Tag Archives: elocutio

Mesarchia

Posted on October 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

Mesarchia (mes-ar’-chi-a): The repetition of the same word or words at the beginning and middle of successive sentences.

“No way, no time of the day. No way, no time of the night. No way. No time. Never.” I was a dedicated vegetarian. I abstained from meat of all kinds—even fish, including escargot. I hadn’t eaten, or even touched neat, for just over 2 weeks. Already, I could feel a change in my demeanor. I was kinder and more charitable. I had stopped cutting into line at the movies and I no longer told women on the subway with crying babies to shut the little bastards up.

I had read “Off Meat” by Swami Knishmop. It changed my life. The “book” consisted of vivid high definition color photographs of mutilated animals in the process of being slaughtered: before, during, and after. They were triptychs from hell. Following a fluffy bunny from beginning to end turned me around. I cried. I pounded my chest. I almost killed myself from the guilt I felt for the fate of the little bunny. At the end of Swami Knishmop’s book is an oath to repeat confirming your conversion to vegetarianism. The last word of the oath is missing. If you send $20 to the Swami, he will email it to you, but you must swear to keep it secret, or die. I thought that was pretty radical, but I wanted to say “The Vegetarian’s Oath” to cement my status as a vegetarian.

Week Three

I was getting tired of bean sprout, tofu, and mustard sandwiches on gluten-free bread. I didn’t even know what gluten was. But again, after seeing Swami’s pictures, no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to eat meat. it was evil. So, I started eating faux meat soy products: Glamburgers, Fried Cheeky. Roasted Furkey. Broiled Founder. Peat Loaf. The list is endless.

The faux meat products were really expensive, but that’s not the main reason I gave them up. The main reason was that they tasted awful, and ironically, they all tasted and smelled the same. The only difference between them was their names. I went back to goat cheese and clove sandwiches, brown rice and jalapeños, mashed potatoes and toast, hummus topped with chocolate sauce, hollowed-out baked yams stuffed with avocado chunks and mint leaves. Not bad, but not meat.

Week Five

Two nights ago I took a bite out of a lamb roast at the grocery store. My desire for meat had become so strong that it blotted Swami’s triptychs from hell out of my memory. The raw lamb was tender and juicy. It assuaged my desire. I put the lamb in my cart and continued shopping for groceries. My vegetarian days were over. I bumped into one of the vegetarian friends I had made when I went meatless. His name was Cickpea (obviously a nickname), and he was a devoted follower of the Swami. I saw that he had a package of hamburger meat in his cart. When he saw me eying it, he shoved a box of “Grains & Nuts” over it and smiled nervously. Then, he saw my lamb roast. He said “Nobody’s perfect,” spun his cart around and walked away. I thought to myself “Yeah, exactly. Nobody’s perfect.”

I will never go back to being a vegetarian.

Nobody’s perfect.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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

Mesodiplosis

Posted on October 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

Mesodiplosis (mes-o-dip-lo’-sis): Repetition of the same word or words in the middle of successive sentences.

The cheap rope was starting to fray. My life was cheap—cheap as a chipped coffee mug at a Salvation Army thrift store. I was sure to have a cheap funeral—cremated in our wood stove, my ashes shoveled into a cardboard box, and deposited in the dumpster behind Cliff’s.

I was such an idiot to let price instead, of quality and reputation, determine the equipment I bought, especially if my life depended on it, Rock climbing was all about the rope. Rope snaps: life over. I had purchased my rope at Agway. Their rope was 1/8 the price of Dick’s rope—which was quite attractive, consisting of multi-colored strands woven together. The Agway rope was shining white in a cellophane wrapper. Not as attractive as Dick’s, but way, way cheaper. It was called “Clothesline Rope.” I guessed it was called that because it was shiny white and looked really clean, and you could hang clothes on it. I bought a 100 foot package of clothesline rope. If you could hangs wet clothes on it, you could probably hang on it too, at 1/8 the price.

I had gotten my boots used on Etsy, and my helmet too. The boots were made in Italy. They had mildew on them as well as tiny specks of blood. They didn’t come with any backstory about the blood. So, I just let it go. The mildew was a little more concerning. I soaked the boots in my bathtub in a mixture of Clorox, ammonia, and gasoline. It didn’t help remove the mildew, but it made them smell better. The helmet was all nicked up and had been glued back together after what must have been a severe blow. It was advertised on Etsy as a piece of an estate being settled for Mr. Amil Canyon, deceased.

All I needed next were carabiners, crucial in making rapid connections and holding climbing ropes in position, especially in rappelling. For example, riding a rope down the face of a cliff. I had shopped around and found carabiners to be crazy expensive—$20 or more. I was on my way home from my futile search when I stopped at Cliff’s for a slice of pizza. I noticed a display that said “Key Rings.” They were carabiners and they only cost $5.00! I bought ten—now I was ready to go!

The next day I drove out to “Satan’s Face.” It was a sheer drop of 200 feet. I looked over the edge and saw two ambulances standing by at the cliff’s bottom. There were representatives from every religious domination at the top of the cliff, ready to say a prayer for you for $10.00, cash only, before you started your descent. I am an atheist, so I didn’t know what to do, but I suited up anyway. Then, I heard a scream, and a loud thud followed by sirens. That did it! I tore off my gear, got in my car, and drove home, but for reasons I’ll never understand, I still wanted to defy gravity.

I had a tree in my back yard with a bare limb about 20 feet off the ground. I could rappel from my tree and experience some of the thrill of descending from a cliff, and probably survive. I leaned my trusty aluminum ladder against the limb, donned my harness, and climbed up to affix my rope to the tree limb. I rigged up and launched off from the tree limb, ready to slide gently to Mother Earth. Everything went wrong. I was hanging upside down. My key ring carabiner had bent, and popped open. Its sharp edge frayed my clothesline rope which wrapped around my leg, flipping me over. Soon the rope would break and I would soar head first into the ground. I was going to die! There was no ambulance waiting under my tree. Then I remembered. My cellphone! I called 911.

The emergency people showed up in about five minutes and safely cut me down. Before they cut me down, they all started laughing—one actually rolling around on the ground. One asked me, with tears running down his cheeks, “What the hell are you trying to do?” I remained silent, coiling up my clothesline rope like an expert, still wearing my helmet.

Later, I told my wife what had happened and she laughed and asked “Are you going to stop taking testosterone now, like you promised?”

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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

Mesozeugma

Posted on October 10, 2024 | Leave a comment

Mesozeugma (me’-so-zyoog’-ma): A zeugma in which one places a common verb for many subjects in the middle of a construction.

“Cows, wagons, worms and earthquakes move up, down, over across, and under my breakfast toast.” Marlon Sweezy.

Sweezy was a 17th-century poet known as “Who?” His works were burned with the exception of the fragment quoted above. Literary scholars have come to the conclusion that the fragment is part of the longest poem ever written “Brick Carriage.” “Brick Carriage” is cited by Lady Rich who was Sweezy’s Tarot Card reader who attributed the quote above to him. She gives us little insight into why his works were burned, aside from her cryptic reference to them as “a plague that I survived.”

She said whenever she read his cards, there was a brawl. Inevitably the cards would predict dire futures for Sweezy. He would be poisoned, stabbed, strangled, drawn and quartered, or worse. Sweezy would jump from his chair and throw it at Lady Rich who allowed it because Sweezy paid handsomely to have his cards read, plus, she had two attendants who would throw Sweezy out on the street and kick him a couple of times.

Sweezy was reportedly “the most handsome man who ever walked the face of the earth.” He was charming and witty and knowledgeable on many subjects. He knew why the earth was flat. He knew where the wild geese go. It was rumored that he was an alchemist adept at transforming peas into little golden nuggets. He had so many trysts that “trysts” was almost renamed “Sweezys.” “Sweezys” failed to catch on due to the animosity he had engendered among the fathers of the daughters he had seduced, made promises to, and then, left standing in tears alone at altars throughout Europe. Instead, “Sweezy” replaced “blighter” as a term of contempt. Being called a “Sweezy” was worse than “piece of shit” or “scum bag.” Sweezy wrote it off as jealousy or the over-protective nature of most fathers. But “Sweezy” becoming an insult was not why his poems were hunted down and destroyed.

Lady Rich tells us in her memoirs that there was a terrifying property the texts possessed and this was the reason Sweezy’s works were routed out and destroyed—torn asunder, run over by large delivery carriages, and set afire.

Reading Sweezy’s poetry made people deathly ill and even killed them. They would suffer from stomach cramps, leg tremors, flatulence, sore throat, fever, ringing ears, double vision, heart palpitations, and diarrhea. Men had the added affect of impotence. The list of symptoms is long, harsh, and terrible. Older people (35+) risked an agonizing death, in a fetal position on a hard wood-slatted hospital bed, spending their last hours scratching their rectums and howling. Some depressed people read Sweezy’s poems hoping to die. They were called “poemacides” or “Sweezacides.”

We have no record of how reading Sweezy’s poetry would cause one to contract the disease. Sweezy died from “Organ Expulsion Syndrome”—the evacuation of one’s organs in a fatal bowel movement lasting one week. He was delirious during his hellish descent into death and could not be questioned. His is the only documented case of “Organ Expulsion Syndrome.”

Thank God the poetry-borne disease is not communicable. Thank God all of Sweezy’s works were burned. During his lifetime Sweezy refused to comment on the debilitating effect his poetry had on readers. When questioned, he would smile slyly and pretend to cough, perpetuating the greatest mystery in literary history and raising the question: How many have been killed by poetry?

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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

Metallage

Posted on October 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metallage (me-tal’-la-gee): When a word or phrase is treated as an object within another expression.

Your “shoe business” sounds like “show business.” All these years I thought you were a performer of some kind. When you talked about the shoes you sell, I thought you were talking about shows you were appearing in: “Loafers,” “Heels,” “Dockers,” “Mules,” etc.

I imagined that “Loafers” was a play about a group of wealthy people who had a club called “Loafers” where the loafed around and thought of “lazy” things to do. One of my favorite fantasies about “Loafers” was the time they paid the wages of everybody at “Eat it!” a small sandwich shop on the town green. The show followed each employee on their gifted day off. Sadly, when they started loafing, all the employees suffered from PTSD from various traumatic experiences they had in life. When they were busy at work they didn’t have time to think about their life’s horrors. The owner, Stewart Smackadakolus, in violation of a number of laws, had his employees work seven days per week, so they all seemed tired, but otherwise ok. But, ironically, Mr. Smackadakolus was probably affected the worst by the day off. When he was nine years old he had killed or wounded everybody in his neighborhood. His father had left a locked and loaded Thompson sub-machine gun in Stewart’s toy box. This is hard to comprehend, but it happened. He said he put it there because nobody would look for a machine-gun in a toy box. Stewart found the gun when he was looking for his Tonka truck in the toy box. He yelled “Banzai!” and ran out the front door into the street. He pulled the trigger and “hosed” the neighborhood down with hot lead. When he ran out of ammunition, he dropped the gun and burst into tears.

Stewart’s father was jailed for 25 years for 12 counts of second degree murder, an amazingly lenient sentence. It was determined that Stewart was too young to know what he was doing and he was released and was never criminally charged. Eventually, he went through state sponsored, post high school, sandwich-making training. He opened “Eat it!” and used his sandwich-making training and the business acumen gained from his paper route and selling Christmas cards to handle the financial end of the business. He had been an avid pet owner, so he was good at managing his employees. In short, his small sandwich shop was a success, but he was haunted by his past.

The Loafers felt sorry for him and bought his sandwich shop for 10-times what it was worth, and then, gave him the paid-off mortgage to the property. Stewart was so grateful, he gave The Loafers, free sandwiches for life. Stewart is seeing a psychologist and slowly digging himself out of his trauma.

POSTSCRIPT

So, I spent all this time making up stories that would fit the imagined titles, based on shoes, not shows. Now I see how stupid I was. I guess my hope that you were in show business motivated my whacky behavior, but you’re a shoe salesman. Maybe I didn’t want to know. Now, here’s the really crazy part: my “Shoe Business Stories” have been bought by Hulu. A movie based on “The Loafers” will start streaming in mid-December.

We should be amazed!

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Metaphor

Posted on October 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metaphor (met’-a-phor): A comparison made by referring to one thing as another.

My face is a bowl of Crisco—round and pale with a slightly greasy sheen. I cleanse it four times a day with a special soap designed to clean away the vegetable-shortening look. It’s primarily for people like me. I’ve been locked up in Mount Rockefeller State Prison for 45 years. I have another 300 hundred years to go. Obviously, I’ll never be free again—free to murder some more people—maybe 6 or 7—kidnap children, and literally burn bridges.

When I was running wild, I almost succeeded in burning down the Bayonne Bridge! At the time, it was the longest bridge in the world. I wasn’t fooling around. The plan was to drive a tanker truck loaded with gasoline over the bridge, stop in the middle of the bridge, and light the truck on fire, but I forgot my lighter. I tried to flag people down to ask for a light. One of hose people was Detective Stromboli “on his way home from work.” He arrested me.

We found out during my trial for “attempted wanton destruction of public property” that he was actually on his way home from his girlfriend’s in Jersey. That was the highlight of my trial! The destruction of Stromboli’s marriage was more than I could hope for. Both his wife and his girlfriend were in the courtroom. The girlfriend’s name was Victoria Comer and the wife’s name was Shirley—Shirley Stromboli. Officer Stromboli’s testimony was an earthquake, a tornado, and a hurricane all rolled into one.

When, under questioning, Officer Stromboli revealed his affair, Shirley Stromboli went berserk. She started pulling things out of her purse and throwing them at him, yelling “Motherf*ker” with every item she threw—she hit him in the face with a set of car keys, the rest of the stuff sailed past him, leaving him unscathed. The bailiff wrested Mrs. Stromboli’s purse from her and escorted her from the courtroom. In the meantime, in true Jersey-girl style, Victoria hurled insults at Shirley: “You dried up banana peel!” “You pickle-brained pig slop.” “Scumbag.” “Your mother’s a chicken’s ass.” Victoria was escorted out of the courtroom yelling all the way.

The two women met in the hallway and started throwing punches and kicking each other. Victoria clocked Shirley with right cross and knocked her out cold. Her head hit a radiator as she went down. An ambulance was called. Victoria laughed and gave Shirley the finger as she was wheeled to the waiting ambulance. As a consequence of the blow to her head, Shirley suffered permanent memory loss. Her entire life, until she woke up in the hospital, was erased. That included marrying Detective Stromboli. There were photographs and papers documenting their marriage that Stromboli found and destroyed.

Stromboli and Comer got married and Stromboli was busted for bigamy as they left the church. Stromboli had failed to realize that his original marriage certificate was permanently filed with the Town Clerk in Richmond, Staten Island. Not only that, there were at least 50 witnesses to the marriage.

Stromboli was a pea-brained nitwit. His poor wife. It was like she landed on planet earth for the first time when she woke up in the hospital. When he was incarcerated, she quickly got a divorce from pea-brain with the help of a sympathetic lawyer.

I see the light every day for about an hour. I walk around in circles in the exercise yard. The story of my trial and conviction gives me solace as I fade into oblivion. That motherfu*ker Stombli’s life was ruined by my trial. Post-trial, as the well-known king of chumps, he had a hard time putting his life back together. Victoria would have nothing to do with him and ended up marrying a meat cutter from Jersey City. Stromboli, a convicted bigamist, ended up working as a busboy in a mob-owned restaurant in Bayonne named “Nero’s.” He was shot dead in a botched hit attempt. Nobody cares but me. Ha! Ha!

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Metastasis

Posted on October 5, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metastasis (me-tas’-ta-sis): Denying and turning back on your adversaries arguments used against you.

You say I ruined the “Life’s a Gamble” float. “That’s bullshit and you know it, scumbag. It was you. I know it was you. You’re just trying to cover your own tracks by accusing me. I worked harder than anybody else on this goddamn float. I’ve been here everyday, and even spent some of my own money on it!” I yelled.

“Cheeto” Smith was a dog. The senior prom was two weeks away. He had been disgruntled all the way because his idea for a float was not chosen by the committee, but mine was. He wanted the float to be a giant spider chasing the senior class to the prom, in a sort of horror movie scenario. The football coach, Mr. Bell would drive the float, zig-zagging back and forth and playing a recording of a bear growling from loudspeakers affixed to the spider’s eye sockets. The spider was designed to “eat” three or four seniors on the way to the gym. It had soft furry mandibles that were designed to pull the students in without hurting them.

The fear the spider would engender was deemed contradictory to the spirit of the senior prom. Also, Cheeto’s hygiene was brought up—his teeth were orange like a beaver’s. The committee felt that he would not represent Bass-Weaver High in keeping with its mission statement; “To strive to be a very clean and healthy place with a devotion to learning in all the facets of attainment owed to passionate, committed, and caring human beings with good posture.”

Obviously, the committee made the right decision, rejecting Cheeto’s bizarre proposal, as well as Cheeto himself. My design was selected. Cheeto vandalized it out of jealousy. My “Life is a Gamble” float perfectly represented the prom’s theme, unlike Cheeto’s monster spider. I proposed a gambling casino theme for the float with a dice table, roulette wheel, and blackjack tables surrounded by dummy slot machines. The props would be made by students in wood shop and metal shop. There would be students gambling on the float, and winning, periodically jumping for joy and waving fistfuls of fake money.

The roulette wheel had been stolen, and some of the green felt on blackjack tables had been torn. We quickly raised money to replace and repair the items with a car wash. We raised more money than we needed and bought vodka with the extra cash we raised. This would be the best senior prom ever.

Cheeto finally returned to his senses and apologized and brushed his teeth. When he heard about Cheeto’s reform, our Principal Dr. Bowling said “Mission accomplished.”

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Metonymy

Posted on October 4, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metonymy (me-ton’-y-my): Reference to something or someone by naming one of its attributes. [This may include effects or any of the four Aristotelian causes {efficient/maker/inventor, material, formal/shape, final/purpose}.]

“The pen is mightier than the door.” Nobody knew what the hell this meant. It was supposedly written in the 18th century when revolution was in the air along with horse manure and rotting garbage. Nobody was happy—not even babies. The author of the aforequoted line was alleged to be Malarky O’Reilly. He was kicked out of Ireland, alleged to be a member of “Hearts of Steel.” He was accused of tearing down fences and poisoning livestock. The accusations were rooted in lies. Malarky was a nice guy and was happy to get a free ride to the American Colonies. Although he was Catholic, he found a job as a bell-ringer in the Presbyterian Church. He couldn’t remember the last time he had worshipped in a Catholic Church so he was untroubled by the ruse. Besides, he needed the money—bell ringing afforded him just enough money for a bed and two meals a day.

He had been told over and over that “talk is cheap.” In fact, it was free! It would not cost him a penny to talk for pay. He couldn’t afford law school, and he hated politicians. He had done some punning as a hobby. He wasn’t very good at it, but some people called him “entertaining” like a trained bear or a dog that would do tricks on command. He would say funny things instead of doing tricks. He would be an entertainer. He would make people laugh and throw coins at him.

History books tell us that standup comedy was invented in the 1800s, yet, here is Malarky, at the dawn of the American Revolution ready to give it a spin. He practiced for a month in front of his cracked mirror, repeating the same jokes over and over. When he thought he was ready, he had to find a venue. He struck a deal with the owner of one of the local coffee shops—Caffiends—owned by Jimmy “Java” Jones. Malarky agreed to give Java half of all the money he made from the “shower” of coins.

The time came: It was around 4pm. Caffiends was packed with Coffee drinkers, many on their third or fourth cup. High on caffeine, they were climbing the walls, talking really fast, and fidgeting wildly in their chairs.

Malarky stood up and climbed onto an empty apple crane he brought with him. Caffiends fell silent and all eyes were on Malarky. Java introduced him as “Malarky, the funny man from the Emerald Isle.” He thanked Java and began his routine: “I gave my brother a dollar an he spent it.” Silence. Malarky cleared his throat: “What did one plate whisper to the other plate? Dinner is on me.” Some laughs. “Should you have your whole family for a Thanksgiving dinner? No, you should just stick with turkey.” Sustained laughter and a smattering of applause. “What sits at the bottom of the sea and twitches? A nervous wreck.” Guffaws and applause.

Malarky went on like this for 20 minutes. After he told his jokes, he asked for money and his audience called him rude names and told him to go jump in the harbor with rocks in his pockets. Somebody threw a coffee mug at him and missed his head by inches. He made his escape through Caffiends back door. As he ran through the kitchen, Java yelled “Good riddance!” at Malarky and went out front to calm the crowd. Malarky gave up on the “standing there comedy” routine, moving to Maine where he worked as a sailmaker.

The eye-witness account of Malarky’s performance was recorded by Thomas Paine in his journal. Some say it formed the foundation for his “Common Sense.” This can’t be true, can it? Also, it was determined last year by a literary scholar at Cape Cod Community College that Malarky did not author “The pen is mightier than the door.” But he did write, “I wish I had wheels like Hancock’s” as he began walking to Mane.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

Jokes: https://www.fatherly.com/entertainment/57-funny-jokes-kids-adults-who-like-dumb-jokes?utm_medium=pro&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=gpro110082156&gad_source=1

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Ominatio

Posted on October 3, 2024 | Leave a comment

Ominatio (o-mi-na’-ti-o): A prophecy of evil.

My father is a prophet. He spends most of his time far away in the future. We don’t know who pays him, and we didn’t care. His prophecies hit the mark about one-third of the time. He saw the disco craze coming—he had Saturday night fever about one year before the first disco ball lit up the night. His biggest miss was Google Glass. He prophesied: “Woe will sweep across the land. People will be run over and their blood will flow in every gutter and their loved ones will weep from the curbs.” Dad was so far off on this one that he didn’t go out of the house or roll a public prophecy for a year.

That year was hell for our family. He needed to stay in practice as a prophet to keep his certification, so he practiced on us. Here’s an example addressed to my sister: “Lo, Marie, if you wearest those clothes your belly-button will show and it will attract the impure attentions of your male peers.” Marie answered: “That’s the point Dad. Go bother somebody else.” After Marie gave him shit, Dad put on his sackcloth suit, hoping it’s itchiness would get him on track with the future. He had given me a sackcloth suit for my 17th birthday. He told me to make sure I wore no undergarments when I wore the sackcloth suit. It was brown and smelled like goat urine. When I wore it to my first job interview my crotch started itching after the first question. I couldn’t scractch myself there or I was certain not to get the job, which was working on the assembly line at a Tesla plant.

I asked if I could be excused to use the rest room. I was granted permission. When I got to the men’s room, I ran into a stall and locked it. I tore down my pants and scratched like crazy—almost to the point of bleeding. I decided to fill my pants with toilet paper, and stuff what I could in my crotch, and wrap my penis like a bandage. I thought the toilet paper would insulate my skin from the itchy sackcloth pants.

When I got back they were eager to resume the interview. They asked me if I owned a bidet. I told them “Yes.” I had used a bidet once in France, but I didn’t really own one. They asked me how long I would sit and let it wash me. That’s when everything went to hell: the toilet paper in my pants was cheap. It was stiff and made a crinkling sound whenever I moved. The first time it happened the interviewers’ heads jerked simultaneously and the interviewers looked toward my crotch’ where the sound was coming from. One of the interviewers asked me what the sound coming out of my pants was. She said it sounded like somebody was wrapping gifts.

I told them the story of my sackcloth suit. They told me to stay where I was and left the room. Soon after, two security guards showed up and “escorted” me out of the building. I was infuriated. I tore off my sackcloth suit and threw it on the ground, and stomped on it. Naked, I caught a bus home my with my private parts covered by the toilet paper.

This is just one example of how having a prophet for a father has affected my life. When his self-imposed exile had run its course, Dad was ready to rip. He had loudspeakers on the roof of his car and he would ride around our neighborhood slowly, repeating the day’s prophecy. On his first day out it was: “Lo unto you New Yorkers, the Yankees will bring darkness and anguish to your hearts by the wrath of socks of red.” Being a Yankees fan myself, I thought Dad had a good thing going. I gave him a fist pump as he rode past our house.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Onedismus

Posted on October 2, 2024 | Leave a comment

Onedismus (on-e-dis’-mus): Reproaching someone for being impious or ungrateful.

You give religion a bad name. You wore a crucifix and spit on street people. You stole money from the collection basket at church. You made a joke of the Ten Commandments while reproaching other people for adhering to them. You had a line of little statues on your mantle—gods and goddesses you made offerings to. You committed adultery with your neighbor’s wife—they call that a “two-fer” in Hell. Almost everything you say is a lie.

Where did you get the idea that you can do that sort of stuff and still call yourself religious.? Morton said: “Wake up Dan! This is the 21st century. Religion’s circumference has grown. Most importantly, following outdated ‘commandments’ is no longer mandatory. You still obey the law, but porking your neighbor’s wife is ok. It’s not laudable, but it’s ok. What is laudable is hypocrisy. Being called a hypocrite is the highest form of praise. For example, people love it when you chastise a politician for stealing the peoples’ money, and then, you get caught with your hand in the til at “Burger Bell” where you work. All you have to do is point out the magnitude of the difference between your and politician’s misdeeds and throw in the accusation that Burger Bell exploits its workers and hires illegal aliens, and boom, case closed. YOUR hypocrisy is the winner, and God will forgive you. Anyway, all of us are always pretending to be something we’re not. Right now, I’m pretending to know what I’m talking about. Last month, I pretended I was a good husband, that I knew what I was doing at work, and, when I gave a homeless guy a dollar, I pretended I was charitable.

Any time we have to ‘think’ about what we’re doing, we’re pretending. When we don’t have to think about it, it’s genuine. It’s not an act. Otherwise, you’re just trying to act ‘right’. That’s a sure sign you are pretending and are fearful of stumbling over your lines or taking things in the ‘wrong’ direction. When your pretense becomes a habit, you forget you’re faking it and believe you’re being genuine, When the habits are religious, they take on an aura of sincerity. Unfortunately, for some poor souls the opposite is the case—the more a social gesture is performed successfully, the less sincere it seems to be. They grow anxious, even anomic, as ‘the social’ loses its intrinsic meaning and becomes a web of persuasion bound to belief—bound to what is in people’s heads—in there, not out there. Persuasion’s hook is tenuous, but ubiquitous and ever-present. Beliefs are replaced by other beliefs and things change as the consensus changes. Social order will always be social and ordered—shared and rule bound. Otherwise, it is chaos, and will accomplish its own decimation, unaware. There is . . .”

Ok, Morton, that’s enough of your bullshit for now. Shut up. I should know batter than to ask you a question about anything. The droning sound your answer makes always pushes me to the edge of sleep. We both know why I’ve chained you naked to the wall down here in my basement. Like I say every day when I come down here to feed you and empty your potty pot, “It’s for your own good.” I am your benefactor. After you ran over my cat in my driveway and showed no remorse, I knew your moral compass pointed nowhere and you needed help, and that’s what I’m doing—helping you. Someday you will be healed and walk out my front door a saved man, a man who sincerely believes what I believe and who is able persuade me they’re not lying and affecting my beliefs just to get out of here. Oh, and you need to do a better job of apologizing for killing Fluffa-Belle. “I’m sorry I killed your cat” will never be enough.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Onomatopoeia

Posted on October 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

Onomatopoeia (on-o-mat-o-pee’-a): Using or inventing a word whose sound imitates that which it names (the union of phonetics and semantics).

I zipped up my pants and stepped out from behind the big oak tree. I was shocked to see a choir standing there waiting for me to conduct them. I raised my arms and they started singing. They were singing a song about a bus load of unruly kids: “The Wheels on the Bus” (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e_04ZrNroTo). I was waving my arms around and it seemed to be working. They sounded great. I should have stopped waving my arms when they finished the bus song, but I didn’t, and they started another song. It was Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” (https://m. youtube.com/watch?v=LQUXuQ6Zd9w). The jump from the “Wheels on the Bus” to “War Pigs” was dizzying. It was like “Wheels on the Bus” had been turned inside out and wrapped around a bleeding man.

I bid the choir farewell and ran all the way to the other side of the park, to the lake.

My mother was waiting there for me. It was her 62nd birthday and I had promised to go for a ride with her in one of the swan pedal boats. it was something we had done every year for the past ten years, ever since my father died of a heart attack shooting dice down by the Charles River. He had a set of totally undetectable loaded dice that he had bought in Taipei when he was there on R&R from Vietnam. He had made a fortune with them “rolling the bones” up and down the East Coast. He had some great stories—from the Catholic Priests he shot dice with, to getting into a knife fight with an old man in a wheelchair!

Suddenly, a geyser of water shot up from the middle of our swan boat. There were no life preservers! I threw my mother overboard and told her to swim for shore, all the while yelling “Help!” hoping the boat concession people would help us. I jumped. I landed next to my mother who was standing there. The fake lake was only about three feet deep. We were going to live!

We waded out of the lake and told the swan boat operator we were going to sue him. He told us to shove it, the boat was equipped with flotation devices and never would’ve sunk, and moreover, that the lake was only three feet deep. I walked over to one of the boats and ripped off the swan’s head, and handed it to the proprietor and told him to shove it up his ass. He was totally taken aback and my mother and I headed for the parking lot.

I heard a choir singing a song I’d never heard before. It was about a sunken swan boat. I looked behind me and there was that damn choir I had conducted after I had peed behind the tree. The choir was walking slowly behind us, singing. I turned around and yelled “Stop!” They kept coming toward us. That’s when I realized my mother was gone. Same old story: whenever I needed her she wasn’t there. I hated her. The choir walked through me and kept going. I had become a chimera, or something like that. I felt woozy.

Ah ha! I had entered the cliche-o-sphere again. I had fallen asleep in my comfy first class seat, flying on my way to Istanbul. Whenever I flew, if I fell asleep, I had the choir/swan boat dream. I had had the dream so often that it didn’t really bother me any more. That’s when I realized it was my mother’s birthday. I would call her as soon as we landed at Istanbul Airport.

We landed and I called my mother to wish her a happy birthday. My sister answered the phone and told me our mother was dead. She had been on a date with Ricky Tornado, a hard-drinking, womanizing loser just like our dad was. I took a deep breath and told my sister to take care of things back there, and asked how Mom had died. “She choked on Ricky’s thing. He’s under arrest and might be charged with murder,” my sister said, sobbing.

It was time to go to the steam baths and think about my life.

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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Optatio

Posted on September 30, 2024 | Leave a comment

Optatio (op-ta’-ti-o): Expressing a wish, often ardently.

“Please, please, please! God! Let me win the lotto,” Picky Jackson said as he put every penny he had on the counter at Cliff’s and told the clerk Margret to put it all on Mega Millions. A crowd gathered as Margret counted the cash. It took 20 minutes to count it all: $146,000. The crowd cheered when Margret laid down the final dollar and yelled “146,000!” People milled around for awhile, shaking hands with Picky and wishing him luck on his gamble. Picky put his ticket in his wallet, bought a Poland Springs bottled water and went home, as usual, all alone and eating chips and party dip for dinner. He loved the bacon/sour cream dip from Hannaford’s, that, and a couple of PBRs. Picky had gotten his nickname from having had 6 wives—he was “picky” when it came to marriage.

He worked at the town’s major employer—Built Well Box Cutters. He worked in quality control, wandering around the factory randomly checking procedures and products and citing employees that were screwing up in either or both areas. His fellow employees hated his guts. In the 14 years he worked there, two assassination attempts had been made. In one, a whole box cutter had been inserted in his tuna sandwich, on Italian herbs and spices bread, from Subway. The perpetuator was never caught. However, Picky’s fourth wife was suspected of conspiring with one of Picky’s numerous enemies. In the other attempt on his life, somebody filled Picky’s coffee mug with box cutter blades. Picky instantly saw what was going on and saved his own life when he dumped the blades into a trash can,

Picky’s most pronounced characteristic was being superstitious. He went to a fortune teller twice a week and did his best to abide by what he thought she was saying. Her name Madam Starbelt. She was responsible for Picky’s withdrawal of his life savings and their investment in a lotto ticket. She had told him: “Your fortune sleeps. The lotto weeps. Dry its tears with dollars.” Picky figured this one out in a flash. He asked Madam Starbelt if he was right—that he should wake up his fortune and comfort the lotto, and reap his reward. Madam Starbelt would not answer him. so he did what he did.

The next morning he woke up and found out he had won a half-billion dollars. it was like a miracle. Ten years down the road, people are still talking about it. Picky is on his 11th wife and lives in a castle in Scotland. When you think about it, there’s no accounting for his luck. Picky’s decision-making was more or less insane, yet he achieved his goal. Would he still have won if he had done things differently? A lot of wealthy people make up narratives that make their wealth seem to be the result of their brilliance and insight. Are they full of shit?

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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Orcos

Posted on September 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

“I swear I didn’t eat your wedding dress.” Of course I didn’t eat her wedding dress! She didn’t even have a wedding dress. I was trying to make a joke. It could be considered funny if you were really charitable. I was trying to assuage her grief. The man she’d been “engaged” to for seven years had just dumped her. He said she was too old for him. I swear, he is a perfect idiot. I guess, after 7 years she has aged a bit, but they’re both the same age. His new fiancé is seven years younger than him. Perfect symmetry.

I have loved Angie since we were little kids and threw pieces of cat shit at each other in my sand box. Her mother would come and get her and carry her away. My mother didn’t care if I played with cat shit. She spent a lot of time sitting in the window seat drinking hard cider and smoking Luckies. She hated my father and punched him in the stomach every night when he came home from work. He didn’t deserve it. He was always helping his secretary “fix things” in her apartment. It seemed like every couple of days something went wrong and Dad would have to go over to her place after dinner to “fix” it. When Dad went out, Mom would go downstairs and watch Hector the maintenance mad play Sudoku, and sometimes, they would read the Bible together.

I would be left all alone and wrote love letters to Angie to pass the time. I swore that I loved her—that I was telling the truth—I loved her more than my hamster Ed. I loved her more than than Mr. Rogers. As I got older, I told her I loved her more than Jane Russell or “The Benny Hill Show.” I kept saying I loved her and making trite comparisons until I was around twenty-five. I decided to give her all the love letters I had written, and let the chips fall where they may. The “chips” fell into the incinerator in her back yard without even being red. I was about to embark on a new strategy when she got engaged to the Loser King, Reggie Twirly. The years passed and they did not get married—he was like Scrooge, always making excuses centered on his business dealings, like Scrooge did with Belle—putting her off year after year, until things got “better.” Then, Cat came along and knocked Angie out of the running. When Reggie abruptly broke off their engagement, Angie was prepared to kill Reggie. I talked her out of and we made a plan for me to woo Cat away from Reggie and break his heart.

I tried everything, but I failed. Every time I tried to kiss her she would cry, “A thousand times no, I am spoken for by another.” She made feel like Snidely Whiplash, the 19th century cad. So, basically, I gave up on the whole thing. To hell with Cat. To hell with Angie. To hell with everything. I moved to California and started a business as a surrogate love letter writer. I had so much experience, I could whip off a love letter in five minutes. The business was called “Love’s Thunder.” I took the pen name “Cupid’s Arrow.” Business was good. I met a wonderful woman, we got married and we have a baby on the way.

Then, I got an order from Angie. It was for a love letter to me. Somehow, she had my email address from back in the day. It was still functioning! I ignored Angie’s request, gave her a refund, closed the email account and went on with my life, happily married, baby on the way.

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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Oxymoron

Posted on September 28, 2024 | Leave a comment

Oxymoron (ox-y-mo’-ron): Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another. A compressed paradox.

It was the Hot Cooler! It would keep your beer icy cold for a week! It was originally invented by a guy from Maine to chill his kipper snacks while he was out hauling his lobster traps. Not many people care if their kippers are chilled. In fact, it was an idiosyncrasy borne by this particular lobster fisherman. The long and short of it is, he liked his kippers chilled.

I was working in the summer as a writer for the Boothbay Register in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. I finally got a chance to interview him for a story on the genesis of the Hot Cooler as an extension for the kipper cooler. It was part of a series on progress. My first question was “Do you really like chilled kippers?” He said “A-yuh,” and jumped in his lobster boat and pulled away from the dock full throttle. What was I going to do for my story? Ah ha! I could interview the guy who took the kipper chiller to the next level—the inventor of the Hot Cooler himself. His name was Randal Damon and he started lobstering when he was nine.

He was living out his final years at the Old Lobstermen’s Home in South Bristol, Maine. He’d hauled his first trap when was nine, and a dory was used for transportation, to get around to check the traps. They got their lobster bait from the Co-op, and would paint their traps’ buoys with stripes or polka dots, making sure they didn’t duplicate anybody else’s buoys. Randal’s were a little different. He just dipped his buoys in a bucket of pant. One year, he used the paint he had just painted his house with. The other lobstermen called him lazy. He didn’t care.

His fifth wife Tina was his stern man and worked her ass off every day—Sunday included. She had biceps like a prizefighter. Randal would pick up their bait bucket at the dock pretty much the same time every morning. Randall didn’t give a damn about the tide. He’d come roaring into the dock full throttle and slam the engine into reverse, bringing the boat to a full stop inches from the dock, and then, he would burp “Bow, wow, wow” and take a puff off his Swisher Sweet cigar. Usually, at least one person would jump off the dock for fear Randall was going to ram it and break it to pieces. Randall never hit the dock. He had been a Commander in the Navy. He knew what he was doing, but he had a drinking problem. His career ended when his ship, the USS Thomas Jefferson, found its way to Rte. 95 near Kittery, Maine. It was listed over on its side and Randall, wearing a grass skirt and an aloha shirt, was directing traffic around it with a beer in his hand. Randall was courtmartialed and sentenced to 5 years hard labor, working in the forests of Northern Maine as a member of the Beaver Control Corps, tearing up beaver dams.

But what about the Hot Cooler?

After he got out of prison, Randall returned to lobstering, and drinking at least six beers per day. Randall bought a lobster boat from the inventor of the kipper chiller, who had just purchased a new boat. Randall named his boat “Bow, Wow, Wow.”

One feature of the chiller was its tray for holding kipper tins. Randal simply replaced the kipper tin cooling trays with trays with beer-can shaped indentations—like a muffin tray for beer cans. With the lid open, the cooler would keep cooling either because it was plugged in or packed with dry ice. Randall could set the Hot Cooler on the flat spot behind the boat’s wheel, and have enough cold beers for hauling all his traps. He could get drunk without risking falling overboard, bending over for a beer off the boat’s deck. He made Hot Cooler trays in his garage in his spare time and sold them to beer drinkers with kipper coolers, and eventually, the kipper cooler evolved solely into the Hot Cooler, and the kipper cooler went extinct.

Randall made a lot of money. He gave most of it to Dunton’s Dog House in Boothbay Harbor, Maine on the condition Dunton kept everything the same and used the gifted money for winter vacations in warm places. Dunton’s Dog House remains unchanged—a little hut and a couple of picnic tables with damn good food.

Randal died of COVID last year. He was 96.

Randal’s legacy is commemorated at the Lobstermen’s Co-op by a statue of a Piels beer can with a Swisher Sweet cigar resting atop it. It has a plaque that says “Bow, Wow, Wow.” People say that sometimes, on a warm summer night, when the harbor’s calm, if you walk to end of the public dock, the lapping water sounds like “bow, wow, wow.”

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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Paenismus

Posted on September 27, 2024 | Leave a comment

Paenismus (pai-nis’-mus): Expressing joy for blessings obtained or an evil avoided.

I couldn’t believe how lucky I was! I had won $5.00 on a “Take Five” scratch-off lotto ticket that I had purchased at Cliff’s for $1.00. “That’s a pretty good profit”, I thought, as I literally jumped for joy. I had heard about jumping for joy all my life, but I had never had a good enough reason to try. Now was the time. I was jumping up and down in Cliff’s parking lot. A police car pulled in and drove up in front me, flashed its roof lights and blew a short toot at me. The police officer got out of the car slowly and closed the door. I stopped jumping for joy.

He said, “Put your hands where I can see them. Ok, now, what are you doing?” I told him I was jumping for joy because I won $5.00 on a scratch-off lotto ticket. He asked “Jumping for joy? What the hell is that?” He put his hand on his gun and told me to empty my pockets on the ground and turn them inside out. He told me to put my wallet on the ground and kick it to him. He looked inside it and held up a photo that he found in it: “Who is this?” I told him it was my girlfriend Sharon. He said, “She looks pretty damned young to be your girlfriend.” I said, “She’s over 18.” He said, “Don’t be a wise guy, punk. It’s snotty-ass kids like you that piss me off.” I said, “I’m no kid. I’m 22.” “Ok loser, That does it. Put your hands behind your back.” He handcuffed me and pushed me into the patrol car. “Ok. So tell me now, what kind of drugs are you taking Mr. Jumping For Joy?” I told him I wasn’t taking any drugs. I asked him what was going on and he told me “You’ll see.”

When we entered the police station, all hell broke loose. Cops dove under their desks. Other cops ran out of the station’s rear exit. “Let him go!” Yelled a cop wearing a formal uniform with gold braids and ribbons. It looked like he was the Chief. The cop holding me said “I’ll let him go when you stop calling me ‘Patrolman Nutso’, you return my fur-lined handcuffs, and let me drink on the job. I’ve been riding around in that damned patrol car for a week—I smell, I’m hungry, I miss my cat.” “Ok. You have deal,” said the Chief.

He let me go. I felt like jumping for joy, but I didn’t want any more trouble. When I got to the other side of the room, everybody pulled guns. Patrolman Nutso pulled his gun, yelled, “You promised!” And took a shot at the chief, nicking him in the ear. All hell broke lose and Patrolman Nutso was filled with lead. The coroner determined he was shot 122 times. Nutso’s family sued the police for using excessive force. They won the lawsuit and a $6,000,000 judgment. When the verdict came in Nutso’s wife jumped for joy for about 10 seconds and then affected a serious demeanor in keeping with the proceedings.

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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Parabola

Posted on September 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

Parabola (par-ab’-o-la): The explicit drawing of a parallel between two essentially dissimilar things, especially with a moral or didactic purpose. A parable.

“You don’t know the difference between shit and Shinola” my cousin Larry said. I was trying to shine my shoes with a dried piece of dog shit I found on the sidewalk. “Same consistency, as shoe polish, same color as my shoes. It smells different, but that can be fixed” I said. This was before the days of shit bagging, so there was free dog shit all over the place. I said, “Now, I’m going to smear it on my shoe and see how it works.” It didn’t work. It didn’t shine my shoes and my shoes smelled like shit—I could fix the smell, but the failure to shine made the whole thing a failure. My cousin just stood there with his mouth hanging open. He said “You really don’t know the difference between shit and Shinola. What the hell is wrong with you?”

I responded: “The Ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras said ’Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ He made his arch rival Plato crazy when he said this. Plato believed beauty, and everything else, was an idea floating around in Heaven and peoples’s heads—they were like keyholes that people peeped through to see reality. If one person’s hope about something was another person’s fear about the same thing, how could this be? We have the “same thing” with conflicted perceptions of it that induce real and different responses, that often, must be negotiated. It’s messy yet empowering. The “keyhole “ of human understanding reduces humans to seekers and squabbles—where difference is a sign of error and not the diversity of approaches to life and learning that may be the foundations of what it means to be human. Not knowing the difference between shit and Shinola may be an error, but that error, like all error, is a sign of my humanity, which I value more than being correct. I am fallible, and that is my most cherished attribute.

My cousin said, “I think I see your wig spinning into orbit. How can you bother thinking about this crap when you have a life to live? Your Shinola experiment is a sure sign of your broken mind. Stop throwing dog shit at me and get in the car. We’re going to the hospital to get you diagnosed and put on some kind of medication. Put down the dog shit!”

Maybe he was right. Maybe I was a lunar module. I dropped the piece of dog shit and got in the car. We didn’t talk on the way to the hospital. When we got there, we checked in and my cousin told the receptionist that I didn’t know the difference between shit and Shinola, and I didn’t care. The receptionist looked alarmed and picked up the phone and had brief, panicked-sounding conversation with somebody. She pointed to a door behind her and said to me, hand shaking, “Go in there and wait.” She closed and locked the door. I heard her say to my cousin, “People who don’t know the difference between shit and Shinola, generally do not know the difference between good and evil. They are a potential menace.” At that point, they determined that I had no health insurance. That did it. We were escorted out of the hospital by five security guards. I was blindfolded and handcuffed. The cuffs were removed at the hospital’s exit and I removed the blindfold on my own. Because I was such a threat, my cousin got me an Uber. At that point, he wouldn’t ride with me.

When I got home, my Dad was waiting on the front porch with a .357 aimed at me. He told me to get in the house, with no false moves. It was like an old cowboy movie. My cousin came to my defense when he arrived in a Kevlar vest. He said: “I’m sorry. This really got blown out of proportion. There’s nothing wrong with your son, there’s something wrong with society.” I thanked my cousin. “Not so fast!” My father yelled. “What you’re telling me is everything is relative, that there’s no single idea of anything: society’s in control?” My cousin answered “Yes” and Dad lowered the gun and hugged me. At that point I was promoted from “crazy as a loon” to “really quirky.” I was grateful.

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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Paragoge

Posted on September 24, 2024 | Leave a comment

Paragoge (par-a-go’-ge): The addition of a letter or syllable to the end of a word. A kind of metaplasm.

I’m goin’ to the rodee-odee-o. I’m gonna’ ride Milky Way, the meanest milk cow ever to be born into this world. The bull who bread her mama was named Steam Shovel. Nobody knew why, but it sounded bad. He was a long-horn so every body steered clear of him for fear of being impaled on one of his 7-foot-horns: times two, they were 14 feet wide! So big, he couldn’t fit in a trailer, which made him even meaner. He was always mad and always ready to slash and dash. People talked about putting Steam Shovel down, but his owner would hear nothing of it. She was just as mean as he was. Tarny Brimwood, it was rumored, had killed a couple of men: men who loved her, bothered her and demanded she love them in return. Both of these men were found on a manure pile with a pitchfork in their back and a boot print on their face. Tarny became a suspect because, after each murder, she showed up wearing new boots, leading police to believe her old boots’ prints would be her undoing. Tarny scoffed at this, saying she had donated her old boots to the Salvation Army for the tax write-off. The police searched every Salvation Army Thrift Store within a 100-mile radius. The boots were never found and Tarny was released from custody. Tarny’s stud service flourished and she was elected Mayor of Dusty Trail, New Mexico.

Milky Way’s mama was a piece of work too. She was gigantic for a Gurnsey. Almost 6 feet to the shoulder! Her horns were beautifully polished and she was brushed at least twice a day, and gave at least 25 gallons of milk per day. Her udders looked like baseball bats and she had to have a specially made milker. Her stall was double-wide. Billy Bindlehoof was the only person she allowed in it. He was a kind young man who was good with animals. One day, the milking barn manager yelled at Billy for leaving a pitchfork out on the floor. Milky Way’s mother went crazy, and nobody yelled at Billy ever again.

I arrived at the rodeo venue and made sure I was riding Milky Way—the Manager said “Righty” and I got prepared. I was scared shitless, given Milky Way’s lineage and the stories I had heard about her. I heard she had once thrown a man 15 feet in the air, and that she had once thrown man so hard his hand was torn off at the wrist.

I resined my hands and jeans and mounted Milky Way in the chute. The chute opened and Milky Way meandered out like she was looking for grass. Then, she stopped and stood there and the crowd booed. I kicked her and punched her between the ears. She didn’t move. The time-horn went off and I jumped to the ground. She licked my face like dog and then knocked me down and stood on my chest. The clowns came at her with their cattle prods and got her off me. I found out at the hospital that I had two cracked ribs.

My cowboy days are over, but I’ve taken up with Tarny. She’s a little bossy, but beyond that, she’s the best girlfriend I’ve ever had. We each have a mechanical bull set up in the living room. We laughingly call them our “Cowboy Treadmills.” We love watching “Roy Rogers and Dale Evans” reruns and eating Tex-Mex food. I’m learning cowboy rope twirling tricks from a school on the internet. It is purely for personal growth. For money, I’m working with Tarny to make our own brand of Mezcal. We’re naming it “Blond Snake” after Tarny’s mother.

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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Paralipsis

Posted on September 23, 2024 | Leave a comment

Paralipsis (par-a-lip’-sis): Stating and drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over (see also cataphasis). A kind of irony.

“I’m not going to say anything about your giant ass—that it jiggles like a water balloon when you walk and makes a creepy squishing sound when you sit on it.” That was ten years ago. I was admonishing my best friend’s father Lyle. His ass had continued to grow. At first, his pants would rip when he bent over. We thought it was funny, but his ass kept growing. Lyle started wearing stretch pants, straining to pull them over his medicine-ball sized ass.

As the years went by, Lyle’s ass went out of control. Next, he’d load his ass in a wheelbarrow and hired a man to push it along behind him when he went for walks. He wore a spa towel with the back cut out and a large flap sewn to it that would “cover his ass” when he went on wheelbarrow walks.

A few years later, he had his ass weighed. It clocked in at 3200 lbs. That’s when he started using the fork lift riding slowly behind him when he went for walks. They would put a down comforter over his ass secured with bungee chords.

That’s when I finally went at him again: “Your giant ass is totally out of control Lyle. You look like you’ve got Plymouth Rock glued to your ass. Your life sucks and it’s only going to get worse. Get your ass removed!” To my surprise, Lyle capitulated.

I went nuts on the Internet and found a plastic surgeon in Belarus who said he could “take care of anything.” His name was Dr. Cutler. We set up a “Go Fund Me Site” and raised enough for the surgery. But how the hell would we get to Belarus? Lyle’s fat ass definitely would not fit on an airplane. But FEDEX came through!

They would fly Lyle to Belarus for the publicity. They fitted Lyle with a quilted goose down suit that encompassed his ass. He would also have an oxygen mask, and would be riding in the cargo bay as a piece of cargo with the other things being shipped to Belarus: Coca-Cola, bullet proof vests, roller blades, etc.

When we landed, Dr. Cutler was there to greet us, standing by the flatbed truck that would transport Lyle to the clinic. I noticed he only had one arm, but I didn’t say anything. Dr. Cutler wanted to start the surgery immediately. There was a giant tent pitched on the front lawn of the clinic, festively decorated with balloons. The tent had a hole in the top where Lyle would be lowered to the operating table by a crane. Before they lowered Lyle, Dr. Cutler let us in the tent to have a look around. The operating table was stainless steel with a large drain. The operating implements were laid out on a table next to it. There was a razor-sharp cutlass, two muffler clamps, a pair of vise grips, and three rolls of waxed paper. I said nothing. Dr. Cutler shooed us outside. I looked over my shoulder as I went through the tent flaps and saw Dr. Cutler taking off his short and putting on his prosthetic arm, The arm was decorated with blinking Christmas lights. When I got outside, I waved to Lyle as he was lowered into the tent’s hole.

The surgery lasted three days. The surgery was a complete success. Dr. Cutler removed Lyle’s giant ass and replaced it with a cosmetically-created “normal” ass. After Lyle recuperated for 2 months, we headed home. When we got home, there has a huge party. Even the wheelbarrow man was there. Everybody wanted to touch Lyle’s new ass. He accommodated them all.

Lyle sang the praises of Dr. Cutler for the next 6 months when he died from “complications” related to his ass surgery. Dr. Cutler had embedded two holiday hams under the excess flesh from the giant ass removal. The hams went bad, killing Lyle.

INTERPOL is currently searching for Dr, Cutler. He was reportedly seen somewhere in Syria eating a ham and cheese sandwich.

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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Paramythia

Posted on September 22, 2024 | Leave a comment

Paramythia (pa-ra-mee’-thi-a): An expression of consolation and encouragement.

“I feel so sorry for you. With the facial tic, We don’t know whether you’re smiling or “tic-ing.” I said to Don with my best tone of sincerity in my voice—a sort of whining certitude with an upward inflection. At school, when Don started to tic, he was escorted out of class by the day’s assigned student. It wasn’t so much the tic, but the noises he made—it was a whooping sound that ended with raspberries topped off by a snort. The sequence of sounds was repeated over and over until he stopped tic-ing. Ten years ago Don would’ve been tied to a chair in the school basement all day. But now, Don was “mainstreamed” in the classroom’s front row. He wasn’t even tied down! This was good for Don. He only “blew up” once a day, if at all. When the tic was unwound, Don was a great guy. We all laughed when he called himself “The Ticking Time-bomb.”

I had heard that holy water could cure things like tics. You “anointed” your target with it and they were instantly cured. I had asked my priest for some and hie told me to get lost. The fount at the church’s entrance was under CCTV surveillance 24-7. I wanted to help Don, but as far as I could see, holy water was out of reach. Then, the good news came. We were going on a class trip to The Cloisters, in New York City. I wasn’t quite clear on why we were going there, but I knew the Cloisters had Catholic religious connections. Given its location in NYC, maybe I could “score” some holy water there. New Yorkers were notoriously crooked. I had a good chance of scoring.

We left early in the morning, taking a bus we went over the George Washington Bridge. I was thinking, “After all he did, all he got was a bridge named after him.” Then I remembered Washington, DC, and corrected myself inside my head. I had recently seen “Mission Impossible” so I was ready to steal the holy water if I had to. In my backpack, I had a piece of rope and a pair of black leather gloves. I would do whatever it took to get Don cured. We pulled into the parking lot, got off the bus, and headed for the Cloisters’ entrance as a group, with me lagging behind.

When I got to the entrance there was an old man outside, he held up was looked like a Tabasco Sauce bottle and asked “Holy water?” I said “Hell yes!” He told me it was $2.00. I handed him $2.00 and he handed me the bottle. When I got inside, I looked at the bottle—the label said “Holey Water” like holey socks. I had been scammed. I looked outside and the old man was gone. We toured the Cloisters and it was awesome. As we exited we went through the gift shop. There were pictures of baby and grown-up Jesus, plastic replicas of the Holy Grail, book marks, sandals, and low a behold—holy water! I bought two gallon jugs. They were hard to get back to the bus, and even harder to get home. I couldn’t wait to dump them on Don and cure him. If he had been on the Cloisters trip, I probably would’ve doused him on the bus.

I lugged the two gallons of holy water to school the next day. I doused Don after we took our showers after gym class. He immediately broke into a classic Don tic. The I remembered the counterfeit holy water in my back pack in my gym locker. I ran and got it, almost slipping on the wet floor. I ran back and shook a couple of drops on Don’s head while he whooped and tic-ed uncontrollably.

Suddenly Don went silent, then he started whooping and tic-ing again. I shook more holey water on his head and everything stopped. Was he cured? Time would tell. Don hasn’t had a tic-fit for two years. I subsequently discovered the holy water sold in the Cloisters Gift Shop at the Cloisters was fake—it was ornamental.

People say the old man at the entrance was an angel of God, and charged $2.00 to induce a show of faith. Nobody could account for the misspelling of “holy.” Since the incident, I’ve been acclaimed as a saint—anointing Don with Holey Water and curing him is considered a miracle. I’m waiting to be afflicted by stigmata to make the grade. In the meantime, I’m selling bottled water online: http://www.holeyh2o.com. The water is called “Squeaky Springs” and it comes from a secret location in North Jersey.

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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Paraprosdokian

Posted on September 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

Paraprosdokian: A figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase [or series = anticlimax] is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe the first part. . . . For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. An especially clever paraprosdokian not only changes the meaning of an early phrase, but also plays on the double meaning of a particular word.(1)

“I had a great thyme in my garden, It was six feet tall.” Ha, Ha! That’s funny. I think I’ll use it in my comedy routine. I spend most of my time composing hilarious jokes, like the thyme joke. “What did the rodeo horse say to the cowboy? If I could make a buck, I could throw my rider.” This is high comedy—it has everything: money, violence, revenge. This is a classic, and I wrote it and performed it, and nobody laughed at it. “I walked into a Church and asked a priest where God was. ‘In that book over there.’ He said.” Ha, Ha! This is so funny even the Pope would laugh. God works in mysterious ways! Ha! Ha! Religion is always funny. “What did Judas whisper in Jesus’ ear? You need a breath mint.” My God that’s funny. It teeters on the edge of perfection. “How many Presbyterians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Presbyterians don’t screw in lightbulbs.” Wo! I’m going over the edge. I’m rolling on the floor. I think I’m having a heart attack.

Jim dialed 911. The ambulance arrived. As they were putting him on the stretcher Jim asked, “Will this gizmo make me taller? Stretcher, Ha! Ha! Get it?” Then he passed out and went into what orderlies thought were convulsions, but it was actually laughter. They strapped him down and took off for the hospital. This was Jim’s seventh heart attack induced by inane laughter. He suffered from “Bad Joke Syndrome.” He was a regular in the Emergency Room. Everybody said he was lucky to be alive. He had been admonished countless times by Dr, Bleak to stop with the stupid jokes or he would kill himself. Jim was supposed the be reading “The Scarlet Letter” and discussing it with Dr. Bleak’s assistant Dick Dour. But Jim had been lax—it never failed. He’d nearly die from inane laughter, and then go back to writing and performing his for-shit jokes in front of family and what few friends he had left. One of those “friends” was Red Oxnard.

Red worked in the IKEA warehouse in Newark, New Jersey. He had known Jim since their school days in Morristown, New Jersey. That’s when Jim started suffering from Bad Joke Syndrome (BJS). He would try to make up funny lyrics for the school song, blurt out in class, make up jokes about rope climbing in gym class, and more. When people saw him coming they would yell “shut up!” But Red stuck with him. He knew Jim would gain access to his annuity what he was 45. His parents had died in a “carbon monoxide” event in their garage when Jim was 15. Jim had made jokes about what had happened and he was “sent away” until he was 21. He was released, uncured of BJS on his 21st birthday. Red picked him up, and lauded his joke efforts, telling him he was getting better. But he wasn’t. Actually, he was getting worse.

Red called his girlfriend on the phone to tell her his plan was going well. He was about to worm his way into Jim’s will and then show him “Benny Hill” reruns until he laughed himself to death with another heart attack.

Jim was listening in and recording Red’s phone call. He accosted Red in the hall and said “Ha! Ha! The joke’s on you!” He started playing the recording in Red’s face. Red said, “I was only joking.” Jim started laughing. He laughed so hard he blew his aorta and died. Red’s plan was foiled and per his will, Jim’s fortune was donated to the Henny Youngman Foundation. Jim’s tombstone reads: ”I’m dead. I can’t get you started.”

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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Paregmenon

Posted on September 20, 2024 | Leave a comment

Paregmenon (pa-reg’-men-on): A general term for the repetition of a word or its cognates in a short sentence. Often, but not always, polyptoton.

Movin’ and groovin’, groovin’ and movin’ makin’ my way to Saturday night—night fever had me in its groovy grip. The Bee Gees were blaring and I was bustin’ moves in front of my full-length mirror, making the floor shake in my funky old apartment by the railroad tracks in a tiny town in south Minnesota. By day, I wore a hairnet and worked in the Thor Knudsen High School Cafeteria. On Saturday Nights, I wore a black leather jacket, black platform shoes, black slacks, a black belt with my initials as a buckle, a black ruffled shirt unbuttoned to my belly button, with gold neck gear around my neck, featuring a Peruvian Coke spoon the size of a soup spoon, a peace sign medallion and a gold-placed Matchbook toy ambulance. My life was devoted to the dance, and, eventually, to Ruby, my partner.

Nobody wanted Ruby as a dance partner. She only had one leg, and those oafs couldn’t see past that. Her leg had been amputated below the knee, so she still had considerable mobility with her prosthetic leg. She had lost her leg in a car accident. She and her boyfriend were riding along singing “Blueberry Hill.” When they got to “I found my thrill . . .” Ruby squeezed her boyfriend’s crotch and he ran into a bridge abutment at 70MPH, killing him instantly. Ruby became despondent, taking responsibility for Tommy’s death. She would do crazy things, like drinking beer out of her prosthetic leg. That’s where I met her. She was drunk and she was taking a drink from her leg. I knew her story and my heart went out to her. I said “Come on baby, let’s get you home.” She swung her leg at me and hit me in the face. My nose started bleeding and she started crying and apologizing. She put her leg back on and we left. We dated and she seemed to be calming down. Then, the disco craze hit.

It hit me hard. I was obsessed, addicted, a prisoner of the beat. Initially, I left Ruby behind. After all, she only had one leg. But when I saw her face when I was practicing in the mirror, my heart broke. We had to figure out a way to get her on the dance floor. We practiced in the apartment, surprisingly fast, she got the moves—the leg-thing meant nothing with the exception of one dance move we developed together. I would pick her up and take off her leg and set her on the floor—she would rock back and forth to the beat of the music, watching me, while I would hold up her leg and wave it around like a lasso over my head. Then, she would lay on her back and I’d pop her leg back on and pull her up, continuing to dance. Not everybody liked the move, and that was a shame.

Anyway, Ruby and I outlasted the Disco craze. We are married and have a daughter. I was promoted to lunchroom cashier and eventually started a franchise of all you can eat buffets called “Tubby’s Trough.”

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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Pareuresis

Posted on September 19, 2024 | Leave a comment

Pareuresis (par-yur-ee’-sis): To put forward a convincing excuse. [Shifting the blame.]

“Excuse me, I just remembered I’m supposed to be somewhere else. I have to leave.” I was fearless and I was bored. Grandma was ready to blow out the candles on the cake marking her 82nd birthday. Everybody said they understood as Grandma held her breath a little too long and landed face down in the cake. Somebody called 911 while i called Uber to take me home. I was looking forward to listening to music and playing with my X-Box—the latest “Call of Duty.” I found out a couple of days later that Grandma had a stroke. I sent her some flowers and hoped she’d live a while longer.

Excuses are the soul and substance of my life. Excuses are like apologies. They may mend relationship fractures after you screw up, or before, as a part of hoping to get your way. You give them when you’re accused, or, without being accused, in order to show your social competence, by being conscious of a potential breach of decorum. In most cases you’re searching for forgiveness, not redemption—too late for that. You want to mitigate your guilt. What you’re involved in is “accounting” (See: Scott, M. B., & Lyman, S. M. (2008). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33, 46-62. https://doi.org/10.2307/2092239).

As you’ve probably guessed, accounts are great for keeping your ‘face’ intact. There are also justifications, they’re for anther day (this is an excuse. Ha Ha).

One day I’m walking along behind a family. I pick Dad’s back pocket and fish out his wallet. I trip on the pavement when it’s about a quarter-inch from being stolen goods. Dad feels it and spins around. “Did you steal my wallet?” He asks clutching my throat. I yell choking, “No sir, HE did, He ducked in that alley!” I point. He takes off to catch the guy and I take off in the opposite direction, wallet hidden in my secret pocket.

The excuse I employed: shifting the blame to guy in the alley. Also, talking to my fellow robbers, I could account for almost getting caught, by “blaming” the crack I tripped on. More shifting the blame. So basically, you have en excuse because you had no intention, or you had no control—buffeted by the winds of fate, or a crack in the pavement.

Remember, if things go wrong, and you’re caught red-handed, you should always have, at a minimum, an excuse ready, and better yet, a justification. Master the art of accounting, and you’ve mastered the art of life.

At least half of life consists of being accused—you’re always late (excuse: “I have a cheap watch, sorry, it’s all I can afford.”), you don’t care about me (excuse: Sorry, I’m not good at showing my emotions”), you spend too much money (excuse: “Sorry, I have a counting disability—numerochosis.”), you’re a slob (excuse: “I’m sorry, but it runs in my family. It’s in our genes.”), you drive like a maniac, (excuse: ”I’m sorry. When I get behind the wheel, I feel like I’m taking my dying mother to the hospital again, like it’s a matter of life or death. Mom died in the hospital parking lot.”), etc.

You can’t admit any accusations are completely true, instead, you must shift the blame. Watch out for accusing the accuser—as a rejoinder “Actually, it’s all your fault bitch” is the road to hell and could even result in your murder, especially if you’re unarmed and your accuser’s holding a knife or a gun.

If you master the excuse, most likely you’ll become known as a lovable boorish teddy bear among eligible life partners, husbands, or wives. Read Scott and Lyman, cited above. They offer a far richer tapestry of accounts than I offer here.

When you screw up, a good excuse will keep you in the game! But if somebody says “There’s no excuse for what you did,” get ready to take a heavy hit.

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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Paroemia

Posted on September 18, 2024 | Leave a comment

Paroemia (pa-ri’-mi-a): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, maxim, proverb, and sententia.

There are so many wise sayings, I had a friend, his nickname was Maxim. He had a saying for everything we had done, what we were doing, or what we were going to do: the past, the present, the future. Back in the day we called him an “idiot savant” but now, it is considered an insult. Now, we say he has “Savant Syndrome.” Maxim never deserved to be called an idiot.” We enjoyed his company and marveled at his amazing ability to summon sayings to provide guidance and shed light on our circumstances.

One summer we were going to go to New York City to buy fireworks to resell where we lived in New Jersey. We heard you could buy fireworks in Chinatown. Maxim said, “Not all who wander are lost.” We took that as a positive sign. We weren’t wandering anyway. We knew where we were going.

We took the train to the ferry terminal, bought our tickets and got on board. We were really excited about a boat trip to Manhattan. Given our mission to buy explosives in Chinatown, we felt like pirates! As we left the dock, Maxim said: “A sailor’s heart knows no boundaries; it sails the seas of dreams.” As I leaned over the railing and looked into the swirling water with the wind in my face, I felt inspired, and I was only 14.

We slammed into the dock and we were in New York City. The air was polluted and the traffic noise was everywhere—especially the honking horns. Maxim said, “Arriving at one goal is the start of another.” “So true” I thought as we looked at the subway map trying to figure out our route to Chinatown. It was the Line 1 subway. A short trip, but not cheap. Maxim said: “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” As far as value went, it was a cheap ride: we were headed for a treasure trove that would be worth its weight in gold back in Jersey.

We got off at Canal Street and walked to the heart of Chinatown. It was amazing. Maxim said: “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” He was right, we were excited. We couldn’t resist picking up a couple of souvenirs. I bought a puzzle box. It had sliders on the side that you had to slide in a certain sequence to get the box to open. It was really cool! Maxim said: “The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity.” I’d need to think about that one. It seemed like one of those “key to life” quotes Maxim would come up with every once-in-awhile. It made you think.

Now, it was time to buy our fireworks. The plan was to go up to random people ask if they knew where we could obtain fireworks. We insulted a lot of people before we found a guy leaning at the edge of an alley with a brown bottle in a paper bag. He said, “Sure. Give me your money. I will go get them.” This was just what we were looking for. Maxim said: “To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.” Yes, I thought as I handed our $30.00 over to our go-between. He took off down the alley and never came back. We waited an hour. He robbed us. Maxim said: “Being robbed is a really great way of editing your belongings.” He was trying to make light of a bad situation. But it got worse. We emptied our pockets on the sidewalk. We had enough for the subway back to the ferry., but we didn’t have enough for the ferry back to New Jersey. We should’ve bought round trip tickets, like we did for the train. Maxim said: “Empty pockets never held anyone back.” The saying inspired us. We got on the subway. When we arrived at the ferry terminal our plan was to cry and beg to be let on the ferry with no tickets. At first the ticket seller told us to “fu*k off” he’d heard it all before, but we kept begging and crying and told him we’d been robbed. After ten minutes, he relented and told us to go ahead. Maxim said: “A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.” So true, I thought, as we boarded the ferry and sailed for New Jersey.

When we got home, we were empty-handed, but we had had an amazing day. I had fun playing with my Chinese puzzle box on the train ride back home. Maxim said, “Live and learn.” I agreed with that.

I hope you got an idea of what it was like to have Maxim around. He married my younger sister. They have a daughter named Anecdote.

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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Paroemion

Posted on September 17, 2024 | Leave a comment

Paroemion (par-mi’-on): Alliteration taken to an extreme where nearly every word in a sentence begins with the same consonant. Sometimes, simply a synonym for alliteration or for homoeoprophoron [a stylistic vice].

“Determined dogs drove dump-trucks down Drake Drive, dreadful, damned dogs.” This is the first line from the famous fiction writer Robert Magellan’s prizewinning novel “Dirty Dogs.” The 4 dirty dogs wear suits and ties and frequently speak in Latin catchphrases like “bona fide” or “alea iacta est.” Noteworthy for its astute use of alliteration, it prompted the “Colliding Consonants” fad, not only in literary works, but in speech too, where everyday speech became an alliteration arena, and so affected, that people were ticketed for its over-use. “Consonant Guards” were stationed in public places. They would record you on a phone and ticket you. If you took it to court, the recording would be played, and that would be that: a $25.00 fine would be levied and the defendant would be admonished by the judge to “Tone down the alliterations.”

How did this happen? How did alliterations make it into the legal system?

There was a woman in Texas, Taffy Jackson who never removed her hair curlers, and was as mean as a rattlesnake. She formed group called “Mothers Against Alliterations.” She argued that the Bible contains no alliterations, so they are Satan’s voice. Nobody bothered to check the veracity of her claim, so she became known as the “Chopper” chopping apart “consonanted couplings” and replacing them with non-alliterative words. She specialized in Texas school textbooks and novels. She earned permission to censor texts due to death threats and corrupt law enforcement departments, PLUS the huge following she had—millions of women had started wearing hair curlers all the time, some adopting terrycloth bathrobes and slippers too.

“Mothers Against Alliteration” caused unanticipated damage. “Fads” have almost become a thing of the past. There is fear that they will be regulated and become entangled in legal problems. After the alliteration fad was killed, men wearing high-heeled shoes emerged. The high-heel fad was quickly killed by “Real Men” a group from Texas founded by “Peener” Jackson, Taffy’s son who was a bouncer and professional wrestler. Peener was recently released from Huntsville State Prison where he spent six months for selling steroids to middle schoolers. Peener told us that the “Real Men” is his attempt to atone for past transgressions.

Just last week the “Equal Rights” fad bit the dust. It is part of a trend that will continue so long as there is social media and an infinite archipelago of burning hell-islands that it affords. Maybe literacy is the problem. Teaching people to read and write isn’t enough: it’s like giving a machine gun to a monkey.

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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Paromoiosis

Posted on September 16, 2024 | Leave a comment

Paromoiosis (par-o-moy-o’-sis): Parallelism of sound between the words of adjacent clauses whose lengths are equal or approximate to one another. The combination of isocolon and assonance.

Red lay cold, stiff, and dead. He should’ve listened to what I said. No brains, no helmet on your head. Now his brans are on the road, red and shiny like a condiment: like hot sauce. Your fate is your recalcitrance, your unbending unwillingness to take advice. I’m surprised you got this far—alongside Rte. 22 by “Hot Deals Hot Tubs.” They had to close for 3 hours while they cleaned you up and took away the remains of your stubborn unyielding life. You smoked too much. You drank too much. You ate too much ice cream. You engaged in risky behaviors. You marked targets at the rifle range. You bungee jumped off of every bridge in the New York Metropolitan Area. You raced Go-Karts. You ate Sushi. And there you go, riding away in the meat wagon to the morgue.

As your so-called best friend, I would be expected to give some kind of eulogy at your funeral. God, what will I say?

“Red was a risk-taker. But, he was also a gentle and kind human being. When he came to visit, he would pull Grandma out of her chair and make he march around the living room to get some ‘badly needed’ exercise. He would sit in Grandma’s chair counting cadence: ‘I don’t know but I’ve been told, marching grandma’s never grow old.’ He was kind. He cared. But his risk-taking was exiting. We could live out our own death-wishes by being around Red and watching him walk the tightrope he strung between life and death. Too bad he fell off and landed on Rte. 22. It is a New Jersey highway commensurate with Red’s character. It is like a bungee chord stretched across Central New Jersey. Driving it is like smoking five packs of Luckies per day, or running with scissors aimed at your throat. That’s why Red liked to ride his bike on it and that’s why we’re petitioning the New Jersey State Legislature to name a stretch of Rte. 22 ‘Red’s Way’ to celebrate what he stood for. Jon Bon Jovi has signed our petition. He’s also working on a song titled ‘Smear on 22.’

Red will never be forgotten. He will be remembered instead.”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the parking lot. The eulogy came through loud and clear over the PA system at the Stewart’s Drive-in where we held the funeral in Seaside Heights. Seaside heights is where Red took his first risk as a kid. He rode the “Wild Mouse” when he was 3.

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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Paromologia

Posted on September 15, 2024 | Leave a comment

Paromologia (par-o-mo-lo’-gi-a): Conceding an argument, either jestingly and contemptuously, or to prove a more important point. A synonym for concessio.

I told her I couldn’t take the dog for a walk because it was dark and I might get lost. She told me we’ve been living here for 12 years and it hadn’t happened, so it was nearly certain it wouldn’t happen now. Damn, I lost again. But, I’d give it another try. “But this could be the time.” She told me to shut up and handed me the dog leash. “But, what do think, I’m a flashlight.” She told me to shut up again and put the leash in my hand.

Losing to my wife had been going on for years, but I always had a new reason not to walk the dog up my sleeve, or ready to pull out of my ass. I didn’t hate the dog, but I hated walking him—walking, stopping, sniffing, peeing, and eventually squatting and dropping a steaming bomb. And then, I had to squat and pick it up in a little plastic bag. If anybody had told me 30 or 40 years ago that we’d be picking up our dog’s shit by the side of the sidewalk, I would’ve thought they were some kind of creepy poopoophiliac, on medication, and undergoing counseling for their condition. Anyway, I hated walking down the street with a bag of swinging hot poop in my hand. So, I had invented the “Poopvac.” It was like a Dust Buster for dog poop. It was a hollow walking stick with a rechargeable battery-powered a vacuum concealed in the handle. You inserted a specially designed condom-like receptacle in the walking stick’s tip. You’d hold it over a poop, pull the trigger, and it would suck up the poop and seal the receptacle in one smooth move. It was a failure. The receptacles had a tendency to explode, spewing poop from the walking stick’s handle. I tried to get funding to perfect it on “Go Fund Me.” I raised $16 and was mercilessly ridiculed. I gave up. A dark time in my life.

Two nights ago, I told my wife I couldn’t walk the dog because my foot hurt. I figured that was a winner, because she’d have a hard time proving it was a lie. She got up and went into the bathroom. I heard the medicine cabinet squeak open. She cam back with a bottle of Ibuprofen, told me to take two and shut up. I was had again. Would I ever come up with a reason not to walk the dog that would work—that would persuade her?

Last night was the end of it all. I told my wife I couldn’t walk the dog because I couldn’t find him. Somehow, he’d gotten lost. But actually, I had hidden him under the bed with a bag of Doggy Doodles dog treats. I was just starting to realize that putting him under the bed was a bad idea—he was housebroken, but not that broken. Just then, my wife walked past the bed and the dog came slithering out and ran in circles around her. She took him for a walk.

When she got back, she told me she was sick of the nightly dog walking bullshit, that she would walk the dog from now on. My new responsibility is “Housekeeper.” I keep the place clean, do the laundry and cook our meals. My wife walks the dog and pays the bills. Currently, I’m watching Julia Child reruns and working on a chicken fist puppet “Punch and Judy” routine.

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

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Posted in paromologia

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

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