Tag Archives: example

Aphaeresis

Posted on November 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

I am nothing. I am low. I have no self-confidence, My pants are too tight, my feet smell, I own a cat named Buffalo Bill, my left hand is bigger than my right hand, I can’t thread a needle, I eat only canned food, I’ve never had an intimate relationship with another human. I am chronically constipated. I snore. I have many personal problems. I don’t get along with other people. I steal things. I am annoying. I keep pointing out people’s faults. I get punched in the face at least once per week—I bleed all over my shirt and whine. My life is a disaster, but, I’m gifted. Round and round I go. I am the world-record holding pirouetter.

When I am spinning I go into a trance, like a dervish. The world blends into one blur and my woes dissipate in the mist of dizziness. On one toe, spinning, spinning, spinning, my toe begins to smoke—my big toe is on fire metaphorically. For my record, I twirled non-stop for a week. I was hungry and sleep-deprived, but I kept going. Round and round like a merry go-round.

I have founded “The Whirlies,” a refuge for compulsive spinners that provides a no-questions-asked sanctuary. Any time, day or night, the sanctuary is open to people who need to safely whirl with arms outstretched, looking up at the ceiling, watching it blur into oneness. When the client is whirled out, they are provided transportation back to where they live—no matter where.

I discovered my whirling “gift” in college where I became a dizzy addict, needing to get dizzy at least once a day. I got hooked on dizziness after reading “Yearning, Spinning, Burning: Being Dizzy, Being Cool.” I got into being dizzy and my life improved. I would spin on one toe on the quad and crowds would gather and cheer me on. The adulation was addictive. At first it was the primary reason I spun. But now, as you’ve gathered, I seek spiritual sustenance from the spin. While in deep dizziness, I have had numerous visions. Last week I found myself pounding on the door of a chicken coop. I was down on my knees and crying. I was holding a cracked egg in one hand and a hatchet in the other. I was yelling “I will crush your baby,” Different-colored feathers were coming out of my mouth. Suddenly, one of the chickens turned into my mother and pecked me in the eye. I stood up and ran after her with my hatchet. When I caught up with her I chopped off her head. I felt no emotion. I was grateful that I had become a sociopath and just walked away with no remorse.

So, there are so many complexities to being human. Our maladies are a blessing and a curse. I know, I’m spinning my life away. But, it is my gift—up on one toe, torso spinning free, like a cosmic top, or an axle supporting the stars, or a washing machine spewing washwater down the drain.

I will put a spin on it

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

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Aphorismus

Posted on November 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

I couldn’t take it any more. My boss had sad it again: “I am reticent to promote you. I don’t know how we would utilize you as an Assistant Vice President.” I don’t know what he’s going to do when I correct him on his use of “reticent.” He uses it instead of hesitant. and yes, there’s also using “utilize” instead of plain “use,” but I”ll let that pass for now.

I began by leaving a dictionary on his desk open to “reticent” circled in red. He called me into his office, held up the dictionary and asked “What the hell is this?” I have spellcheck on my computer, I don’t need this. Even though somebody marked it up, go ahead and donate it to the Salvation Army. Now, get out of my office!”

Clearly, Plan A didn’t work. Plan B probably wouldn’t work either. I copied the definition of reticent from the dictionary. I blew it up to poster size and printed it on the office’s double-wide printer. I taped one inside the elevator, on the wall over the men’s room urinal, and on the wall over the office coffee cart. This, I was sure, would get the boss’s attention without putting me at risk.

The boss called me into his office. I knocked and he called me in. He was holding one of my posters: “I’m sure you’re behind this, sneaking around like the coward you are.” I told him it was embarrassing to work for somebody who used “reticent” like he did. Sometimes it made me feel like I wanted to stick my head in my briefcase like an ostrich. Language is the pillar of civilization. Misusing it can lead to civilization’s downfall. Even if it’s a single word, it is a slippery slope, steeply headed toward anarchy and social chaos.

My boss looked at me like he wanted vomit. But instead, he picked up his stapler and threw it at me. It hit me on the head and I fell to the floor bleeding from a cut on my forehead. He was waving the poster over me like a blanket. I sat up a dug my attorney’s card out of my wallet and gave it to the boss as I stood up. He looked at it and said, “What about that promotion? Still interested?”

I told him “Yes,” but I was reticent to make decisions on such short notice. He rolled up my poster and hit me over the head with it and we both laughed.

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

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Apocarteresis

Posted on November 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Apocarteresis (a-po-car-ter’-e-sis): Casting of all hope away from one thing and placing it on another source altogether.

“Time will tell.” I was waiting patiently for the unfolding of my success as a human being. Part of the problem was that I didn’t know what it meant to be a “success” as a human being, but yet I knew it was the goal of all people. My Uncle Arnold taught me this, but also told me there are an untold number of routes to success. Whatever your answer to the question “What is a human being?” is, will affect your striving. His idea was “nasty, brutish and short.” He was lucky to be short; he was only 5 feet tall. He could rejoice in that! One out of three without even trying!

He worked hard on nasty and brutish. He learned how to insult people and hurt their feelings and never apologize. He wrote a book of insults that made it to number 10 on the New York Times Bestseller List. It was titled “Kiss My Ass Yo-Yo.” It established nastiness as a valued character attribute. “Kiss my ass!” became the rallying cry of acolytes. Fights broke out on subways, in parking lots and even at places of worship, where clergy began insulting their flocks, and making it clear that they were unworthy of a heavenly afterlife. At one evangelical church, the Preacher looked up toward God and yelled “Kiss my ass” and the congregation did likewise, yelling at each other, and eventually wrestling and punching each other. It devolved into a riot and police were dispatched. Teargas was fired and things calmed down.

Then, there was “brutish.” It related mainly to hygiene and deform—it was considered brutish to burp, fart, poop and pee outside; copulate in public in plain view, and eat boogers while standing on street corners or waiting for public transportation. Table manners were also altered—people ate with their hands right off the table’s surface, wiped their mouths on their sleeves, and fought over food like raccoons and bears. They would also pick on weaker people, and make them carry them around in sedan chairs, or on their backs.

I could see why this construction of “human being” would appeal to my little uncle, and vast numbers of other people. But, it did not appeal to me. I tossed it off like a hot potato. Frankly, it took too much effort to achieve. So, I went with “people are the leisured beings.” This quotation is from “Lay Down and Wake Up.” It is one of those ancient works that seems more insightful as the centuries pass. It was written by an ancient Egyptian mattress salesman, who would give the book away free with every purchase. Just to give you an idea of its content, Chapter One is titled “Do Nothing, Be Happy!” “Doing nothing” is extremely difficult to define. One must grapple with the meaning-laden question: Is nothing something? Written in a dialogue form, the text is a series of questions and answers between a nasty and brutish young man named Ank-Trumphet, and a wise philosopher named Omari. They are laying down on separate couches under the shade of a tent.

Anyway, I am a follower of leisure. It is good. Like the ancient author of “Lay Down and Wake Up” I sell mattresses for a living. I lay on a mattress in the store’s window. I wear silk pajamas, and sometimes, sip a Mimosa.

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

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Apocope

Posted on November 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Apocope (a-pok’-o-pe): Omitting a letter or syllable at the end of a word. A kind of metaplasm.

I’m in trouble. It’s my babe. It’s my hair. I can’t sleep. My brain goin’ jangle— like a radiator heating up in the morning. Maybe “clank” is a better approximation of my brain’s sound. It’s not my head, but I swear other people can hear it. They look at me and cock their heads, like dogs do when they think they hear something. Of course, my brain’s clanking is there to make a single irrevocable point: My girlfriend left me. I’m going bald. I think that’s why she left me.

Toward the end she’d pick up my fallen hairs from the floor. She would roll a hair between her fingers and say “Hair today, gone tomorrow.” Or, “Ridin’ that train, high on Rogaine.” “Hair is not the play for you.” Then there’s the jokes: “I first noticed I was going bald when it took longer and longer to wash my face.”

I should’ve see it coming. She was beyond cruel. I don’t know why I stuck around as long as I did. I think I was in this thing called denial. I’m not an expert on denial, but I think it means you deny things. I denied everything about her. For two lost years, I denied that she was too beautiful to have a relationship with a balding boring accountant. I denied she was too smart for me. She is an aeronautical engineer and designed ballistic missiles for the government. Her largest feat is a missile that can hit a person in the eye from 20,000 miles away. I couldn’t even make a wastepaper basket basket with a crumpled up piece of paper from 2 feet away.

I’ve thought about committing Harry Carry— I’m trying to put a cheerful face on leaving this incarnation by punning. But my puns stink.

My x-girlfriend just called! She wants to get together and brainstorm because things are getting “pretty hairy” at work. She showed up around nine.

I answered the door and there she was. She pulled a rag out of her jacket and started polishing my head. At that point I came to the conclusion that she was a sadist. She started crying, and she pulled a toupee out of her pocket. She very carefully positioned it on my head and gave me big romantic kiss and told me she loved me. She told me when we first met she was neither “hair nor there.” But, since we’ve been separated she has “trimmed” her ambivalence down to nothing. She is sure it’s love.

I’m not so sure. I don’t understand her, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’ll see where it goes. In the meantime, we’ll “curl” up on the couch and watch another episode of “The Brady Bunch.”

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

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Apodixis

Posted on November 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

Apodixis (a-po-dix’-is): Proving a statement by referring to common knowledge or general experience.

It’s gonna get light in here if I flip that switch on the wall. There! I flipped the switch. The lights came on. Now you might believe me since I’ve established my credibility in the field of electrical engineering with a flip of a switch. Now, I will turn off the light. We will be thrown into darkness again and I can resume my experiment in togetherness, an exercise in the field of social psychology where someday I will establish myself as pretty good at it. We are going to see if being alone together in the dark will stimulate romantic activities, or the opposite.

Where are you going? It’s dark in here, don’t trip over anything. You forgot your coat! I’ll mail it to you. Now I have to go back onto the dating site. Why I am so repulsive to the women I meet on line?

So, I met Marylee. She was average looking, aside from being cross-eyed and missing one of her front teeth. We didn’t talk about her eyes and tooth. I figured I’d save that for when we got to know each other better. After meeting at my place and having sex countless times, I figured we knew each other long enough to talk comfortably about her eyes and tooth.

“Do you go to the dentist for regular cleanings and exams?” I asked. She looked at me like I was crazy. She said, I’m like everybody else. Of course I go.” “Have you ever considered having your front tooth replaced?” She looked at me like I had lost it: “What the hell are you talking about? I think I should leave.” “Wait! Let’s look in the hall mirror.” We stood in front of the mirror, her tooth was clearly missing, but she denied it. She said “It is not missing.” I said, “So what about your crossed eyes? Are they non-existent too?”

She ran into the kitchen and grabbed a spoon and aimed it at me. “Do you want me the scoop out your eyeballs? Do you think I am an idiot? You’re going to start making excuses to quit seeing each other by making up maladies that make me undatable. You don’t know how many men have played the cross-eyed and missing tooth cards on me!”

“No! No! I just want to get to know you better. I’ve been keeping track and we’ve had sex 142 times since we met 3 months ago. I know it’s creepy, to keep track, but I can’t help it. Anyway, it should be clear to you that I love you and I’m not going anywhere.

POSTSCRIPT

One night while they watched TV Marylee made her special herbal tea. After five minutes, it knocked him out cold. When he woke up late in the morning, there was blood all over the sheets, one of his front teeth was missing, and so was Marylee. He started to cry, when suddenly Marylee walked into the bedroom with a bag from CVS containing mouth wash and cotton balls. He got cleaned up and they stood in front of the hall mirror together and smiled

Now he understood—Marylee’s cultural norms and rituals were complex, but now, they were married. They had exchanged teeth, He has hers and she has his. The teeth were mounted on rings symbolizing their eternal commitment. Oh—Marylee had surgery to correct her crossed eyes.

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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Apophasis

Posted on November 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Apophasis (a-pof’-a-sis): The rejection of several reasons why a thing should or should not be done and affirming a single one, considered most valid.

It’s that time of year! I’m a professor at Dalmatian University, where I am the DeVille Chair of Puppy Husbandry. I am not sure what “husbandry” means. The best I can do is use my relationship with my wife as a foundation for my concept of puppy husbandry, and there’s really not much going on there—not exactly neglect, but very close. For example, I am not taking my wife with me on vacation. .

Being a Professor, I get the whole summer off. I have been planning my vacation for two weeks. I am having a tough time deciding where to go. I’ve done some research in connection with my vacation. He’s my reasoning about my top three destinations:

1. Whiner’s Puppy Mill. It is the biggest puppy mill in the US. All breeds, all day and all night. They have the highest per capita mortality rate in the US. Everything about the place is sub-standard. They should be shut down., but, they provide me with a healthy grant every year to support my research “and other things.” I think the yipping of hundreds of puppies day and night would drive me crazy, so I’m staying away. I get enough of that irritating craziness during the academic year.

2. Dog Walkers. Exercising dogs keeps them from chewing on furniture or other mischief due to being locked inside. Some people can walk five dogs at once, and there is a championship every year in Saratoga, NY, where they yield the race track to the dog walking championship—The Golden Paws—for two days. Dogs are added to each competitor’s clutch after they go around the track. 1 dog is added after each circuit. When a competitor’s dogs get tangled up or otherwise thwart their handler’s attempts to control them, their handler is eliminated. Last year’s winner finished with 44 dogs of various breeds. Some people say he is part dog, and that’s cheating. As much as this seems interesting, I’m not going. My bum hip won’t let me walk very far, so I wouldn’t have the kind of hands-on experience my research demands. There’s only so far you can get with observation without participation. So it’s nix to dg walking.

3. Mocking Bird Acres. This estate is nearly the size of Rhode Island. It has beach front, mountains, a lake, and a river. Golf carts are available for people like me with a hip problem. There are also clothing optional sectors along the beach and up in the mountains. The food is all gourmet—beautiful to look at and wonderful to eat. But the most attractive aspect of Mocking Bird Acres is it’s no dogs allowed policy. I can get away from dogs for two whole months. A hiatus from stinking, barking, whining, crapping dogs, not to mention, squirming puppies.

I don’t know why I settled on puppies in graduate school. But now, they make my life miserable. My main line of research has to do with determining why puppies stick out their tongues when they do. As of yet, after five years, I don’t even have a working hypothesis. But, nobody seems to care, so on I go.

And now, on I’ll go to Mocking Bird Acres.

POSTSCRIPT

Due to budgetary issues, Sumer vacations were shortened to 2 weeks. Faculty were assigned to “Summer Service” jobs—mowing grass, painting, sanitizing the dining hall, cleaning restrooms, polishing the bronze statue of the college’s namesake—a 100 foot tall Dalmatian. Everybody griped, but everybody had tenure. Nobody had been denied tenure in the college’s 200-year existence. Nobody wanted to risk dismissal for cause, for disobeying a direct order from a Dean or the President, so they did what they were told to do without a single complaint.

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

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Apoplanesis

Posted on November 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

Apoplanesis (a-po-plan’-e-sis): Promising to address the issue but effectively dodging it through a digression.

Is it true I had a five-year affair with my secretary along with two children, a condo and a place in the Bahamas? Whoah. Let’s back off a little bit. My wife tried to kill me last week with a handgun I gave her to protect herself with. Now, she’s in jail and there’s a bullet hole in the kitchen wall. Let me say again: my wife tried to shoot me. Thank God she’s such a bad shot, or I’d be laid out on a slab at the Coroner’s.

Given the lax safety standards, I never should’ve bought her the gun. She was becoming paranoid and wearing a holster around the house. It was disconcerting seeing her grilling chicken with a .45 strapped to her hip. She almost killed the Amazon delivery person. She was persistent in banging on our door when nobody answered. My wife pulled the .45 and was about take shot at the door when the delivery person identified herself and my wife holstered her gun with a smug look on her face. The package contained a fast-draw cowboy holster. Now, my wife began practicing her fast draw in front of a full length mirror with my picture taped on it. When I saw that, my worry really kicked in. My wife was going crazy. What could I do?

We went to see a psychologist, Dr. Fudgy. He came highly recommended. He had gotten his Doctorate on Zoom from Mt. Insight University, which is so technologically advanced that it is “Delocated.” It has no physical presence anywhere, which is good for the environment. We would meet with Dr. Fudgy one a month. The meetings were vexed. Dr. Fudgy would ask my wife how she was doing and she would spit at him and yell, “What the hell do you think Fudgy?” He would start to respond, and she would stand up and point at the ceiling and yell “See that. It’s not the floor Fudgy!” At that point, Dr. Fudgy would instruct her to put some pills in a paper bag he gave her. He called them “Whoah Nelly Pills.” He told her to take two every half-hour for the next half-hour and then take one per hour for the next hour. It was confusing, but we complied.

We got home, and my wife followed the pill-taking regime. It was getting late and she passed out on the living room floor. I checked her pulse to make sure she was alive. She was alive, but her breathing was shallow. I was thirsty, so I drove to Cliff’s and got an apple juice. I also got a slice of pepperoni pizza, and 3 Take Five scratch-off lotto tickets. When I got home my wife was sitting on the couch holding a fork up to her head. She said: “I have an itch.” Things were spinning out of control. I almost called 911, but decided not to because I couldn’t describe what was going on in a way that warranted the call.

My wife went to bed and so did I. I was hoping that the next day would be a better day. I was going to get up early and see the sunrise and listen to the birds singing. I was sure, that with time, my wife’s problems would disappear under the guidance of Dr. Fudgy. But instead, she’s in jail for attempting to murder me.

If I could think of her motive, that would help me deal with this unanticipated tragedy. I have wracked my brain. I can’t think of a reason for what she did. All I can do is send my thoughts and prayers to her jail cell.

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

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Aporia

Posted on November 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

You’ve heard of a Leprechaun. What about a Supercon? His empire of lies stretches around world. The is no rainbow or pot gold—there’s just a thick fog and a crock of shit.

What is the power he has over people? How does he get them to join him in his mad conspiracy theories and everything else? How does he get people to march on the capital with bullhorns blaring, beating up police, and breaking windows?

I believe it is his hair and dentures. His dentures are as white as shaved ice. Each tooth is an idol to a god or goddess of oral hygiene and beauty, and together, to the Smile God that they all share a common interest in as the Oral Pantheon. They have no fillings or gaps, or other defects deemed unsatisfactory by the One Great God of human beauty.

His dentures project an air of respectfulness, like an expensive car or a boat. This “Denture Power” attracts people like an expensive car or a boat. There is longing that, like a magnet, pulls people along is his wake. One problem he has with this, is people following him can’t see his dentures from behind and their desire for him begins to wane. This is where his hair comes into play.

Combed and stiffened, it looks like a complex freeway clover leaf, feeding into a circular race track running uphill into a wing, finally ending in a wave rolling back to the top of his head. His hair can be seen and work its magic from 360 degrees. No front or rear, its bright blond aura is everywhere. Its intricate comb-job belies the fact that it is a pile of hair—its greatest power stems from this fact: it looks like Mt. Sinai. One can imagine Moses climbing it, undaunted by the stiffener and the comb-rows. One may believe that his hair has a sacred aspect; that it may feed his brain with divinely-mandated commandments, that may supplement or alter the original ten. So there is a quality of piety aroused by the hair, and a feeling of religiosity from following the hair. The First Commandment has already been changed: “You shall have no other hair before me.” Some theologians have objected. They are missing and it is feared they have “climbed the stairway to heaven.”

So, the entanglement of religion and beauty through perfect dentures and a mountain of blond hair induces fervent allegiance to the bearer of the teeth and hair. if somebody stole his dentures and shaved his head, his reign would come to and end. A plot to do just this was uncovered in New York. A small cabal of dentists and hairdressers was conspiring to take the teeth and the hair. Their plan was to rush the stage at a rally, carrying M-15s, rope, and a folding chair. As soon as he was tied to the chair, the dentist would remove his dentures. Then, the hairdresser would fire up his rechargeable clippers and shave the villain’s head. Sitting there toothless and bald, it was the conspirators’ hope that the scales would fall from the audience’s eyes and they would rush the stage and kill him. Well, it wasn’t meant to be, The conspirators’ lair in the back room of a local Speedy Lube was raided by local police before they could execute their plan. When the conspirators raised the hands they were shot for making threatening gestures. One was found with his middle finger raised.

Well, there you have it. Is this what happens when truth speaks to power? Are we stuck with beautiful teeth and mountainous hair as inducements to vote for their bearers? Is democracy in trouble?

George Washington had wooden teeth and wore a wig. He did a damn good job. What is the significance of this?

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

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Aposiopesis

Posted on November 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

Aposiopesis (a-pos-i-o-pee’-sis): Breaking off suddenly in the middle of speaking, usually to portray being overcome with emotion.

I was always about to cry, but I never did, i’’d just let myself be overcome by emotion. Sure, crying can be considered as a sign of being overcome by emotion, but not for me. I have my reaso. . . . my reasons—I’m sorry I get all choked up when I think about my reasons for not crying. Basically, there’s only one reason: I can’t cry. My body’s physiology won’t permit me to cry. It is a dominant gene in my family’s heritage. None of us can cry, not matter what the trauma is. When my grandma jumped off the Goethells Bridge, landed in a garbage scow, and was killed by a shard of glass from a bottle of cheap gin, I almost pulled a sob, but alas my genes wouldn’t let me. And, when my pet kitty became a floormat under a car tie in the street in front of my house, I looked up and asked, “Why God?” But, there’s no catharsis there. One more example: Grandapa choked to death on a turkey bone. It was on Thanksgiving. Only ten minutes before Grandpa choked, we had given thanks for all our blessings. Nobody knew the Heimlich Maneuver and grandpa writhed around on the floor choking. As he turned purple, Aunt Gabby thought to call 911. But it was too late. I could feel my whole being wanting to cry, but again, my genetic makeup wouldn’t let me.

I couldn’t live this way—with no outward expression of grief. I started looking for answers. I ran across Stoicism—the idea that everything is open to interpretation, and you can interpret them in ways that are good for you. I tried really hard to interpret incidences prompting grief in ways that were good for me. But I still WANTED to cry. However, if I told people I was a Stoic, they accepted my failure to cry as a consequence of my philosophic commitments—a criterion immunizing my dry eyes from rebuke.

This was fine for me, but when I was with family, I still felt the need for a shared overt expression. My cousin Carl, who worked at the comedy club “Laugh Track” as an MC, nailed it! We can’t cry together, so, why don’t we laugh together? We would have to find the humor in tragedy, but if we could do it, we could share an experience.

Together as a family. So, we spent a little time developing punch lines and jokes we could deploy. What about Grandpa’s choking death? We came up with some lines that were somewhat funny: “Grandpa got so choked up he died.” “Grandpa had a bone to pick.” “Who said a turkey can’t kill you?” “He should’ve stuck with the mashed potatoes.”

Over the years, we’ve all become stand-up comics. We laugh in the face of death.

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

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Apostrophe

Posted on November 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

Apostrophe (a-pos’-tro-phe): Turning one’s speech from one audience to another. Most often, apostrophe occurs when one addresses oneself to an abstraction, to an inanimate object, or to the absent.

Me: I came here today to replenish your stock of belief—to expand it, round it out, and give it new life. I am pleased that you were released from home confinement, remove your ankle bracelets and be here now. Each of you has wronged your fellow man in some way. Mr. Rice—you embezzled millions from your brother’s dog leash company. Mr. Gonnocle, you ran over your neighbor’s dog on purpose—you killed it just because it started barking at 6:00 am every morning. And Mr. Triggert, you burned down your neighbor’s garden shed because it reminded you of something bad that happened to you in a garden shed on your 40th birthday.

I could go around the room with brief summaries of everybody’s crimes. But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to freshen your beliefs and give you a reason to go back home, put on your ankle bracelet, and watch TV or something.

Now, I will summon Belief: ‘Oh Belief! Driver of decision. Purveyor of error. Harbinger of the future. We are free to believe what we want to believe—unlike truth, you don’t dictate with knowledge, rather, you render yourself likable and it is affection that stimulates our embrace—often to determine what to do next. The future can’t be known—it is your province, Sweet Persuasion, or, if I may say, Peitho.’

Ok, so “Belief” epitomizes your freedom. It does no compelling like truth. If you want to go to the corner store, you can take the shortest route, or, you can first take a bus to Buffalo, and then, turn around and come back to the store. It is up to you and there is no intrinsic reason not to to take the bus. “Common sense” may come the closest, but it does not rule out “take the bus”—it needs to be balanced, vetted, discussed, argued.

Now, Mr. Vetch, this should be especially relevant to you as far as you actually stole a bus, hijacked it to Buffalo, and then attempted to hitch hike back to Syracuse to go to the movies, and burn down a vacant motel. Can you clue us in as to your thought processes?

Mr. Vetch: Yes. It was all a matter of belief. I believed I was doing the right thing, and I can believe whatever I want to believe. Sure, there are mental health issues surrounding my decision making. There is the lobster that follows me everywhere and nips me on the back of my ankle if I don’t do what he tells me to do. It hurts, so I comply.

Me: I looked down and noticed the lobster standing behind Mr. Vetch. He had his claws raised and was making the snipping motion like what he probably made when he nipped Mr. Vetch’s ankles. But what was even weirder: the lobster was smoking a filter-tipped cigarette and blowing smoke rings up Mr. Vetch’s pant leg.

I had to get a grip. Here I am in the middle of talking about belief, and I am confronted with something unbelievable that I believe, making me mildly insane, I think. But, if two of us see the lobster, maybe that’s proof of its existence. But only I and Mr. Vetch see the lobster. But now, I have a lobster following me!

I am constantly trying to confirm its existence. I confront strangers in elevators and elsewhere, “Do you see the lobster on the floor behind me?” Then, one day I decided to catch the lobster and eat it. I bought a net at Dick’s and cornered the lobster in a stairwell, scooping him up, and running to my apartment. I boiled some lightly salted water and put the squirming lobster in and slammed down the lid. The lobster screamed and I felt bad for him, but not bad enough not to eat him.

I told Mr. Vetch how I had gotten rid of my lobster. He said, he might try it, but his lobster had stopped nipping him on the ankle, and he thought they could make a go of it.

I got lonely. I bought a live lobster from the lobster tank at Hannaford’s. I put it on the floor and walked away, but the lobster didn’t follow me. I boiled him up, made him into lobster salad, and ate him on a bun for lunch the next day.

I’m pretty sure I made the right decision.

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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Apothegm

Posted on November 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

Apothegm (a’-po-th-e-gem): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, gnome, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“If you can’t cut the mustard, put the baloney away.” Anon

This is one of my favorite sayings. It originated in Germany where mustard and baloney have deep cultural significance. Although “put the baloney away” can have a bawdy meaning for a German, it is usually read as social commentary on bragging, along the lines of the English saying “Put up or shut up.” Or, “Money talks, bullshit walks.”

Sayings, of course, have cultural roots. Like the Japanese: “Wake up and smell the sushi.” Or the French: “Don’t stack your Macaroons.” Or the English: “If the bloody tea’s hot, sip it.” Or Russia: “Don’t marry a nesting doll.” Or Iceland: “If it looks like Northern Lights, it is.” Or the Dutch: “You tolerate it, it tolerates you.”

In most cases, sayings are freighted with deep, metaphoric meaning. Let’s have a look at one of the most vexing and important sayings in Western thought: “A stitch in time saves nine.” At some point in history, the various nuances of “stitch” were more readily discerned. Probably, the primary referent for “stitch” when the saying was coined was sewing. In contemporary discourse, it can refer to the pain you get in your side from jogging, or it can mean being under the spell of humor, as “I was in stitches,”

So, we have established that “stitch” refers to sewing. But at this point we fall into a hermeneutic abyss with the introduction of “time.” What is a “stitch in time?” The answer may stretch from Einstein to “Back to the Future.” But we see by what follows—the stitch in time “saves nine [stitches]”. So, the “stitch in time” may refer to slowing sewing so you make fewer errors that you have to go back and redo—the “nine” saved from haste. Now we see the intertextuality of cultural truths: “Haste makes waste” is a Canadian version of “stitch in nine.” It can be recognized as the Canadian version because it has a polite, yet blunt, tenor.

So, as I.A. Richards, the mountain climbing philosopher of language said: “Say it don’t spray it!” Or Nietzsche: “In the valley of the used cars, low mileage is king.” Sayings are grist for our learning mill. Whenever we use a saying, we punctuate the moment with something that makes us look smarter than we will ever be.

We stand on the shoulders of NBA Centers..

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

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Appositio

Posted on November 4, 2023 | Leave a comment

Appositio (ap-po-sit’-i-o): Addition of an adjacent, coordinate, explanatory or descriptive element.

This was going to be the best day I ever had—the stars were aligned like they had never been aligned before. The most powerful sign was astrological. My sign is Capricorn, the goat. Once in 1million years Polaris would be in the sky directly over my goat barn. This is a monumental event.

I was sitting in my goat barn waiting for something to happen. After three hours with no cosmic event. I was about to give up when I noticed my goats were gathering in their outside pen. Surely, this had some significance. Like all goats they liked to climb up on things and stand there going “Meh,” but tonight they climbed up on each other and made a pyramid like Chinese acrobats. I walked inside the pyramid. I was spun around in circles turning red and blue. I could feel my body changing. My arms turned into legs, I grew a goatee and a nice set of horns. I could only speak in Meh. The goats disassembled the pyramid and I was left standing there. One of the goats said to me in meh, “This used to be my farm. One night, I got sucked into the pyramid thing just like you. I tried everything to get back to my human form—wearing pants, taking baths in the water trough, going for rides with you on the tractor.” “What now?” I asked.

“There is a wizard in the Dell who actually owns the farm and turns his tenants into goats so he can rent the farm to a new tenant at a higher price and make more money. It sounds like a pretty stupid idea, but Dell wizards are not known for their intelligence.” my new friend said. “We must visit him,” I said.

We did not know what a Dell looked like, so it took awhile to find the Wizard. He lived in a hovel—if you leaned on it it could fall down. He aimed a pitchfork at us and asked in Meh, “What do you want with me?” I said, “We want to be made human again.” He said, “I thought you’d never ask” and rainbow flames shot out of his pitchfork. The pitchfork malfunctioned. We were turned into fauns. At least we were Hal human! The wizard apologized.

We were feeling lustful. We headed into town to see if we could live up to our ready-made reputations. Our first stop was Betty Boom Boom’s Brothel. Just imagine! The next morning, when I awoke, Betty herself was snuggled up next to me. She asked me if I wanted to be Manager-in-chief of her brothel. I said “Yes, as long as I can have one large fresh carrot per day and you’ll dispose of my annoying fellow traveler.” Betty said, “Done and done.” Later that day, there was a frightful squealing sound out in the yard.

I couldn’t bring my self to look. I was a faun. I was running a brothel. What could be better?

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

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Ara

Posted on November 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

Ara (a’-ra): Cursing or expressing detest towards a person or thing for the evils they bring, or for inherent evil.

Mothers. Who died, and put them in charge? Nag, nag, nag to no avail except a feeling of worthlessness and anxiety. Do my socks smell? What about my armpits? Do they smell? Do I smell? Why should it matter? Because Mother makes it matter by bringing it up all the time: “Son, you have B.O. you better go soak in some laundry detergent. Then, you’ll smell as fresh as a sunny May day—72 degrees with a mild breeze and Crocus coming up in everybody’s front yard.” She made being clean like a peak experience in life—like watching your child being born or hiking the Appalachian trail from beginning to end, or finding a coin worth thousands of dollars of dollars in your change at the grocery store.

I guess what I hate is the prodding it takes to be normal, always needing somebody else to frame it for you, because you do not know what it is. My mother would ask me: “You are on your way to school and see a house in flames. What should you do?” I wanted to get it right, and my mother was going to determine that from my answer. The words “normal” and “right” had no meaning for me—they just were said to see their effect on others, which would determine their meaning for the time being. So, I ventured an answer to Mother’s question: “I would keep on way to school. The people in the house will die no matter what I do. There’s not even a garden hose to put out the fire as far as I know. But learning is more important. I don’t want to be late to school. I might miss something.” No matter what I answered Mother would slap me across the face and yell “Moron!” So, given the repetition of question/answer/slapping sequence I can think of myself as a Moron. It was a comfortable feeling, knowing I would never amount to anything, and striving was unnecessary for me to achieve my potential, because it was nonexistent. I was on a cruise—no corporate ladders to climb, no worrying about body odor except when my mother came visit. She reaffirmed my moronhood, and the leisurely lifestyle it affords me. But, I still hate her because she didn’t ask me more questions I couldn’t answer correctly, deepening my moronic self concept.

When you’re wrong all the time, nobody expects you to be right. This is a wonderful feeling: nobody expects anything from you. You are free! This is the moron’s credo.

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

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Articulus

Posted on November 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

Articulus (ar-tic’-u-lus): Roughly equivalent to “phrase” in English, except that the emphasis is on joining several phrases (or words) successively without any conjunctions (in which case articulus is simply synonymous with the Greek term asyndeton). See also brachylogia.

“Stand up, sit down, roll over, beg, speak.” My father thought it was funny to treat me like a dog. He nicknamed me “Hardy” after the neighbor’s dog. Whenever our neighbor called their dog, I would come running. Everybody thought it was hilarious, including me. I was only 12, so if my dad thought it was funny, so did I. When I got older, my neighbor’s wife started calling me Hardy. Of course, I’d come running. When I got to her front door, I made a little whining sound I had developed to enhance the realism of my dog-hood. She would open the door with her bathrobe open and I would “chase my tail” on the porch and make happy dog yipping sounds.

She’d hold out a cupcake and ask me if I wanted “a treat, boy.” 0f course I said “Yes” and sat with my “paws” up by my chin. She hand-fed me the cupcake and asked me if I wanted to come in and play ride the pony. I loved ride the pony. She made whinnying sounds and bucked.

We were in the middle of our ride when the police burst in and put handcuffs on her. I barked and growled at them and they just shook their heads and told me to go home. When I got home, my dad told me that now I was 18 and “you are longer Hardy.” He told me I had turned 18 the previous week, but he had forgotten to tell me. He gave me a new set of knee pads even though he told me my dog days were over.

I went to the police station, told them I was 18 and showed my birth certificate as proof. They shook their heads and looked at me with pity in their eyes: “your neighbor was arrested for shoplifting a 20 foot extension ladder from Ace Hardware,” one of them said. I was allowed to visit her in her cell. I got on her lap, whined, and licked her face. She scratched me behind the ear and said, “Good boy.” She told Mr she stole the ladder so we could elope—so we wouldn’t be killed by her husband. With that, I was so overcome with emotion, I started humping her leg. She yelled “No! Sit!” and pushed me away. I calmed down and just sat there looking at her. Suddenly, she said, “It’s over.” I sat up and begged, but it did not work. She was having none of it.

One of the conditions of her release was to stay away from me and undergo psychological counseling. I looked for a new master but had no luck. Evidently, ours was a rare condition. I blamed it all on my father—if he hadn’t nicknamed me Hardy, none of this would’ve happened. At night, when I howl over my lost love, he yells “Shut up or I’ll lock you in the garage!”

I’ve entered counseling with Dr. Mastiff at the Fern Frond Clinic. We play fetch for one hour per week. Sometimes, we bark at each other.

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

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Aschematiston

Posted on November 1, 2023 | Leave a comment

Aschematiston: The use of plain, unadorned or unornamented language. Or, the unskilled use of figurative language. A vice. [Outside of any particular context of use or sense of its motive, it may be difficult to determine what’s “plain, unadorned or unornamented language.” The same is true of the “unskilled use of figurative language.”]

“The bouncing corn dog hit me in the ankle—it’s stick stabbed me in the ankle like an angry knitting needle steeped in revenge on the edge of unfathomable cryptic incidences without valor or heroism—just a random wound on life’s fabric—the vulnerable skin—the bag of life.”

This is fictional, although it is hard to identify it as such. I am a writer looking for a break among the rubble of hope, meeting out failure and displaying it in front of so many eyes. It used to be anybody with a stylus could bang out stories in cuneiform on clay tablets. It took so much effort just to write, only the gifted could afford to put in the time and effort it took to write something. The very first story ever written was about a Turkish shoe salesman who is beheaded for selling uncomfortable shoes to the Caliph. The Caliph’s Minister of Footwear purposely gave the wrong size to the shoe salesman because he had seduced his wife with a pair of golden, jewel encrusted, running shoes. When she put on the shoes, they made her run to the shoe salesman’s house every night at 8:00pm. On her way one night, she was run over by a chariot. The chariot cut her in half, but a Genie took pity on her for her foolishness and put her back together and restored her life. But there was a problem: the Genie put her together backwards. Her butt faced frontward, so her feet faced backward. She wore a rear-view mirror on her shoulder so she could see where she was going. It is said that this is where the saying “ass backwards” originated.

Now, everybody has a computer. Everybody can become a writer. Every day, every publishing house receives an avalanche of email, proffering poems, short stories and books that nobody reads and that are responded to with short stock phrases: “Your work shows promise, but send it somewhere else,” “Your work made my eyes water, not with tears, but trying to make sense of it,” “Thank you for your submission. Please make this your last.” Their rule thumb is to randomly choose one manuscript out of every 25,000 manuscripts. This is why there’s so much crap being published. The only place that actually reviews manuscripts is China where there is a surplus of cheap labor. “Big Mao Press” is my favorite. They publish everything I submit, but they don’t pay royalties. They send me a framed picture of Mao and a copy of his “Little Red Book.”

Don’t let me discourage you with the truth of the futility of your hope to be a writer. If you aspire to be a writer, you will fail, unless you give “Big Mao Press” a spin. There’s no shame in being a Commie dupe. You won’t be the first or the last. Melania Trump’s book “Living With a Piece of Shit,” was published by “Big Mao Press” and she can’t even write!

Anyway, I am going to sort of give up on writing. Once, I wanted to write the great novel, like “Atlas Shrugged,” or Herbert Hoover’s “American Individualism.” But alas, it isn’t meant to be. I have completed one book: “The Talking Fire Hydrant.” I intend to submit it every day to a different publisher. Once I’ve exhausted them all, I’ll submit it to “Big Mao Press.” In the meantime, “Big Mao Press” has sent me a mail-order editor all the way from China—she and I travel in the vintage Chevy generously provided by the Chinese government. We drive to military installations, and take pictures in preparation for writing a travel guide together tentatively titled “Goodbye American Pies.”

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

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Asphalia

Posted on October 31, 2023 | Leave a comment

Asphalia (as-fay’-li-a): Offering oneself as a guarantee, usually for another.

I am a professional witness, but not in courts of law. I specialize in backing up people’s lies. I make people believe I’m a close friend of the accused. I have a stock list of characteristics. For example, we grew up together, we went to school together, we served in the Army together. Then there’s the things the accused has done proving their character. Here I use made-up stories about “the time they. . .” Like saving me from drowning, telling the truth even if they suffered, never taking opportunities to cheat.

I back everything up with vivid stories if I have to give evidence. We also make up a story of how we know each other and why their partner has never met me before, or even heard about me. We talk about the falling out we had, that had kept us apart for awhile. I have to make sure that the falling out does not reflect badly on my client—it is a challenge. I usually summon a third person who was to blame, lying to both of us about each other, making us angry at each other. The story that supports the legitimacy of our mutual anger is that it was induced by the third party stealing our TV and then blaming each of us separately for stealing it. We believed them, blaming each other, and ended our friendship. Then the person who had stolen our TV invited us to dinner. There was our Tv sitting in the livingroom. We beat them to a pulp, took our TV back, and became friends again.

My current client is a real challenge. I have to convince his accuser that the sexually explicit videoclip is inconsequential, based on my good character—on what I have to say on their behalf. Pretty much every road was closed to me. So, I went with the “it’s normal” rationale—that it isn’t such a bad thing to cheat, especially if it does not happen too often. Then, I took a turn down “Revenge Road.” I told her that cheating with his best friend (aka me) would anger him and then humble him, while at the same time affording her the opportunity to taste forbidden fruit and get even. Once they got even with each other, they could go back to their relationship on an equal footing. She thought it was a good idea. We slept together. She told him.

I underestimated the depth of his double standard. He went berserk. I’m in the hospital with three broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. The girlfriend has been missing for 2 weeks. The police found traces of her blood in the boyfriend’s apartment along with a recently fired Glock. The boyfriend is being held on suspicion of murder. I’m not being held for anything yet.

I’ve given up my witness business. I’m thinking of becoming a life coach.

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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Assonance

Posted on October 30, 2023 | Leave a comment

Assonance (ass’-o-nance): Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words

I shot my snot across the room, sticking to my mother’s tomb it swung in the candlelight, I didn’t handle it well. Visiting my mother’s tomb has become a funny thing. The family stands there feeling no remorse for letting her die in pain, of neglect in her room, alone. In fact, we often break out in laughter.

This is a lesson for those who would be hated.

Mother was a horror. All three of us children were beaten every day with a length of lead pipe, three hard whacks per day. One on the butt and two on the back of the legs. She fed us four slices of baloney, with mustard once a week—on Sundays. In addition, we would have a mug of hot lemon water. I considered this my dessert.

For clothing, she knitted us “sheaths” out of wool. We were all boys—the three of us. The wool sheaths were very embarrassing to wear. They looked like dresses. The wool was undyed, so we looked like sheep. Mother would “herd” us around the house barking like a sheep dog and making us “bleat” by poking us with her crook and snagging us around the neck. Then, before bed, we had to line up in front of our bedroom door and recite “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

We had no idea where mother’s obsession with sheep came from. My brother Teddy, who was the littlest, loved being a sheep. He loved saying “What’s so baaad about this?” Well, it was pretty bad. At school we were mercilessly teased. The principal did nothing. He loved my mother, and rightfully so: she was beautiful. Then it happened. We found a copy of “The Three Little Pigs” by accident in a cardboard box in the garage. Although the story didn’t perfectly fit our predicament, it was close enough. The biggest one of us, Carl, would pound on the door in the middle the night and yell “I am the big bad wolf and I’m going knock the door down and eat you.” We hadn’t thought beyond that, but we did it. When Carl yelled, Mother came running out of her room yelling, “Eat the three little sheep!” She slipped and fell down the stairs. She was unconscious. With much effort, we dragged he back to her room and tied her to her bed. That’s where she died one year later, it was disgusting, but necessary. The coroner determined that she died from an eating disorder. We were free!

Before we left the tomb, we recited “Mary Had a Little” and and each threw a rock at mother’s crypt.

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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Assumptio

Posted on October 29, 2023 | Leave a comment

Assumptio (as-sump’-ti’o): The introduction of a point to be considered, especially an extraneous argument.

See proslepsis (When paralipsis [stating and drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over] is taken to its extreme. The speaker provides full details.)

A: I don’t understand your obsession with “Oh Susana.” You don’t even own a banjo and never travel anywhere. But most important: you don’t know anybody named Susana who is your “true love.” I don’t think you even know what a true love is. The closest you come is petting the dog. So, next time you’re taking a shower why not sing “The Who” song about rain? It will help preserve my sanity.

B: Well, I’m not going to respond to your criticism, but you don’t know very much about music, “Oh Susana” was number one on the “Freaky 50 Song List” for 70 years. It was knocked off by “Incense and Peppermint” in the late 1960s. The line “the sun was so hot I froze to death” is a definitive piece of psychedelia, fascinating trippers for 100s of years. The band “Cream” claimed it as their primary inspiration with its spaced-out lyrics and wah wah banjo—an innovation rivaling the fuzz box and the pedal steel guitar. Little Stevie Foster, who wrote the song, was known for his use of controlled substances. He would sit down by the Swanee River with his minstrel buddies smoking pot and fishing for catfish. It is said he wrote “Hard Times Come No More” after he caught a 50 pound catfish on a trot line. He also coined “wow man” as a response to things that moved him. In fact, he died at his desk composing a song titled “Wow Man.” From what we can gather, and what musicologists assert, the song was inspired by a ladybug that had crawled up Little Stevie’s pant leg when he was reading the Bible as he sat on a log in the woods.

Well, there you have it. There is no good reason to criticize my frequent singing of “Oh Susana.” It is a classic. It has mind-bending psychedelic overtones. And, I did’t go into depth on the exemplary image of love it portrays, which alone should give you pause and open your heart.

A. I never realized how mentally disturbed you are. Your rationale for singing “Oh Susana” all the time is grounded in looney musings that completely evade the facts. You defame Stephen Foster. I don’t know what to do.

B: Let’s sing “Oh Susana.”

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

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Asteismus

Posted on October 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

Asteismus (as-te-is’-mus): Polite or genteel mockery. More specifically, a figure of reply in which the answerer catches a certain word and throws it back to the first speaker with an unexpected twist. Less frequently, a witty use of allegory or comparison, such as when a literal and an allegorical meaning are both implied.

He: What time is it?

She: I don’t know but I use it a lot in my cooking. Thyme and time.

He: You’re so damn witty, but I get tired of not getting straight answers to almost all of my questions.

She: I’ll try and curtail my crooked answers. Do you still want to go rock climbing? I found a new place to go out by the old coal mine.

He agreed. They got their equipment, threw it in the back of his truck and took off. It was a two-hour drive so they decided to stop for lunch. They saw a place and pulled over. It was called “Clacky’s Lunch.” It was pretty run down, but they didn’t care. Inside, it was decorated in a coal mining motif—pick axes and the walls, minecarts with plywood boards on top for tables, and miner’s lamps on the tables along with miner’s hard hats holding napkins and salt and pepper shakers.

A woman with coal dust her face poured our water and gave them their menus. She said, “Today’s special is the Mine Shafter sandwich —baloney and mustard on white, with chips and an iced tea for $12.00.”

He: We’re in a bit of a hurry, so, even though it seems a little expensive, we’ll take two of the specials.

They heard laughter in the kitchen.

When the waitress returned to the table she was carrying two plates of coal. She said: “Santa doesn’t like you. That’ll be $24.00. .”

He: What the hell is this bullshit?”

Five men came out of the kitchen carrying pickaxes. They looked ready to kill.

She: What did we do to make you so mad? Please don’t hurt us.

Man: Sorry, but this is what we do. We kill a customer every ten days and grind them up for burgers, meat sauce, meatballs, meatloaf and more. We’ll take you down to the mine and kill you and bring your bodies back up here for grinding. Come on, let’s go.

They were dragged fighting and kicking to the mine where they each took a pickaxe to the head. They were carried back up to the restaurant where they were dismembered, filleted and run through the meat grinder. Then, one of the men looked at the calendar hanging on the wall: “Jeez we’re one day off—today is only 9 days.”

The five of them laughed and continued taking turns washing their pickaxes off in the kitchen sink. They had been working as a team since high school when they killed their friends’ pets for fun. They really lucked out finding their waitress, a psycho killer they met at the bus station who was returning to town after 15 years in prison for “mutilating” her next door neighbor. Eating customers was her idea. It had increased their profit margin, and improved the quality of their lives. She could hardly wait for the next ten days to pass.

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

Astrothesia

Posted on October 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

Astrothesia (as-tro-the’-si-a): A vivid description of stars. One type of enargia.

It’s August in Maine. I’m outside. It’s 11.00pm. I look up. There is no moon. The sky is glowing with starlight. The dark black sky contrasts with the with the stars, or do the stars contrast with the dark black sky? Forever they’ve held the night, present since the beginning of time. They guide us. They delight us. They inspire us. We wish “upon” them.

That’s why I’m out here by the ocean tonight—I hear the waves. I see the stars piled together in the Milky Way. From the vast twinkling sky full of blinking stars, I must choose one to wish upon. When I look up, it has to be the first star I see. That will be my wishing Star. I look up and make my wish:

Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have this wish I wish tonight.

“Dear Star, I want a chainsaw.”

There, it’s done. Maybe I should’ve been more specific with a brand name, size, or color. I was hoping for a Poulin or Craftsman big enough to cut down the giant oak tree that was going to land on my parents’ house in the next big storm. I had worked one summer for a tree service “Sawdust Saviors.” So, I could handle the cutting. What was going to be really hard to handle is our neighbor. He owns the tree and he refuses to have it removed.

Two days later, a chainsaw showed up on the front porch. It was my “Plan B.” I was almost certain my star wish for a chainsaw wouldn’t work, so I had ordered a Poulin from Amazon. Two days after that an empty box with a note in it showed up on the porch. The note accused me of “double dipping” and I was prohibited from Star-wishing forever. I thought it was some kind of joke. Then I saw a garden gnome across the street giving me the finger. He disappeared in a puff of green smoke when I started to cross the street to talk to him.

I had seen him before, I had a history of mental illness, marked by hallucinations. I must’ve forgotten to take my medication. The last time I saw that Garden Gnome was when I had stolen my parent’s car. The gnome was riding in the passenger seat egging me on. I didn’t know how to drive (I was twelve) and crashed into the mailbox as I backed out of the driveway. There were other incidents, so my parents sent me to “The Parkdale Home for Wayward Lads.” I had just gotten home after being released and going to Maine.

I got up at 4.00am to prepare to cut down my neighbor’s tree. I waited until he went to work so he wouldn’t try to stop me. I put on my ear protectors and cranked up the saw. saw dust flew. The saw cut through the tree trunk like butter.

I miscalculated. The tree fell on my house, crushing the roof. I broke the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom and water was spraying all over. I heard laughter behind me and turned to see who it was. There was nobody there.

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

Asyndeton

Posted on October 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

Asyndeton (a-syn’-de-ton): The omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect. [Compare brachylogia. Opposite of polysyndeton.]

It was raining like crazy: slip, slop, slip, slop, slip slop my windshield wipers said as I splashed through puddles driving too fast. My mother was taking care of my dog Roofrack. If I was late she would yell at me like I was a bad dog, which actually, was Roofrack’s role in life. He specialized in peeing on chair legs and eating shoes. I thought of having him euthanized, but aside from his two bad habits, he was fun to spend time with. So, I got him his own pair of shoes and his own chair that I keep in the bathtub. When he stays with my mother, I bring along his shoes and chair.

I snapped out of my reverie when I noticed I was skidding off the side of the road into a cornfield. When my car came to rest, I was surrounded by cornstalks loaded with corn. Despite the rain, I decided to pick some—maybe fill the car’s trunk. I got out of the car, opened the trunk and started picking and pitching corn in the trunk. I was soaked, but I didn’t care.

I jumped in my car, started it up, and put it in gear. The tires spun in the mud. I kept pressing on the gas and the car sunk deeper and deeper in the mud. Suddenly, the car just started to sink on its own. It was engulfed by a cloud red smoke. I was totally panic stricken—my cell phone stopped working and I could feel it getting warmer and warmer inside my car. Suddenly, I fell out of the sky and landed softly on a giant paved parking lot extending for miles in every direction.

A scarecrow slowly rose from underground. He said, “What do you have in your trunk? Open it!” I opened it, and there it was full of stolen corn. He said, “Look around you. Miles, miles, miles, miles of paved- over earth, suffocating everything underneath it: no corn, no fields of green. Stealing corn is a start in that direction. Now, get out of here!”

My car rose like an express elevator. I emerged, on the highway like nothing had happened. I looked in my rear view mirror and got a glimpse of the Scarecrow standing in the rain, shaking his straw fist at me. A shiver went down my spine.

I pulled up to my mom’s and got out to pick up Roofrack. Mom opened the door, and there was Roofrack! After peeing on my mother’s leg, he came running to me. After all that happened, I didn’t feel up to admonishing him. I just said “Bad dog” and tried to apologize to my mother. She slammed the door.

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

Auxesis

Posted on October 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

Auxesis (ok-see’-sis): (1) Arranging words or clauses in a sequence of increasing force. In this sense, auxesis is comparable to climax and has sometimes been called incrementum. (2) A figure of speech in which something is referred to in terms disproportionately large (a kind of exaggeration or hyperbole). (3) Amplification in general.

When is big too big? It was like my nose. I made Pinocchio look like one of those pug-nose dogs from China. It was six inches long and shaped like a broomstick. It was hereditary.

10 centuries ago it had a purpose, when the world was a magical place and there were strange creatures populating the land. Among others, there were princely frogs, cats in boots, and mermaids in the sea, in rivers, in lakes. People were on an equal footing with other creatures—helping each other and sharing the land and waters and not eating each other.

My ancestors were “Transporters.” They used their noses to provide a sort of taxi service for imps, sprites, and other tiny creatures. My ancestors wore small saddles on their noses and provided tiny umbrellas when it rained.

Sadly, all this came to an end when the Huns murdered the remnant of magical creatures who survived the plague. It was a sad day for my family. They lost some of their best friends, and their taxi-noses were no longer needed. They discovered that their ample noses were good at picking up scents. Some joined packs of hounds chasing game (often fox hunting) and others went into law enforcement sniffing out fugitives. Still others went into the perfume business ensuring the consistency of the perfumes’ scents. My most famous ancestor was Gilbert Bear. He was a wine taster. His huge nose magnified his palette’s unerring discernment of excellence in every vintage imaginable. He had a special wine glass to accommodate his nose, custom made by Venetian glass lowers from glass so clear it is nearly invisible. Truly, a priceless work of art.

Tomorrow, I’m getting my nose shortened 5 inches, down to one inch. Its dowel-like shape is being sculpted into a normal-looking nose bridge.

I arrived at “Nu-Nose” at 8:00am. There was a woman sitting there with a nose exactly like mine! My heart skipped a beat. My God! She was beautiful. I asked if she was descended from the Gascoins, drivers of nose taxis. She said no, but her ancestors, the Crompers, were nose taxi drivers too. There was a warmth between us. It was like we were meant to meet at a nose-job clinic. We had our nose-jobs, dated and got married. We have just had a baby, Mildred. She has inherited her ancestors’ noses. Already at six months it’s 2 inches long. We can’t wait to get her a nose job.

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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Posted in auxesis, Uncategorized

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

Bdelygmia

Posted on October 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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Bomphiologia

Posted on October 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That night, she cleaned out the refrigerator.

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

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

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Brachylogia

Posted on October 22, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

POSTSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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