big, huge, gigantic, humongous, gigundo, massive, gargantuan, enormous, immense, massive, mammoth. I wish I wasn’t talking about my credit card bill. I wish I was talking about my apartment or TV, but I’m not. I owe $123,000 dollars on my credit card with 19% interest. My friend Eddy told me about the card and talked me into applying for it. Eddy’s not my friend any more.

I should have known something was amiss when I filled out the application for my “Sheister Card.” You apply for a $150,000 line of credit with no background check. I was making $300.00 per week towel- drying cars at the car wash.

The card came two days after I mailed the application. I signed the back and went shopping. The mall was packed as usual, and as usual, people were “just looking” or hanging out. Since the Lucky Whip whipped cream factory had closed, nobody had any money and almost everybody was on welfare. I went into Dick’s—it was one of the giant Dick’s from the 1980s. A crowd of people followed me in, eager to see a purchase take place. They saw my card in my hand and smelled a “buy” coming on. They followed be around as I looked for something to buy. The crown chanted “Corn Hole, Corn Hole, Corn Hole.” I pulled a Corn Hole off the stack and hoisted it onto my cart. When I handed my credit card to the cashier, she held it up and looked at it and handed it back and told me just tap it on the credit card reader. The transaction went through.

When I got home, I set the corn hole up in my living room and called up some friends for a Corn Hole party. I bought 20 bottles of Don Perignon, five pounds of caviar, and a two-pound wheel of Winnimere cheese. Once I started buying crap, I couldn’t stop. I had a fan club at the mall who got a vicarious thrill watching me buy stuff. I kept going to Dick’s working my way through the aisles until I came to the firearms counter. I bought 3 assault rifles and, 20 magazines, and 500 rounds of ammo. My fans cheered—and that’s what I lived for!

When I reached 3 months behind on my credit card payments, there was a loud knock at my door. It was the salesgirl from Dick’s. She told me my credit card is a scam run by organized crime to draw me into debt and extort everything I own, and blackmail me into doing their bidding. She told me she took one look at me and knew I was a sucker and I would be burned. She told me her father ran the scam and she would get me off the hook. I was so shocked and grateful that I told her I loved her & we went into the next room, where we played a few rounds of Corn Hole.

POSTSCRIPT

She got him a job working for her father. She bought him a set of brass knuckles, and had them engraved: “My Midnight Rambler.” They teamed up, “retired” her father, and took over the business. They retired when they made their first billion. They moved to Las Vegas were, as a hobby, they took up managing the grandchildren of famous singers. Wayne Newton’s grandson, Duane, was their greatest success.

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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Cacozelia

Posted on October 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

Cacozelia (ka-ko-zeel’-i-a): 1. A stylistic affectation of diction, such as throwing in foreign words to appear learned. 2. Bad taste in words or selection of metaphor, either to make the facts appear worse or to disgust the auditors.

Novitiate: Your sobriquet manifests a quality of veritas-inducing pathos, bathos and credence in the sincerity of your verbalizations. You are known as Father Potato—your soul is wedded to the earth, with many eyes you survey your manse, and you would be ready to be whipped or mashed in service of the Lord. Not to mention, scalloped or fried in oil—to a crisp beige hue, and liberally salted, or soaked with ketchup, or even mayonnaise, if visiting Holland. We know these are all metaphors Father Potato, but they provide us with an orientation to what we can only trust as we wander this vale of tears, forgetful of where we come from. Am I right Father Potato?

Father Potato: No, you are completely wrong. Your musings about me and everything else, are like “a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan, a rider on the storm.” Thus spake Saint James of the leather pants, who died in Paris and ascended to Montmarte, to sit at the left hand of Baudelaire on Saturdays, and his right hand the rest of the week. Saint James can’t speak French, so he just nods his head when Baudelaire reads “Paris Spleen” out loud. “I woke up this morning and had myself a beer, the future’s uncertain and the end is always near.” Thus spake St. James. Accordingly, I have begun drinking beer and letting it roll all night long, as should you, my son. Instead of a beer, you should have a glass of orange juice when you wake up in the morning, before school. Now, please go away. I have to work on this Sunday’s sermon. It is about a man who becomes locked in a coal cellar and eats a piece of coal. The coal poisons him and he dies a slow agonizing death and goes to hell. It is an allegory.

Novitiate: Oh Father potato! I am up to my ankles in the wisdom overflowing from your words. I can’t think of enough cliches to encompass the truth you purvey—like a ladle filled with the broth of prayerful uplift on the wings of a great big white dove, soaring above the Sea of Galilee, crapping on sinners hauling their nets filled with great flopping lies, inducing vile uncharitable thoughts suited for cackling imps and howling demons. There is so much I have to learn—that I want to learn—“about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees, and a little thing called love.” Thus spoke Jewel Akens. I am overwhelmed. I am going to pass out!

POSTSCRIPT

The novitiate passed out, rolling down the stairs in an ecstatic revelry—including a vivid vision of his high school English teacher, Miss Carnaletti. When he awoke, Father Potato was dragging him under the altar. He left the boy there and went to Pop’s Bar and Grill to let it roll all night long, and to ride the coin-operated pony in the back room.

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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Catachresis

Posted on October 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Catachresis (kat-a-kree’-sis): The use of a word in a context that differs from its proper application. This figure is generally considered a vice; however, Quintilian defends its use as a way by which one adapts existing terms to applications where a proper term does not exist.

I was reticent to jump out the window. It was three feet to the ground where mother’s beloved flower bed was filled with color, the result of years of hard labor, and the consequence of an unhealthy rivalry with Mrs. Better across the street. But why the hell was I even hesitating? Grandpa was in flames in his living room chair and he was headed toward lighting the entire living room on fire. “Everclear” and a “Swisher Sweet” cigar were a bad combination. It was inevitable, but I didn’t think it would be today. I felt the heat of the flames, and I jumped, landing in the rich well-turned loam and crushing four different-colored tulips.

The fire department came and they quickly put the fire out—it didn’t spread much from Grandpa, scorching the carpet and chair and burning up the table by the chair with Grandpa’s medication and where his Rubic’s cube usually was. He loved that Rubic’s cube. He never solved it, but he said it kept his wrists limber. Where was it?

He was put in a black rubber bag and and zipped it up. I couldn’t watch him being bagged. Suddenly there was movement inside the bag. The EMT unzipped it and there was dead Grandpa holding his Rubic’s cube with his hand twitching in post-morten convulsions. In death, he had nearly solved the puzzle, but his convulsions stopped before he could finish. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. The EMTs zipped Grandpa’s bag back up and wheeled him out the door.

My mother came storming in holding the tulips I had crushed. “What were you thinking stupid boy? These tulips came straight from Amsterdam. A client gave them to me as a special bonus. You know that’s where I met your father when I put my butt up to the glass and he licked it, winning my heart and making me his wife. So, you should know how much pain you’ve caused by crushing them!” With that, she started slapping me across the face with them until they turned to juice. I reminded Mom that the tulip bulbs were unharmed and the tulips would come back next year. She didn’t care. She started throwing dirt balls at me. One hit me in the eye and enraged me. I wanted to kill her. I threw Grandpa’s “Everclear” bottle at her and hit het a glancing blow to the head. The rubber mask flew off. Holy shit! It was Grandpa. “Jesus Grandpa! Who was that in your chair?” Grandpa said, “My twin brother Florio. I didn’t know he existed. He showed up here 3 months ago and tied me up in the bomb shelter in the basement. He has been collecting my Social Security checks and stole your poor dead dad’s coin collection and guns and sold them for half of what they’re worth,”

I was shocked: “God Grandpa! Where the hell is Mom?” Where did you get the Mom mask? Grandpa said, “Mom lives next door and visits every day. Up until my twin brother showed up, everything worked fine. He is dangerous a kept one of your dad’s guns in the chair with him. I got loose from the bomb shelter, but was afraid to confront him or contact the police. I have 100s of parking tickets. So, I resurrected the Mom mask I had made so your mother could cheat on your father. I disguised myself as her and pretended to be her when she went next door for her trysts. There’s more to the story, but enough is enough.”

“Are you sure you’re my real grandpa?” I asked. “Grandpa” looked at me and headed for the door. He pulled the Mom mask back on and said he was going to buy a new Rubic’s cube at the toy store.

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

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Catacosmesis

Posted on October 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

Catacosmesis (kat-a-kos-mees’-is): Ordering words from greatest to least in dignity, or in correct order of time.

Heaven and earth! Spirit and matter! We are born, we live, we die. Some people live their entire lives enamored with heaven, their spirt or soul, and their death, putting them out of the here and now. Sometimes I wish I could put the here and now out of play and focus my thoughts and feelings on the Great Beyond. Out of curiosity, I’ve tried, and I am trying, three time-tested methods.

Self-flagellation: Whacking your naked back with a leather metal-studded thong, has a sort of appeal, not unlike masturbation—it is self inflicted and it is supposed to result in some kind epiphany. But as much as I try when I beat my back, I can’t get there. I just yell “Ow!” and keep on slamming. Whoever invented flagellation as a spiritual exercise was a little creepy. There were people like St. Fleshrip, who had stand-ins to keep whipping him when his arm got tired. He died from an exposed backbone and ascended directly to Heaven, where he sits behind God, holding his scourge to hand off to God if he should need it. Martin Luther was also a notorious self-whacker, as was Sarah Osborn, who strangely enough, practiced self-flagellation to improve her tennis swing, while at the same time contemplating her sinfulness, a feat that won her a place in the “Guinness Book of World Records” under the category of “multitasking.”

Hair Shirt: When I was a little boy, my mother purchased me a pair of goat fur underpants from the St. Thomas More website. I was having trouble in school, and they were supposed to be a remedy for poor study habits. My mother made me wear them when I was doing my homework, but the itching was more of a hindrance than a help. I spent half my time scratching my crotch, like I had jock itch from poor hygiene. So, I kept a tube of Cortisone in my desk. When mother left the room to use the toilet or make a cup of tea, I jammed a glob of Cortisone down my goat hair underpants and found almost instant relief from the itching. I excused my behavior by claiming to myself that my itchy underpants had prompted me to be creative, and I would give thanks: “Thank-You God for the itch-relieving balm of Cortisone.”

Fasting: Another body-bending adventure in self-torture! It’s easy! You just stop eating, and go for non-chewable commestibles, which in this case, are liquids. No more cheeseburgers. No more jelly donuts. No more sushi. When I last fasted, I drank strawberry Kool-Aid. My teeth became stained red from the Kool-Aid. I looked like I had a fatal case of gingivitis, The major benefit of fasting is getting out of cooking. If you’re smart, you’ll choose water as your fasting liquid of choice. All you have to do is turn on a faucet and fill up a glass! Convenient! Quick! No mixing! Totally liquid!

I’m fasting right now. I stopped pooping a week ago and my urethra is burning from the nearly endless stream of pee. Writing all this has been extremely difficult. I am dizzy and have had several visions. The best vision so far has been the red Cadillac in my driveway. I think the Lord has traded out my Subaru. Although I loved my Subaru, I am grateful for the Cadillac. Praise the Lord.

I’m thinking of dragging myself to the refrigerator in the kitchen and grabbing a tub of cheese dip and eating it with my finger. I hope I can reach the refrigerator handle. I hope I can reach the cheese dip. I hope I can reach the kitchen.

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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Cataphasis

Posted on October 18, 2023 | Leave a comment

Cataphasis (kat-af’-a-sis): A kind of paralipsis in which one explicitly affirms the negative qualities that one then passes over.

You are a selfish, close-minded, prejudiced ass. But, I’m not going to waste your time telling you what you already know, instead, I want to talk about the asinine bullshit you fill my children’s heads with when they come over to play with Dick and Jane. I’m on the verge of not letting them over to your house any more. You’re an adult, Jim, so they believe you.

First: Betty and I are not space aliens and we did not steal them and our twins from a family in England and transport them here by matter exchange, a common means of travel, you allege, on our plant. Sure, the kids have a slight British accent, but that’s from watching Masterpiece Mysteries on PBS.

Our cat-like eyes are the result of drinking too much catnip tea. It is quite normal and has been documented in “Scientific Italian Magazine,” The condition has become permanent, but we don’t care because we love our catnip tea!

Second: you told my kids I don’t have a job because I don’t leave the house every morning clutching a briefcase like all the other Bozos on the block. Well, I’ll tell you! I work at night in the surrounding towns collecting donations door to door—mostly jewelry,, cash, and small appliances. People leave their doors open as a signal to me, and I quietly bag what they’ve left sitting out. Believe it or not, I have my own charity, “Golden Nest.” Most of what I collect goes to a family right here on our street, and the rest goes to the Police Vice Fund (PVF). PVF studies vice in the field, risking seduction and corruption, and getting caught with pants down or a slot machine handle in their hand. You poor deluded creep! Stop filling my kids’ heads with total nonsense!

Third: you told our kids we used to have four children and two of them (the twins) are dead: murdered. God, what a terrible thing to tell our kids! You made them fearful of us. They lock their bedroom doors at night and test their food for poison on Arfo, the family dog. If we wanted to kill them, we certainly wouldn’t poison them. We would probably drown them in the bathtub, hang them, or push them out an upstairs window. But we didn’t, Damn you!

We sent the twins, Kiki and Karl, to Ukraine, where they are listed as missing! Missing! Not dead! Their surrogate grandparents were taking care of them, but they’ve disappeared too, along with the kids’ passports and any signs that they were ever there. There’s no record of their plane tickets, which we bought online from Orbitz. We think maybe they cashed in their tickets and went to Disneyland. We’re checking on this theory. In the meantime we do not consider them dead because we have solid theories. So, shut up about “dead children.” They’re missing!

So, that’s it for now. Let’s try to be friends. After all, we’re neighbors.

Let’s get together on Friday. Bring your little wife Honey. Tonight, I have to work on the big silver thing in my garage. One of its parts has become defective, but I can replace it with any small appliance Tonight, I’ll be trying out a toaster.

Now, Carl, I’m going to make you forget this conversation and all suspicions about our family, my job, and where we come from. When I clap my hands, all that you will remember is our Friday dinner date. Clap!

POSTSCRIPT

Carl had his own secrets to keep and pretended to be affected by the spell. Carl was a Space Ranger and had had his eye on his neighbors, from the planet Tylenoll, where Carl came from too. He’d been surveilling them for nearly a year. He was getting ready to bring them in. He hoped he could unload the two brats when they stopped at Uturn. They didn’t deserve the same fate as their depraved parents, as required by Tylenollian law.

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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Cataplexis

Posted on October 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

Cataplexis (kat-a-pleex’-is): Threatening or prophesying payback for ill doing.

May your nose fall off and land on the floor. You, Carl Peek, have wronged me, Ned Aiken, super-beloved middle school teacher.

You have slighted me. You have dragged me through the mud, by the feet, on a freezing day. You scoundrel! You skunk! You rotten banana! You unlaundered garments! You basket of moldy bread! You dead battery in a power outage! Your guts stink. Your soul is ashen. I will redeem myself, inflicting you with horrendous painful, torturous, retribution!

I will tie you to an uncomfortable wooden chair. I will fill your mouth with ping-pong balls and force you to watch pre-recorded episodes of “The View” until you recant every evil thing you ever said or wrote about me.

I wouldn’t be so mad if nobody had believed your slanders. I have never, never, never read “Grapes of Wrath.” In an act on consummate cruelty and deception you stuffed a copy in my book bag when I was distracted, looking at Ms. Carver’s rear side in the lunch line, which in itself is harmless, and permitted if not accompanied by catcalls. I did not utter a single catcall, at least, so nobody could hear me.

Then, you told the whole school I said “woke” contrary to the recently imposed censored speech regulations. I really don’t care about the First Amendment and its so-called “freedom of speech.” I don’t mind having a dictator for governor, what I do mind is getting me in trouble with his henchmen. See my nose? Does it look happy to you? All I did was say, “I woke up a little late this morning.” You recorded me, cut the “woke” and pasted it in sound clip where it played over and over and sounded like a chant. You Rat! I got my ass kicked on my way home from Plantation Way Middle School by a gang of sweaty beer-drinking old men.

Well guess what, Mr. Horseshit? I got your sister pregnant. She doesn’t want the baby. Given your finances, she’s gonna’ have to walk a thousand miles to NY to terminate her pregnancy. Ha ha!

POSTSCRIPT

This story is filled with idiots, letting their freedom slip away disguised as educational reform and trampling on women’s reproductive rights. After the blood test, it was determined that Ned was the baby’s father and he is responsible for providing child support. He asked Carl’s sister, Nareen, to marry him and she hit him in the face with a hardcover edition of “Grapes of Wrath.” Noreen held a fundraiser in the Barn Door Mall parking lot and raised enough to fly to New York. She had to lie about why she was going to New York.

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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Charientismus

Posted on October 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

Charientismus (kar-i-en-tia’-mus): Mollifying harsh words by answering them with a smooth and appeasing mock.

Joe: You’re the laziest person in the universe.

Nick: I’m resting. I don’t need a wake-up call from you Mr. 6:00 am.

These two guys didn’t get along with each other. Their conversations consisted mainly of insults and almost every week they’d end up fighting—wrestling on the kitchen floor. But times were tough and they needed each other to cover the rent. Then, they decided to sublet the hallway closet—it was big enough for a single bed and it had shelves and plenty of room to hang things. All it needed was an extension cord and it was good to go, New York style.

They put an ad on sublet.com. They were renting the closet for $500 per month. Joe and Nick hoped the extra money would get them off the edge, and give them a modicum of financial stability. They got over 200 responses to their ad. They were overwhelmed. They decided to close their eyes and randomly point to an application from the ones scattered on the kitchen island, and see what they got.

They hit the application on the top of the pile: a veterinarian. They thought they couldn’t go wrong subletting to an animal doctor—he probably made good money and wouldn’t stiff them on the rent. So, he moved in. His name was Dr. Doolittle. One night Joe heard rustling around in the kitchen. Dr. Doolittle was drinking a martini a with a large chimpanzee in pajamas.

Dr. Doolittle introduced the chimp—its name was Cheetah III and his great-grandfather had appeared in numerous Tarzan films. Dr. Doolittle had rescued Cheetah from a factory in Thailand where he worked assembling iPhones, seven days a week, with no vacation.

Joe called Nick into the kitchen and they told Dr. Doolittle to get rid of the chimp or move out. Dr. Doolittle finished his martini, put down the glass and said “No.” Cheetah stood in front of the doctor with his fists raised. Dr. Doolittle said, “You know, Cheetah cooks, does laundry and dishes, cleans bathrooms, and vacuums.” Joe and Nick looked at each other and nodded their heads.

Dr. Doolittle taught Joe and Nick how to speak Chimpanese, and Cheetah would tell them chimpanzee folktales while he washed the dinner dishes. Their favorite tale was “Charlie the Hairless Chimp.” It was about a bald chimp that was relentlessly teased by his peers. A female chimp named Rosie took pity on him. Although they had poor hygiene, the local sloths shed a lot of fur in the spring. Rosie made Charlie a sloth fur sweater. It covered most of his nakedness and the teasing stopped. Charlie founded a foundation for bald chimps, collecting sloth fur and knitting sloth fur sweaters for needy chimps. Charlie and Rosie got married and lived happily ever after. Charlie invented a sloth fur sweater shampoo called “Bubble Slow” and made one-million banana bucks, most of which he donated to his foundation.

Joe and Nick were inspired by Cheetah’s stories and stopped wrestling with each other on the kitchen floor. For some reason now, Nick would say “Me Tarzan, who you?” when he was trying meet a woman in a bar. One night he struck gold when a woman replied “I Jane.” They’ve been dating for a month.

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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Chiasmus

Posted on October 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

Chiasmus (ki-az’-mus): 1. Repetition of ideas in inverted order. 2. Repetition of grammatical structures in inverted order (not to be mistaken with antimetabole, in which identical words are repeated and inverted).

Hi! My name’s Bill! “I’d rather die eating meat than live as a vegetarian.” My father worked at a meat packing plant. He made up the saying. Sometimes he would stand at the dinner table and hold up a piece of bacon or a pork chop when he said it. He saw more blood in a day than a hospital emergency room in a month. As foreman, each year he was given a dead cow as a gift. He’d borrow our neighbor’s pickup truck and we’d drive to the slaughterhouse to pick up the cow. It was hell loading the cow. We would pour Mazola Oil in the truck bed, rest the cow’s head on the tailgate, jack up the cow’s hindquarters with the truck’s jack, and slide the cow forward on the oily truck bed. When we got home, we’d tie a rope around the cow’s neck and drive the truck under a tree limb and hang it up in the front yard. People would drive by and take pictures. Sometimes me and Dad would pose for pictures, standing in front of the cow shaking hands. One year PETA tried to “rescue” the dead cow. We fought them off with a garden hose and cubes of raw liver.

We let the cow hang in the front yard for about a week. Then, we’d yank off the skin and put on green surgical gowns to butcher the cow. We wear mirror gizmos on our foreheads with little holes in them like real doctors. We thought it was funny. My little sister would play nurse, wiping our brows and handing us stuff. We used a battery-powered hedge trimmer and a chainsaw to dismember the cow, then hacksaws, meat cleavers and knives to produce the cuts of meat. My favorite was the loins or “blackstraps” running along either side of the cow’s backbone. There were no bones, just solid meat! I used my “Bovine Butcher Blade” to cut out the loins—moving through the raw meat like it’s melted butter. I love making a meat turban out of one the loins, putting it on my head, and crossing my arms like a wise man, and saying: “I am the Meatman, ooo-kooka-too.” The cow’s tongue is fun to retrieve too. It’s slippery, but if you wear gloves you can get a good grip, pull, and slice. Once it’s tongue helped the cow to “moo,” now it’s headed for the pickle jar. Sliced thin, it makes a great sandwich—sprinkled with A-1 steak sauce, topped with two pieces of American cheese on white bread and, fried in butter, cut in half and served with potato chips and a glass of milk. Mooove over and give me a bite of that!

We have two freezers in the basement where we keep the meat. That’s where we keep the meat grinder too—in the basement—we grind up scraps and cuts of meat that are best for meatballs, etc. Mostly, it is meat off the cow’s neck. But that’s not all. We make flower pots out of hollowed out cow’s hooves and give them as Christmas gifts with dwarf poinsettias planted in them, with tiny little ornaments decorating them. Very festive!

“From cow to now” is what I think when I bite into a slice of steak and the juice runs down my chin, and I wipe it off with a paper towel, and quietly. burp, and sometimes go “bow, wow, wow” like my uncle Dave used to do. This year I made my little brother Dexter a cow suit for Halloween. It’s genuine cowhide skinned off this year’s cow, and I must say, it looks real good—it even has horns and a tail. It moos too from a recording I made on Dexter’s phone. He’s going to wear it today in the annual school Halloween parade. Maybe he’ll win the best costume prize. He’s such a good boy.

So, if you’re not doing anything tonight, “meat” me at the “Blue Coyote” and we can have a couple a beers and some all-beef Slim Jims. I ‘m buyin.’

POSTSCRIPT

While taking the shortcut to school through the woods in his cow suit, little Dexter was shot by a deer hunter, who had left his glasses in his truck and thought Dexter was a deer. Luckily, little Dexter was only nicked the ear. He was able to beat the crap out of his assailant with a tree branch, kick him a few times in the stomach, and then, continue on to school. He won the Halloween costume prize and then went home for a hamburger, medium rare.

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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Chronographia

Posted on October 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

Chronographia (chro-no-graph’-i-a): Vivid representation of a certain historical or recurring time (such as a season) to create an illusion of reality. A kind of enargia: [the] generic name for a group of figures aiming at vivid, lively description.

I have had numerous conversations with people regarding my favorite time of the year. I see fall and summer as one season—summerfall. That complicates things, but I don’t care—that’s how I see it. Summerfall goes from May until the first frost. That’s when I call it quits and close my swimming pool after a summerfall of splashing around and basking in the sun smeared with cream that smells like coconuts. After pool closing, it’s all downhill. Everything freezes. It snows, and the world is a mess. I can hear the snowplow at six a.m. as it wrenches its way down my driveway, wreaking havoc on my driveway’s gravel surface. Then there’s the pain in the ass of Christmas—driving through a blizzard to eat Aunt Ida’s cardboard turkey with dressing stuffed in its butt that smells like a dirty dock, uncle Dave’s “special” marshmallow sweet potato glop, my sister Pat’s turnip paste, Aunt Jillian’s raw potato cubes marinated in soy sauce and Nana’s Pelican Pie topped with pimento-stuffed olives.

Nana grew up in Florida, near Miami, in the late 30s when there was a lot of poverty. Her family lived in a lean-to close to a marina where rich people kept their yachts. Her father, my great grandfather, taught her how to sneak up behind a pelican perched on a dock’s piling, grab it by the throat, and strangle it to death.

The “swells” sitting in their yachts were always entertained by Nana’s pelican murder and would sometimes throw M&Ms at her to show their approval. She would pick up the M&Ms and go back to the lean-to where her mother (my great grandmother) would make the pelican into pie. One time when they were pulling out a pelican’s guts and entrails, a gold bar fell out on the floor. Somehow, the pelican had swallowed it. Pelicans were notorious for eating just about anything. But a gold bar? Weird.

They took the gold bar to the bank and had it weighed and valued. Now, they were loaded! They set their lean-to on fire and struck out on foot for Miami. They bought a brand new one-room shack. Great-grandfather invested in an orange grove and became rich. Every year at the Christmas party, I ask Nana where she got the pelican for her pie. She won’t tell me. She just throws a handful of cardboard turkey at me and the annual family food fight begins.

Covered in food fragments, stuffed with Christmas dinner, driving 5 mph toward home in the blizzard though two feet of show, with the wipers and defroster going full blast, skidding sideways toward a stop sign and bouncing off the curb, I think to myself that I don’t have much to be thankful for, but then again, maybe I do. I look at the gift Nana gave me. Since I’m stopped anyway, I pick it up off the seat and tear off the wrapping. It’s a picture of her standing alongside Earnest Hemingway, holding a dead pelican over their heads and laughing. It was signed: “To my soul’s inspiration, Ernie H.”

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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Climax

Posted on October 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Climax (cli’-max): Generally, the arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of increasing importance, often in parallel structure.

Bottom, middle, top. Where do we draw the line? How do we draw the line? What does the line consist of? But, most important, why do we cross the line?

I was brainstorming topics for my PhD dissertation in geometry. I had had a vision when I was visiting Egypt. Standing in the shadow of Cheops in the late afternoon, I was chatting up a fellow tourist, to get her to go to dinner and to bed with me. I told her she was fascinating and beautiful. She said, “I’ve heard that line before.” Suddenly, the world started spinning around and when it stopped abruptly, our guide had turned into Moses and she had turned into a golden calf. Moses looked like he always does: white hair, white beard, wild eyes. The golden calf fellow tourist looked even better made out of gold. I made a fist and knocked on her and she made a beautiful thudding sound. “24kt” I thought. I decided to call Moses “Moe” to test his take on hierarchies and formailities. Did he see himself as a Big Shot because of all the favors God had done him, not to mention making the Red Sea into a freeway and giving him ten short, easy to remember commandments to keep him and the rest of world on track toward salvation.

Me: Moe, do you have any idea why my fellow tourist got turned into a golden calf?

Moses: I would appreciate it if you called me Moses. The golden calf thing crops up as a symbol of misdirected affection—either putting God in second place (Commandment 1 violated), or caring only for the way people look and not how they act. In your case, it has to do with your desire for the flesh and not the person—you cared only about getting laid in your cheap hotel room, by plying your fellow tourist with a meal and drinks. For shame!

Me: But Moses, that’s life. It’s how the world turns. it is called “courtship.”

Moses: idiot! It’s courtshit, not courtship. It’s like the diabolical game show “Dating For Satan” that’s on Channel 666 all day Saturday and Sunday, drawing people away from worship to watch displays of wantonness, lust, and debauchery that Satan slips past the FCC in the United States and other regulatory bodies around the world. Wake up! Your penis does not communicate with your soul. It is an unreliable source of motivation for nothing but urination and procreation. Men who call their penis their “tool” are living by the right metaphor.

Me: You turn my hierarchy of the good upside down. I will think about calling my penis my tool. I have in mind a “screw-driver.” Ha ha! Pretty funny, huh?

Aside: With that, his penis caught on fire—just his penis, not his garments. It turned into a smoking screwdriver. Moses held out a handful of screws and said, “here. Have fun.”

Me: Yeeeow! I get it. I get it. It’s a metaphor. It’s a tool—peeing and procreating tool, not a toy, not for fun. A tool. (Moses snapped his fingers). Ahhhh. It’s back, unscathed. That was hell! So Moses, why are you here?

Moses: To show you where to draw the line. First, you should always carry a marking device: a chisel, a hoe, a marker pen, a ballpoint pen, a pencil and even a stick—especially good for drawing a line in the sand. Now, when deciding where to draw the line your first consideration should be what’s going to be contained on the line’s other side. Then, you must consider whether your line crosses somebody else’s line. Finally, you put up “No Trespassing” signs and punish anybody who crosses your line. Follow these simple steps and everything will line up.

Me: At that point I passed out and woke up in my sleazy hotel room. There was my fellow tourist, naked and snoring loudly, shaking the drapes. I came to the sudden realization that I had crossed the line. But, recalling my vision, Moses made it seem literally a bad thing to cross the line. Then, things started to click. I knew I had crossed the line, but whose line was it? My line? Society’s line? Then I remembered a TV show I loved to watch as a kid: “What’s My Line?” There would be three panelists. Two would lie about what they did for a living, with the remaining panelist actually telling the truth. Flash: Now that my penis was a metaphoric tool, I could see that “line” was a metaphor too!

TWO MONTHS LATER

I finished my dissertation and submitted it, against the advice of the committee Chair. The title is “My Tool is a Line.” In it, I transgress the deeply cultured lines that meanings draw, taking a Mosaic turn toward the utilization of recursiveness in surveying my “tool” and the syncretic obviation of its functional flexibility obscured by its metonymic iteration as a tool, and the line it draws, masking its recreational function and the threat it poses as “other” to the dominant trope of monogamy.

I am currently writing a new dissertation.

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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Coenotes

Posted on October 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Coenotes (cee’-no-tees): Repetition of two different phrases: one at the beginning and the other at the end of successive paragraphs. Note: Composed of anaphora and epistrophe, coenotes is simply a more specific kind of symploce (the repetition of phrases, not merely words).

When I was younger, I more less knew what was going on. I could see clearly and I could hear what people were saying, and understand them. I could actually run a few hundred feet, especially if I was being chased by a bully or a cop. I could balance my checkbook and do the boogie-woogie all night long. I would go to bars solely to meet women, talk to them for 10 or 15 minutes and then head to my place with them to boogie-woogie all night long, and then, after a boogie-woogie night, go to I-HOP for breakfast: a medley of grease, bacon, eggs, syrup-soaked pancakes, and cups and cups of hot black coffee, followed by a couple of Newports and a candy mint. After breakfast, I’d wait outside the liquor store, licking my lips, thinking about a couple shots of “Dancing Bolshevik” vodka chased with the tomato juice I kept in a cooler in my trunk. After a couple of 100 proof liquid cuties, I headed off to work, half drunk, and ready for another day of pretending to work and complaining. I worked folding pizza boxes at “John Smith Pizza.” It’s “gimmick” was its non-Italian pizza, like peanut butter and jelly, or American cheese topped with pork and beans. They called their pizzas “Flat-Circle Open Face Sandwiches.” Quite a mouthful, ha -ha. Business was terrible, but they had “backers.” Big Joe would show up once a month with a bag of “laundry” to run through the cash register. Memories never get old!

When I was younger, I more or less knew what was going on. Now that I’m an old man, it is the other way around. I take a small handful of Adderall everyday to “keep me in the conversation.” I wake up 4 or 5 times during the night to pee. I sleep with a headlamp strapped on my head because I can’t find the light switch in the dark. I inevitably accidentally turn on the ceiling fan by mistake and blow crap all over my room, tripping over socks and slipping on unpaid bills, sometimes wetting my pajamas. Without my glasses, the world looks like an oil slick. I don’t get Social Security payments because I never reported any wages. Instead, I am on the dole—I get a block of cheese, 2lbs of lard, powdered milk, and a pack of chewing gum each month from the state, $100 per month from “Stayin’ Alive,” a charity founded by a very successful Bee Gees cover band, and $200 per month for posing as an advocate for the abolishment of Medicare. Most of the time I sit in my apartment (paid for by the state) waiting to poop and watching TV. My favorite shows have all gone the way of the DoDo bird. TV stinks, but I watch it to stay in touch with reality. If it wasn’t for FOX News I would be clueless. I wish they’d bring back Ed Sullivan, but he’s dead. The Ed Sullivan Show was the shiniest gem in the crown of my youth. Memories never get old!

I get meals on wheels every night for dinner. Clay, the guy who delivers my food, acts like he’s casing my apartment to rob it when he comes to deliver the food and finds me dead. He can have it! Probably my heated toilet seat is the most valuable thing I own, and it doesn’t work right anyway. Two weeks ago I burned my ass on it. I had to go to the hospital. They gave me some ointment and a kid’s inflatable pool toy to sit on—it was a “My Little Pony” floatie—pink and baby blue.

My walker is second-hand and is missing a wheel. So, I replaced the missing wheel with a slit tennis ball. As long as the fuzz holds out on the ball, I can shuffle along almost fast enough so people don’t push me out of the way. But, I’ve learned how to raise my walker and threaten people with it. I knocked a teen punk down a couple of days ago and his head made a hollow-melon sound when it hit the pavement. Sometimes the tennis ball gets stuck in a crack in the pavement and I go around in circles until a passerby gives it a kick.

Now, aside from all my old man maladies, all I have are memories—memories that I mostly can’t remember, but that’s better than nothing! My most vivid memory is being bitten by a squirrel when I was around 16. I sneaked up behind it and grabbed it by the tail. It bit me on the thumb.

Just because I’m alone, it doesn’t mean I’m lonely! It means I am desperate for somebody in addition to Clay, the predatory Meals on Wheels Guy, to pay me a visit. I was thinking of throwing my TV out of my window, or lighting myself on fire and standing in the widow as ploys for getting people to come up to my apartment and visit me. I decided the window gambits were crazy. Instead, I bought a stolen laptop from Clay for next to nothing. I have joined a couple of online senior-citizen dating sites. There’s one that is especially good. It’s called “Hot Bags” and features “over-70 female hotties who will help you rise up and be merry.” It has a live feed from a nursing home “somewhere in California” that is themed after Hugh Hefner’s “Playboy Bunny Hutch.” Need I say more? I am making new memories for $12.00 per month.

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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Colon

Posted on October 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

Colon (ko’-lon): Roughly equivalent to “clause” in English, except that the emphasis is on seeing this part of a sentence as needing completion, either with a second colon (or membrum) or with two others (forming a tricolon). When cola (or membra) are of equal length, they form isocolon.

“I came, I saw, I farted.” I thought that was so funny the first time I thought of it, substituting “farted” for “conquered” in Caesar’s famous tricolon. I even had a T-shirt made that said “I came, I saw, I farted” in Latin with a picture of Caesar bent over, obviously blowing wind. People would ask me what it meant. When I told them, they would look at me with an “I pity you” look on their face. But that didn’t deter me. If anything, it motivated me to produce more witty t-shirts and make a lot of money, and to ensure that I would, I would only use English—no more Latin or anything else.

My first creation was Biblical, in a way: “The meek shall inherit the Porta-Potties.” It had a picture of a meek-looking person in sandals and a robe hugging a Porta-Pottie, smiling with joy, realizing he got what he deserved at the end of time. I thought the irony would strike people as exceedingly funny, but it didn’t. The name of my business was “Mr. T’s.” People started calling it “Mr. Traducer’s” and held a vigil in the street in front of my store. They chanted “Leave the meek alone” and “1, 2, 3, 4 we won’t shop at Satan’s store.” When I went outside to apologize, they threw kitty litter at me, followed by water balloons. They yelled “Traducer! Traducer! Caffeinated beverage user!” This chant I didn’t understand, so I yelled back “What do you mean?” Their leader yelled back, “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.” Then, they dispersed after setting fire to the Porta-Pottie they had carried to the protest. It smelled terrible and it took three days to clean up the mess.

I wasn’t to be thwarted. My sacred First Amendment rights were being violated. I felt oppressed. I felt angry. Mother’s Day was just around the corner. We needed to make a Mother’s Day T-shirt with a message from the hearts of sons and daughters throughout the land. I asked my workers for suggestions. I got things like a giant heart with “MOM” written across it, “A mother is like glue, holding the family together,” “My mother is a walking miracle”—two-bit cliches with no discernible oomph. I couldn’t depend on my idiot employees to come up with anything worthy of the company’s name.

I went out to my car, taking my sketch pad. I sketched a voluptuous woman stretched out in a bathing suit in a 1950’s pin-up style. After smoking a couple of unfiltered Lucky Strikes, I came up with a saying expressing and summing up men’s and women’s heartfelt honest feelings for their mothers: “Mom, I love you more than Dad.” We marketed the t-shirt for sale as a special Mother’s Day gift cutting through the usual drivel, and striking at the heart of the special day. We were confident of blockbuster sales. We sold 2 t-shirts which were burned live on the nightly news.

Undaunted, I forged ahead. I hired somebody else to design our t-shirts. My new employee had a perfectly round head. It was very cool. His first design, aside from the color, looked like a self portrait. It was a big smiling yellow head with eyes. I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever seen. But, after my string of fiascos, I had started mistrusting my judgment, so I had my employees decide whether they wanted to produce “Smiling Face” t-shirts. I was the only dissenting vote, so we put “Smiling Face” up on the web and waited for orders. In the first 2 hours, we had over 10,000 orders. We changed the name to “Smiley Face” and put them on everything we could think of—from cigarette lighters to underpants.

The basic lesson here is hard the fathom. I failed miserably, but I tried again and failed again. I never really succeeded. The guy I hired succeeded though, which sort of made me succeed, even though I voted against printing his design. So, what is the lesson? I don’t know, but I’ve become convinced that my designer is a “one horse Harry.” Since the “Smiley Face,” all of his designs have gone straight to the trash bin. For example, who would want a t-shirt with a thing that looks like a chicken’s footprint with a circle around it, or a hand making a WWII victory sign?

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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Commoratio

Posted on October 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Commoratio (kom-mor-a’-ti-o): Dwelling on or returning to one’s strongest argument. Latin equivalent for epimone.

This is it—all that we have been waiting for since we turned vegetarian, rebuffing family and friends and living on whole grains, green leaves and supplements. Although our book “Meat Me in Hell” was a total failure, it got us a lot of attention. Soon, we’re going to give our cookbook a shot—“Leaf Me”—it has ten good recipes for ten good dishes. Spaghetti with applesauce sauce is a favorite in our home, as is grapefruit and eggplant wedges on tofu, with a ramekin of pearl onions blended with lotus seeds and sprinkled with crushed peppercorns on the side.

We’ve been vegetarians since we were in high school, where we were shunned and subjected to harsh ridicule— like “Moo Moo“ and “Have you found your roots yet?” That was fifty years ago—and it bears witness to longevity as the key benefit of being a vegetarian—that, and not committing murder for a meal. Our consciences and our colons are clear.

What about our classmates from high school who didn’t hoe same the row that we did? Class reunion was bleak. They’re nearly all dead or in nursing homes, while we continue to plow into the future with our rutabegas held high, while the non-vegheads limp, push walkers and roll in electric wheelchairs with bleary eyes and gravy stains on their clothing.

Somehow, animal organ eating, pot-smoking, acid dropping, beer guzzling Billy Gote went all these years unscathed. Go figure! By all rights he should be dead or bedridden. But, he had his fifth set of triplets with his new wife Velda just last week. So what! Who cares! Look at us! We can still stand! We can still feed ourselves! We can use a remote control. And best of all, we still drive, albeit 10 miles per hour under the speed limit— to the great chagrin of the young hooligans who try to run us off the road, or blow their horns and give us the finger.

Longevity is the aim and a meatless menu will get you there. The five of us haven’t sucked blood from char-broiled cows, boiled chickens in oil, or had ground-up pig leg on a bun for so long I can’t remember, and we look and we feel great. In fact, Raymond has started growing roots from the soles of his feet. They look somewhat like carrots without the orange glow. Raymond will be checking into the “Center for Mutant Studies” on Monday where he will become a subject in a scientific study.

So Raymond, this one’s for you, “May your roots take hold in the soil of life, and keep you steady in the years to come.”

I have prepared a celebratory lunch for us according to a recipe from our (hopefully) forthcoming cookbook. it’s called “Ants and Uncles.” It consists of batter-dipped ants, lightly seasoned with sea salt and garnished with chopped clover. The batter-dipped ants are “sequestered” on a “hill” of stir-fried brown rice “punctuated” with diced durian.

The next time you see one of our former classmates wobbling along behind their walker, give them a shove to help move them along their way. If you see Billy Gote, ask him what he’s doing Friday night.

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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Correctio

Posted on October 4, 2023 | Leave a comment

Correctio (cor-rec’-ti-o): The amending of a term or phrase just employed; or, a further specifying of meaning, especially by indicating what something is not (which may occur either before or after the term or phrase used). A kind of redefinition, often employed as a parenthesis (an interruption) or as a climax.

I was looking out the window at the spice bush when I realized I was crazy (well, not exactly “crazy” per se, but deeply unhinged). The spice bush was trying to get my attention, and I realized that seeing a gesturing spice bush secured my candidacy for another stay at “Yodel Hills,” a weirdly named insane asylum, supposedly named for 19th-century yodelers who went crazy yodeling—being unable to stop for weeks at a time, becoming so emaciated their cowboy hats would slip down over their ears, casting a menacing shadow. They called the malady “Yodelitis” and began a program of research to eradicate it. One of the first things they discovered was not wearing cowboy boots and wearing Florsheim imperial Wingtips instead, would significantly reduce, if not cure, instances of Yodelitis. And also, closing down the yodel camps where children were taught to yodel, almost eliminated Yodelitis. Dr. Littleoldlaydyhoo is credited with the final breakthrough: a drug that softened the larynx and prevented yodeling altogether: “Yode-Away.”

I knew if I told anybody about the spice bush, I’d be “taking a ride.” So, I decided to keep my mouth shut. As the days went by, the spice bush became more and more aggressive. Whipping back and forth, one day it tore a hole in the screen porch’s screen. I feared that it would become violent and hurt somebody. So, I decided to trim it back. It was pretty big, so I bought an electric hedge trimmer on Amazon. It came, and I charged the battery. I was ready to go.

I walked around the swimming pool toward the spice bush, carrying the trimmer. As I approached, it started shaking and wiggling. A branch shot out, whipped me in the face, and grabbed the hedge trimmer. It shook it at me as it fumbled to pull the trigger that would turn it on. I ran into the garage and grabbed my pole pruner. When I got back to the spice bush it had figured out how to start the trimmer. As I came toward it, it thrust the trimmer toward me in an attempt to keep me at bay. But that didn’t matter. I could attack from 10 feet away with my pole pruner if I had to.

The pruner had a curved saw blade and a lopper that operated by pulling a rope attached to it. My plan was to shove the pole pruner into the spice bush, hook the branch holding the trimmer and pull the rope, lopping off the branch. When I pulled the lopper, the spice bush let out a blood curdling scream and burst into flames. The screen porch was on fire!

The police said I had a shotgun in one hand and a can of gasoline in the other when they arrived. I couldn’t account for that, but I knew I was crazy as I got in the van for my “complimentary” ride to Yodel Hills. As we came up to the entrance, I noticed there were two large spice bushes growing on either side of the door. I could tell they wanted to kill me. I begged to use a side entrance and everybody laughed as they dragged me toward the door and the waiting spice bushes.

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

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Diaporesis

Posted on September 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

Diaporesis: Deliberating with oneself as though in doubt over some matter; asking oneself (or rhetorically asking one’s hearers) what is the best or appropriate way to approach something [=aporia].

There I was standing in front of at least 200 people who had come to hear what I think. I do public performances of what I am thinking. No holds barred. Whatever I’m thinking comes out of my mouth. I signaled the start of the performance by clapping my hands twice. Here I go, “Clap, clap.”

“My tooth hurts. What’s for lunch? I need to adjust my underpants. No! Not here. I really don’t care about my shriveled parents in the nursing home. When are they going to die—oh—not today, please I need to get a haircut. You need a haircut? What about your famous ponytail? Where did that go? To hell with everything else in your life. I wet my pants in my car last week on my way to my daughter’s graduation. I couldn’t go with wet pants. Maybe that’s why I wet my pants. She’s been a pain in the ass ever since she came screaming into the house as an infant. Don’t you love your daughter? No! I’ll be glad when she goes off to the third-rate college she got into, somewhere in Montana. You are a true-blue asshole. So, these are my thoughts. Unfiltered, asocial, they can’t be judged. There’s no reflection here. Give me a break “other voice” blah, blah. I need to sit down, but there’s no chair. What’s the matter sissy boy? Can’t stand up for a half-hour? Eat me! I was scared in the war. Do I need a new car? No. Will it rain? I don’t give a shit. That woman in the third row is really fine looking. Jeez! I hope I get paid for this set by next week. My bookie is getting aggressive. Maybe I’ll have Sal take care of him. What? You’re going to hire a hit man? Maybe, but not likely. I am custodian of my fading parents’ assets, which are huge. I think I’ll go out for sushi tonight. Where do they get all that fish from? Should I go to this year’s Halloween party? Pagan craziness. No way. I think I’m having a mild heart attack. Let’s take a break.”

The audience gasped. I passed out and dreamed of a wedding. It was mine. I was marrying Alice in Wonderland’s divorced mother. She was banging me on the chest and yelling “come on!” It was like having sex with my first wife. She was rough. I had an Apple Lightning port in my chest, and she plugged me into a wall outlet. I felt a massive electric shock and I woke up, or at least I thought I woke up. I saw a tunnel, sort of like the Holland Tunnel, with a light at the end of it. I ran into the tunnel, toward the light. When I came out into the light, there was a squeegee man standing there. He sprayed me with window cleaner and started squeegeeing my hospital gown. Then, I really did wake up. There was a man in white holding a thing that looked like a squeegee and dragging it around on my chest. He looked at me and said “Sonogram.”

What? Stranger things had happened than men having babies. The man in white elaborated, “The Sonogram is of your heart. Nobody knows why you’re alive. We must study you, with your permission, of course.” So now, I’ve become a professional scientific study subject. I have a suite next to the “rat room” with all the amenities, including a hot tub. Each day a group of scientists gather around my leather-upholstered recliner and argue with each other. They’ve even gotten into shoving matches. As far as I can tell my heartbeat has gone away. Instead, my heart has become more like a leaf blower, blowing my blood through my veins and arteries. My IQ has gone through the roof and I am able to write beautiful, meaningful poetry that makes my nurses cry and fight over tucking me in at night.

So, anyway. Here I am, a certified anomaly. I’m thinking of joining a sideshow where I project the live sonogram of my leaf-blower heart, while I sing “I Left My Heart In San Fransisco,” “Heart and Soul,” “Heart Breaker” and possibly, a few others. I would perform in front of a giant screen, singing and dancing. In the dance I would be laying on the stage making pumping motions with my arms (like a normal heart). I would stop and then slowly stand making swirling leaf-blower motions with my hands, recovering from my heart attack, and finishing my act vibrantly with “Heart Breaker,” waving a handgun and leaping and strutting around the stage Mick Jagger style. I know this sounds corny, but that’s what will make it a success. Oh, I will wear a red full-body leotard with a black silhouette of a leaf blower on the chest. Too bad “Heart” is already taken as a stage name, or I’d take it. I’m thinking of “Infraction,” or maybe “Heart Attack,” or “Cardiac Arrest.”

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

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Dicaeologia

Posted on September 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

Dicaeologia (di-kay-o-lo’-gi-a): Admitting what’s charged against one, but excusing it by necessity.

Some enchanted evening I met a perfect stranger and I ran her over in the parking lot at “Mickey Finn,” the bar outside of town built in the abandoned coal mine that used to sustain the community with a quality of lower class brutality mixed with smugness and relentless name-calling. One resident, William “Billow” Blondini, held the world record for saying “fu*ck you” non-stop for 3 years straight. He quit when he was hit in the face with a baseball bat by Mayor Wiffy’s son Eshmail. Now he experiences excruciating facial pain, even when he speaks through the AmpoBox strapped to his disfigured lips. He “eats” through a tube in his left nostril. Somehow he taught himself to play the harmonica though his nose and travels around giving talks on the pitfalls of fame. He always ends his harmonica set with Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” His book “Saving Face” will be published “sometime.” Eshmail wasn’t even arrested for smashing Billow’s face. That’s what it was like back then when the mines were booming. Having a thug for a son would increase your chances of being re-elected.

But now, it’s a different story. “Dan’s Crotch“ is no more. The town changed its name to “Tulip Town.” That was about all it took. Now, there’s a software development company located in the old Lutheran church. Marijuana fields surround the town, there’s a craft distillery opening in the now-vacant middle school. And then, there’s the new construction. They’re flattening out ten acres on the edge of town for the word’s biggest used car lot. There’s also a huge mall going up called “Karma.” The food courts will serve only vegetarian and vegan dishes. No fur or leather will sold either, not even shoes. Then there’s “one of biggest Dick’s in North America” specializing in polo, croquet, and cricket equipment.

But anyway, back to the woman in the parking lot. She was a stranger, yes, and she resisted my harmless advances. I had followed her into the ladies room and shot an extremely short video of her in the toilet stall. She objected, and came roaring out of the stall, ripped the soap dispenser off the wall, and beat me over the head with it. I dropped my phone and she picked it up and threw it in the toilet. I tried to tell her I was a scientist and she kicked between legs. She ripped my wallet out of my pants pocket and yelled, looking at my driver’s license, “You’ll be hearing from the cops Lawrence Baker!” as she ran out the door.

As far as I was concerned, I had done nothing wrong. It was a classic case of entrapment. She had gone into the restroom, I simply followed her. There must’ve been some kind of misunderstanding. When I saw her in the parking lot, I was on my way home to make my mom some hot cocoa, and then, tuck her in. The woman saw me and jumped in front of my car. I was so shocked I pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal. It wasn’t like I made a choice.

This can’t be hit and run on my part. She hit my car and didn’t run. It’s too bad she’s in a coma. If she could talk, she’d probably sound like she’s directly quoting me.

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

A paper edition of The Daily Trope, entitled The Book of Tropes, is available for purchase on Amazon for $9.99 USD. It contains over 200 schemes and tropes with their definitions and examples. There is also a Kindle edition available for $5.99.

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Epanodos

Posted on September 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epanodos (e-pan’-o-dos): 1. Repeating the main terms of an argument in the course of presenting it. 2. Returning to the main theme after a digression. 3. Returning to and providing additional detail for items mentioned previously (often using parallelism).

Do you ever wonder why you’re here? Do you ever wonder what God intends for you? Do you aver wonder why stock cliched answers to these questions are good enough for you, mainly because they fit on a bumper sticker you can stick on the back of your car or truck, or on your college dorm door?

We walk in the shallow trench of the shadow aimlessness carrying cellphones and I-Pads to comfort us in our total isolation from the “others” who are tightly-wound mysteries reveling in their uniqueness. The core of their beings is incomprehensible. You can know their shoe size. You can know the color of their eyes and skin, but you can never know THEM—their being the in world is an ensemble of otherness, mystery, and difference. “Similarities” between you and them as persons are illusory. As things or objects, you can know them—six feet tall, 200 lbs, $80,000 per year.

These are things I learned in college. I learned to love what I couldn’t understand about a person, because that’s who they were and that’s what I wanted to love. The closer I got, the more mysterious they became. The less I “knew” them, the more I loved them. I couldn’t predict. I couldn’t control. What I could predict and control was not them—not their humanity. That’s why I turned to bumper stickered cliches. Yes, it’s true. Let m explain.

Every Cloud has a Silver Lining. Cat got your tongue? Time flies. Fit as a fiddle.

These, and thousands more, gloriously true and compact sayings, reach into my soul like the hand of God. They anchor me in the uncertainties of life washing over my relationships and everything else in a refreshing clear stream of hope, and faith, and happiness. Plastered on the rear of my Subaru, they tell the world we are connected by the blandness of common sense and the social chasm of our foundational alienation. Cliches ground us in the garden of advice, like tomatoes or basil, they grow in the soil of providence in need of very little tending, to yield their soul-nourishing fruits and healthful herbs. Cliches help show us how to live with unwelcome pontification and arguments, grounding our lives of love and loneliness in simplistic remedies—one-liners that can fit nicely on a 3×10” strip of paper with adhesive on the back.

The next time somebody says to you, “That’s a cliche,” pull out a bumper sticker from your backpack and read its cliche to them. Read it loudly with passion and resolve. Then, stick it on their face over their eyes, and spin them around a couple of times. Then, rip off the bumper sticker and yell “Opposites attract!” Then, give them the bumper sticker to keep, along with your business card and a small bottled water. If you get arrested, just pay your fine or serve your sentence and shut up.

Once you’re out on the street again, leave people alone. That’s right, ALONE. It will be the punishment you inflict for the great lot of humanity’s failure to understand that not understanding isn’t misunderstanding, it is rather, the acknowledgement of the centrality of bumper stickers and their cliched contents to the human condition, to the citadel of moaning and laughter.

Inspired by being stuck in traffic behind somebody, and reading the bumper stickers on the back of their car or truck, I am freed from the oppression of the other, the fear of contracting myself, the hernia- inducing heavy lifting of coherence. Right now I’m “making lemonade.”

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

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Epizeugma

Posted on August 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epizeugma (ep-i-zoog’-ma): Placing the verb that holds together the entire sentence (made up of multiple parts that depend upon that verb) either at the very beginning or the very ending of that sentence.

Going the way of the wooly mammoth, lost in my bellbottoms, I said “haaay maaan” to the dude sitting next to me on the bus. He looked at me and said “has been.” I said “What is it man? My perm? My skinny ass? My bellbottoms? My Fu-man-chu?” He said: “All of the above and more.” The bus skidded off the highway, crashed, and I was all alone. I flipped on my boom box and slid in “Disco Inferno” and blasted it. People in white suits boogied out of the woods and circled around me. They turned into bill collectors and took away my boom box. A gust of wind blew up my bellbottoms and I took off. I landed outside a motel dance club/cocktail lounge named “Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive.” I looked at the marquee outside and saw my name flashing off and on: Prancer Pettibone. I was billed as “The dreamin’ danger: second cousin to the long ranger.” I couldn’t think of a better way to put it. I hiked my bellbottoms up and got ready to bust some moves.

I burst through door. I was ready! I looked around. There were around twenty people inide and they were all dead. No wonder! The disco ball was shut off. I turned it on. It started spinning throwing speckles of light on the dead patrons. They started twitching, and then moving. I found the sound board and slipped “Disco Inferno” into the CD player. I turned it up full bast. Everybody got up and started dance. I took the center of the floor solo. I did nine backflips, spun around and did my knee-break helicopter spin for 2 minutes and then a one-handed floor pump. I finished with a New York Crotch Cracker. I had brought the house to life. I was a hero.

Then I woke up on the bus to Scranton. I was 74 and could hardly get out of a car any more. For some bizarre reason I had been invited to give the high school commencement speech. Why me? I was a famous disco dancer back in the 70s and worked as a choreographer on “Saturday Night Fever.” Maybe that was it. Maybe it wasn’t. They should’ve told me in the email they sent me, but they didn’t. Maybe it was some kind of joke. I was late getting there, so I had to walk directly into the auditorium and start my speech. I walked up the aisle and everybody was yelling and screaming “Prancer!”

Then I woke up and my daughter gave me some hot cocoa. “Here Dad, this will help with the nightmares” she said, patting me on the head. They weren’t nightmares.

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. There is a Kindle edition available for $5.99.

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Homoiopoton

Posted on August 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

Meant to be what?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Hyperbaton

Posted on August 4, 2023 | Leave a comment

Hyperbaton (hy-per’-ba-ton): 1. An inversion of normal word order. A generic term for a variety of figures involving transposition, it is sometimes synonymous with anastrophe. 2. Adding a word or thought to a sentence that is already semantically complete, thus drawing emphasis to the addition.

I felt really dizzy, ready to fall down. I had lost control of my magic carpet somewhere over Pennsylvania. I had gone 900 years without a tuneup. I should’ve taken it to the shop when I hit 700 years, but I was so busy flying all over North America granting wishes and cleansing souls that I’d lost track of time.

Wishes are constituted by desire and absence tangling together in deeply personal and intense feelings—so intense that they seep into one’s soul, throwing it off course—from its interest in eternity and salvation. My job is to determine whether to “wipe” the wish or manifest it. I routinely wipe evil wishes, which are surprisingly prevalent in North America. For example, there was a politician named Mich who was having such horrendous wishes that I had to turn him off in the middle of a press conference. Thank God he was led away, and the wishes went unspoken. That was an unusual case. Usually, evil wishes can be handled with a quick memory wash, cleansing the soul of the root of the evil wish, which is often very trivial. For example, in one case the wish was rooted in resentment of a mandated bedtime. It grew and festered until, as an adult, the person hated being on time and affected his liberation by always being at least ten minutes late. His wish, as it was perfected, was to eliminate time altogether. I washed the foundational memory out of his soul and manifested a solid gold Rolex wristwatch and gave it to him. When he put it on his wrist he looked like he had just seen a cute bunny running through his yard. He yelled: “Time is on my side!” He yelled: “I have an appointment with swimming pool guy in 10 minutes! I’m on my way. I refuse to be late.”

I circled the magic carpet Repair Dome and landed smoothly on the front ramp. It was located in the middle of New Jersey’s pine barrens, protected by ani-detection devices, that were probably dependent on some kind of advanced magic. I stepped off my carpet and went into the dome. It had a sign hanging over its entrance that said “Watch Out: This Place is Crazy.” That was Bento’s sense of humor. There he was, standing behind the counter making a cat’s cradle out of bread bag twisties. I told him I had gone 200 years past my 700-year tuneup. He dropped the cat’s cradle on the counter, started flashing red and making a sound like a car alarm. “What!?” He asked, wide eyed and trembling with fear. Two of his assistants ran up to the counter. “We heard the impending disaster alarm you blew, we’re ready for action.” Bento pointed at my carpet and yelled “Tune it!” I had forgotten that my carpet model was programmed to self-destruct if it wasn’t properly maintained. My carpet was not properly maintained. The self-destruct function’s origins were obscure. It is such a bad idea that nobody can find a good reason for it, yet it persists, like so many other things—like wearing a sword or Morris Dancing.

After he repaired it, Bento told me me my carpet’s “diectionator” was almost completely shot. A couple more turns without repair and my carpet would’ve evaporated, along with me. Now, I could be on my way.

There was a terribly deluded man in Florida who was wreaking havoc on one of the longest-lasting democracies the world has ever seen. His delusions are ubiquitous and are steering his soul toward absolute evil, I may have to give him a total cleansing, a “Big Wash”—sort of like rebooting a computer and bringing it back to its original state. But, I fear this person’s original state is evil. In that case, he will eventually go to hell where he’ll sit in a circle with his feet in a fire, moaning and screaming along with Caligula, Charlie Manson, Rasputin, Mengle, and the other devils populating the pantheon of evil. For his sake, I hope I can wipe him.

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. An additional edition is available on Kindle for $5.99.

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Martyria

Posted on July 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

Martyria (mar-tir’-i-a): Confirming something by referring to one’s own experience.

“I’ve seen it all now.” That’s what my father would say when he saw something that was unusual, or he hadn’t seen before. Or, he might say “l’ll be” leaving off the “damned” out of respect for Mother, who did not allow swearing within 15 feet of wherever she was. I was frequently the target of Dad’s wonder. He hardly paid attention to me otherwise, smoking cigarettes and sipping gin and tonics—in the living room, on the porch, in the yard, in the car. We got an automatic shift car just so he could drink and drive with fewer hassles. He never drove fast, keeping it under 10 mph. Once we hit a tree on the way to Cliffs and it didn’t even damages the car. People would blow their horns at us, but Dad would just give them the finger out the window and motion them to pass.

In my continuing quest to get his attention, I tried for an “I’ll be” from Dad every day.

I had found dad’s loaded shotgun in the basement and decided I would shoot one of the songbirds that frequented the trees in our yard. I took the gun up to my room and looked for an article on how to shoot a gun in my back issues of Boy’s Life Magazine. I looked and looked and couldn’t find anything. No luck. But I remembered that my “Cisco Kid” comics had a lot of gun play. I got the basic idea—you aim and pull what is called “the trigger.” I was ready. I came out the front door carrying the gun. Mom and Aunt Ethyl screamed and ran away. I aimed at the tree in the front yard and Dad said “I’ll be.” I pulled the trigger, but it wouldn’t move. There was a little thing that looked like a slider button. I lowered the gun and pushed it toward the front of the gun. Then, I pulled the trigger without thinking about aiming. The gun went off. It blew a 3” hole in the door of our Chevy coupe. You could see a carton of Luckies on seat through the hole. I dropped the gun and started running to the The Church of the Genuine Icon where I would seek sanctuary from my father and the police, like the hunchback in the movie. Father Pringle told me the church wasn’t allowed to offer sanctuary anymore due to the flood of maladjusted teens that had begun overwhelming the church in the late 1940s. “Those WW11 vets were a wild bunch,” said Father Pringle shaking his head. “Gee Father Pringle, that doesn’t help me!” He said, “Ok, ok. Go in the men’s room and rapidly pull three sheets from the toilet paper dispenser at the same time as you flush the toilet. A secret passage will open.” I did as he told me, and boom, a passage opened. I could hide for a couple of days while things cooled off.

I was sitting there wondering who kept the torches lit when the secret door swung open and there was Dad. He said “I’ll be. Son, you’re gonna have to work after school until you can pay for a new car door.” Then, he started laughing—his laughter echoed off the catacomb walls—built and doubled and tripled, and suddenly we were surrounded by spirits in motorcycle jackets and boots wearing Levi prototypes and pastel-colored motorcycle hats emblazoned with winged motorcycle tires. They were holding chains and tire irons. Father Pringle came running through the door and flipped on the electric lights. The spirits vanished.

Father Pringle apologized for not telling me to flip on the lights to ward off the spirits. I told him I didn’t care and Dad said “I’ll be.” It had been a banner day, from start to finish. I stood there looking at the Church of the Genuine Icon. I turned to Dad and said “I’ll be.” He smiled at me and said, “I’ve seen it all now.”

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

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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).

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Tagged definitions, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Meiosis

Posted on July 22, 2023 | Leave a comment

Meiosis (mei-o’-sis): Reference to something with a name disproportionately lesser than its nature (a kind of litotes). This term is equivalent to tapinosis.

I called my dirty room “the dust mote bar and grill” making it seem less of a mess than it actually was. I’ve never been to a bar & grill but I liked the idea of eating and drinking at the same time. I was 12 and I had “borrowed” 2 beers at the last 4th of July family gathering and had eaten four snappy grillers. I was half-drunk when I asked my Aunt Betty to take walk to the lake with me. She called me a naughty boy and laughed and patted me on the head. I continued to the lake by myself. Frustrated. As I neared the lake, I started to remember. It was difficult, but I couldn’t push it out of my head.

I was 7 years old. After a year of promising “next weekend” my father was finally going to take me fishing at Lake Hoppaclang—one of Central New Jersey’s most beautiful lakes. It even had an amusement park on an island. The only condition for dad taking me fishing was that my little brother Don be allowed to come along. Don was what we called “a piece of work.” One of our biggest hopes was that he would learn to tie his own shoes some day and stop shuffling around inside the house saying he was a cha-cha train, and each room in the house a stop on his railroad line. For example, he would say: “Arriving at the kitchen. Next stop, downstairs bathroom. Watch your step.” This went on all day. It made my mother crazy. I heard my parents talking one night about how to suffocate a person in bed with their pillow. Dad was in favor, but mom wasn’t. She ran the show so Don got a reprieve.

We got up a 4:00 am. There was Don with his stupid looking overalls and dirty stuffed bunny that he said he was going to marry when he grew up. There was a half-bottle of rum on the kitchen table and dad looked like he was going to have a heart attack—he looked sort of gray and he was pounding on his chest. He said “Jesus! Let’s get the goddamn show on the road.” We had bought kids cheap “Donald Duck” fishing poles, hooks, bobbers, and sinkers at Walmart, and a cardboard quart container of worms at the gas station.

We got to Lake Hoppaclang just as the sun was rising. It was beautiful and quiet. There was a long dock with small 12-14 fit boats chained to it. As dad got out of the car he said “Hand me those bolt cutters on the floor.” Dad took the bolt cutters and walked down the dock like he was shopping. He settled on a nice looking aluminum boat. He knelt down and “liberated” it with one stroke of the bolt cutters. He motioned me and Don out onto the dock. We jumped in the boat and he pulled the rope on the outboard motor. It started right up and we headed out onto the lake. Don said “I am a fish.” He was about to jump overboard when I grabbed him by the leg. He threw a handful of worms at me and my father called him a moron, and my dad was right. He was a moron. He started punching his stuffed bunny and calling it a moron until my father handed him a fishing pole and told him to “catch a a friggin’ fish” and called him a moron again.

We drifted around the lake and caught at least 75 sunfish. They covered the bottom of the boat—dull-eyed and drying out in the sun. All-of-sudden dad stood up and said “Look at this!” He had a dead sunfish in his hand, holding it like a skipping stone. He threw it and it skipped at least six times. He picked up another one, tripped over Don and fell out of the boat. Dad could doggy paddle, but not for long. He was way overdue for a heart attack. We had no life-jackets or any other kind of flotation devices. The boat was drifting away from dad. Don was clapping his hands and saying “Dad will have big drink of lake and go bye-bye.” I told him to shut up and called him a moron—I was in charge now.

We had drifted around 50 feet from dad. He had taken all of his clothes off, but he was still starting to sink. I pulled the rope on the outboard motor. It started, I pushed the lever on the side forward and we started moving. I twisted the motor’s handle and we started speeding toward dad. He was waving his arms and yelling “No, no, no!” Don was throwing sunfish overboard and making a barking noise.

As we neared dad, I saw we weren’t going to hit him, but we were going to come really close. I told Don to throw the boat’s tie-up chain at dad as we went by. He said “Ok” so I thought he might have understood me. When we went by dad, Don threw the chain. It hit dad in the head and wrapped around his neck. Dad managed to loosen it enough so it wouldn’t strangle him. We were towing dad to shore. We were lucky because I didn’t know how to steer the boat. We drove up on shore and dad stood in the waist-deep water. He ran to the boat and picked up the fishing poles and told me to grab the bolt cutters. We ran to the car and burned rubber as we sped away. That was the last time we ever went fishing.

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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Posted in meiosis

Tagged definitions, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

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