Palilogia: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for epizeuxis.
“Dive! Dive! Dive!” I was a boxing coach and I specialized in having my boxers throw matches. “Dive” was a jargon word for “Hit the mat.” It was sort of poetic. I didn’t actually yell it. That would’ve given me away. Instead, I used hand signals, like a diver diving into a swimming pool. I’d put my hands together like I was praying and rock them up and down and silently mouth “dive, dive, dive.” It worked every time.
After throwing matches for 10 years, I decided I wanted to recruit and train a champ. I found this guy fighting off three thugs outside a bar. The thugs had their asses kicked—bloody noses, missing teeth, swollen heads, bruised necks. I thought “This guy is my meal ticket. Together, we’ll make millions!” His name was Peter Varniski. He was at least 6’7” and weighed nearly 300 lbs. He had a very pleasant demeanor and was a bird watcher. He wrote love poems and always had fresh red roses in his apartment. He was a vegetarian and his mother lived with him. She cooked, did the laundry, and kept the place clean. They watched “Monk” reruns together every night, when Peter was home. He had a pet hamster named “Hammy” that had a hamster tube running around the apartment. He and his mother, “Ma” enjoyed watching Hammy run through his tube.
I quickly found out that Peter was not a fighter. I was disappointed until I found out what put him in the fighting mood. The guys he had nearly beaten to death had called his mother a whore. He had exploded with rage. Anything bad said about his mother would send him into an unstoppable rage. I exploited this. Right before he climbed over the ropes I would whisper in his ear “That guy called your mother a whore.” He’d hit the ring swinging and knock out his opponent in 1-3 minutes. I had to hire two minders to get him out of the ring after each fight. If I hadn’t, he would’ve beat his opponent to death on the mat, getting in the way of the referee’s count. He’d calm down when he got back home, playing “Candyland” with his mom after taking a shower, and drinking a cup of tea.
I managed Peter for five years. We were undefeated and we made a good Buck. I retired and became a Blackjack dealer at “Rolling Moon,” the local gambling casino run by the mafia and managed by Sal Martino. I knew Sal from high school. One day, he told me he needed an enforcer for his loan business. The previous one, he told me had “Walked into a bullet.”
I told him about Peter. Just say “Your mother’s a whore” to him and he’ll beat the total shit out of somebody. It was too late when I realized you had to claim that somebody else said “Your mother’s a whore,” and point them out to Peter. Now, Sal was in a coma and Peter was in jail.
I had really screwed up. I learned a big lesson. Don’t say “Your mother’s a whore” to anybody ever. Just leave it alone. Mothers are a sensitive topic.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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