Tag Archives: example

Diaskeue

Posted on September 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

Diaskeue (di-as-keu’-ee): Graphic peristasis (description of circumstances) intended to arouse the emotions.

I am lost again. I’m like Mary’s little lamb, only I couldn’t find the school. I could’ve wandered in front of a FEDEX truck, and maybe been served up as gruel. In a way “Road Kill” was the story of my life. I found myself in strange and unintended places all the time. Two weeks ago, I set out for the dump. I ended up at the edge of the Grand Canyon, marveling at the sunset’s painting of the canyon walls’ shadows with purple, pink, and, orange-colored light. The air was warm with an almost imperceptible breeze blowing on my face scented with sand and time. The canyon was deep, a tribute to patience and the Colorado River’s unceasing flow.

My revelry was destroyed by my car alarm going off. There was a bear rocking my little Fiat back and forth trying to score the Oreos on the front seat. I watched as he flipped over my car and it rolled over the fence into the Grand Canyon. I heard it bounce and crunch, and eventually explode as it hit the bottom of the Canyon. I thought, “That’s one hell of a bear,” as it came toward me. On its hind legs it was probably eight feet tall. I ran and hid in a nearby porta-potty. The bear rocked it back and forth a couple of times and left me there alone to figure out what to do. I called park ranger headquarters and told them what had happened. The Ranger asked me if I had Oreos in my car. When I told him yes, he said “Uh oh. There goes Ollie again. We’ll have your car retrieved by helicopter for $2,000 and assume all your possessions were destroyed in the fire.”

That afternoon I flew back to Ohio with a burning desire to overcome my getting lost malady. I explained my problem to Siri and she told me there was a “Lostologist” in my zip code. His name is Dr. Magellan and he helps people like me learn how to “stay on course.” I couldn’t even stay true to my GPS, so this sounded like I was taking the best route to a cure.

Dr. Magellan gave me a Bluetooth-enabled seat belt buckle that communicated with my cellphone’s GPS. If I started to deviate from my programmed route, it would shock the hell out of my lower torso. The buckle didn’t cure me, but it kept me on course in my car. I wore a similar device strapped to my head with an elastic headband when I was walking. It worked as well as the driving device, as long as I had my walking route programmed into my GPS, but it shot what felt like bolts of fire through my head.

I haven’t gotten lost in five years. I know where I’m going and that I’m going to get there prodded by my “Go-Shock.” I experience daily pain, but I don’t care as long as I reach my destination.

I looked up from my laptop and realized I didn’t know where I was. I had forgotten my “Go-Shock” on my walk to the park. I looked out the window and everything was in French. I would have my “Go Shock” sent by DHL tomorrow. In the meantime I’ll have my new friend Collette, who I’m sharing my room with, to keep me on course. We’re staying in my room—taking no chances on me getting lost. She told that she was going out to get coffee and croissants. I gave her my wallet. That was four hours ago and she hasn’t come back yet. Maybe she decided to get lunch instead of breakfast. I wish I could remember how we met.

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

Print and e-editions of The Daily Trope are available from Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes.

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

Diasyrmus

Posted on September 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

Diasyrmus (di’-a-syrm-os): Rejecting an argument through ridiculous comparison.

“Your argument is like a squirming dog with no legs. Your argument is like an oath of allegiance to an onion. Your argument is like a carrot up an acrobat’s ass.“ This is what I live for, tearing 19 year-olds to pieces with sarcastic, and possibly sociopathic, opinions of their stillborn reasoning abilities.

This was my fist meeting of the semester with my class—all first-years with starry eyes and great expectations. They were taking PHL 107 from me. They’re aspiring philosophers eager to drag people out of their Plato-caves with 285 horsepower tow trucks pulling them toward Truth with all wheel drive logic. I titled the course “Argumentation for First-Year Twerps.” I would say crazy shit and they wrote it down—I allowed no electronic devices in my classroom, except for my vape pen. It was loaded with “Star Trek Drizzle,” advertised as “Warping you to where no man has been before.” Their tagline is sexist and I had written several emails complaining. All the replies I got were written in Klingon, That scared me so I backed off—I didn’t my mind melted by one of those ugly smart-ass weirdos.

So, the three students I was picking on today started quietly crying, like they had just seen a girlie movie about orphaned bunnies looking for their grandma in a field full of wolf traps. I yelled, “Do you need a tissue? I only have one. You’ll have to share.” They bowed their heads. I shouted “Stand up!” And they stood up, passing the tissue to each other. It was disgusting, but I was glad I’d told them at the start of class to sit alongside each other. I yelled, “Which one of you knows how to yodel?” None of them knew how to yodel. I said calmly, “Sit the hell down. Haven’t you caused enough harm already? That was a rhetorical question.” I took a long pull on my vape.

Then I spotted a goddamn garden gnome in the third row. When we made eye contact, he started laughing really hard. I yelled, “What the hell are you laughing at, you piece of shit excuse for an imp!” The students looked around like they were confused. The gnome told me that he was invisible. Then, he said, “You’re a piece of shit” and tipped his little red gnome hat. As he tipped his hat, I turned into a six-foot two- inch tall piece of shit. I could see my shithood, but I looked like normal me to the students. I knew this because they didn’t scream,or panic in any way when I went to shit.

To me, I see a permanent piece of shit. I look normal to everybody else. I was suspended from my teaching duties at the University for “Failing to secure permission in writing from your Department Chair before talking out loud to yourself in class.” Why the hell did I need the Chair’s permission for something half the faculty did all the time anyway? The Faculty Club was filled with professors talking to themselves everyday. To be fair, they thought they were talking to somebody, but the “somebody” wasn’t listening. The self-absorption rate among faculty is close to 100%. Nobody listens. They just want to “blah, blah, blah” about abstract bullshit with no application to everyday life.

I am filing a lawsuit so I can get back in the classroom. In the meantime, I am serving as interim VP for Academic Affairs and learning how to shave without a mirror.

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

There is a print edition of the Daily Trope available on Amazon for $9.99. There is also a Kindle edition available for $5.99.

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

Diazeugma

Posted on September 22, 2023 | Leave a comment

Diazeugma (di-a-zoog’-ma): The figure by which a single subject governs several verbs or verbal constructions (usually arranged in parallel fashion and expressing a similar idea); the opposite of zeugma.

Walking, tripping, stumbling, and falling I skinned my knee. Everybody else kept going. We were headed to the airport to watch Flying Elvis jump from a Piper Cub with red and green smoke bombs duct-taped to his ankles. The jump was for the last episode of “Ersatz Elvis,” a documentary on Elvis impersonators that had run for a year on HULU, and had the largest fan-base of any program in television history. It inspired the spin-off “Doing Do Ho,” which begins production on the island of Kwai next month.

Today, Flying Elvis was adding a twist to his jump. He was going to wear only a white Speedo swimsuit—a banana hammock. We did not know why he was doing this, unless the reports of his flagging popularity were true. We had seen publicity pictures of him in the swimsuit. He impersonated a later-stage Elvis, so the pictures weren’t exactly easy to look at. Maybe he had an advertising deal with Speedo, but we didn’t care. We were looking forward to mobbing him on the drop zone and getting his autograph to complete our “Ersatz Elvis” scrapbooks.

The Piper Cub was a dot in the sky as it circled the drop zone. Suddenly, Flying Elvis came hurtling out of the door, colored smoke billowing from his ankles. Through the smoke we could see he wasn’t wearing a parachute! The crowd gasped and somebody screamed. Just when we thought he would end his life as a pile of gore right in front of our eyes, fifteen men ran onto the drop zone carrying a giant trampoline. Flying Elvis was falling feet first. If he hit the trampoline right, he might survive the fall and bounce fifty feet into the air. That’s when I realized Flying Elvis’s free fall had to be part of the act. Why else would they have a giant trampoline standing by?

Flying Elvis hit the trampoline and tore right through it like it was made of paper. The trampolines was no match for Flying Elvis’ girth. To our amazement, we heard an Elvis-sounding voice coming from under the trampoline: “Baby, I’m all shook up.” The crowd cheered as Flying Elvis crawled out from under the trampoline, wearing a slightly soiled banana hammock. It was disgusting, but it was what we lived for as fans of “Ersatz Elvis.” I got his autograph and pulled out one of his chest hairs, bagged it, and limped away. I needed to find a Band-Aid for my skinned knee.

“Doing Don Ho” is next up. “Tiny Bubbles” made my hands shake when I was a teenager. It made me want to drink champagne with the girl who worked at the bowling shoe counter at “Fast Lane.” I couldn’t afford champagne, so I bought a six pack of Iron City beer with my fake I.D. that said I was Julius Cesar. The beer had tiny bubbles & that’s all I needed. I waited outside Fast Lane until closing when the shoe girl would head home. She came out, and almost simultaneously a robin-egg blue ‘57 Chevy pulled up and she jumped in and took off. The car had a continental kit on the back with an erupting volcano pictured on it with “I’m Gonna Erupt” painted under the picture.

I popped open an Iron City and threw the pop-top on the already litter-covered asphalt. I lit a Lucky and headed toward the woods behind Fast Lane. I sat on a log sipping my beer—enjoying my tiny bubbles. As I polished off my first can, I heard a familiar female voice a little farther in the woods say “Next.” I walked toward the voice and my world fell apart when I saw who it was. It was my mother! She was selling stolen Hula Hoops.

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

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

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

Dicaeologia

Posted on September 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dilemma

Posted on September 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Dilemma (di-lem’-ma): Offering to an opponent a choice between two (equally unfavorable) alternatives.

You will never take me alive. I am as nutty as a fruit fly in Florida fishing for ferns in a flying frying pan. I think I have the beginning of a hit tune here—“Miami Fruit Fly.” What do you think of that you dirty copper? I’m ready to go over the rainbow, no questions asked, I’ll make my grand exit—brave and unwavering in my commitment to the true, the good, and the beautiful—against the sophists, used car dealers and Viagra manufacturers, rampaging in Hollywood studios advertising “True Bliss” at a low, low special introductory monthly subscription rate that can be cancelled at any time with no penalty.

I am armed a dangerous. This Donald Duck paperweight could kill you if it hit the right spot on your head—most likely your temple. Do you want to be killed or crippled by a blow to the head? Two equally distasteful fates to choose from you miserable leach, conducting your life at the trough of taxpayer money, waving your gun around and strutting through my yard in your I’ll-fitting uniform like a drunken drum major who got lost on the way to the parade. Whoa! Back up or I’ll throw!

Wait! I just got a brain flash. Joe, the guy who rents a small apartment in my head, reminded me that I don’t know why you’re here. Why are you here?

“Mr. Nitwhich, we’re here to ask if you’d like to purchase tickets to the Policeman’s Ball. All the proceeds go to the ‘Hungry Children s Home’ in Morristown, NJ. The tickets are only $2.00 and you can buy as many as you like. The sky is the limit. The more the merrier. We’re sorry if we startled you, or disrupted your day in any way. However, we did notice that there’s a dead woman in your driveway. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions about that?”

Damnit! Are you selling charity event tickets or accusing me of murdering my wife? I’ll take twenty tickets. And yes, that’s my wife laid out in the driveway. She had a heart attack and died. I called 911 two hours ago. I dragged her outside to make it easier for EMTs to load her up. Right now, there’s a loud buzzing my mead accented by Salsa music and the sound of three hands clapping. You look like a fly wearing a hat and a blue tablecloth. You’re disgusting. Here’s $40.00 for the tickets—you’re lucky I keep my wallet in my bathrobe. I’ll just go sit on the lawn and wait for the ambulance. Now, get out of here before I bean you!

“Mr. Nitwich, thank you for your generous donation. The children will appreciate it and you will receive a thank-you note from one or them. Now, please put your hands behind your back so we can handcuff and arrest you for murder. You wife’s head was stuck repeatedly by a blunt object, very similar to the Donald Duck paperweight you’re holding.”

Blah. Blah. Blah. Go ahead and take me in. It’ll be like “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” I’m immune. I’m out of play. Now I’m going to disappear. I blew three raspberries, touched my nose and spun around twice. Guess what? I’m in jail.

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

A paper edition of The Daily Trope, entitled The Book of Tropes, is available for purchase on Amazon for $9.99 USD. There is also a Kindle edition available for $5.99.

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Dirimens Copulatio

Posted on September 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

Dirimens Copulatio (di’-ri-mens ko-pu-la’-ti-o): A figure by which one balances one statement with a contrary, qualifying statement (sometimes conveyed by “not only … but also” clauses). A sort of arguing both sides of an issue.

Protagoras (c. 485-410 BC) asserted that “to every logos (speech or argument) another logos is opposed,” a theme continued in the Dissoi Logoiof his time, later codified as the notion of arguments in utrumque partes (on both sides). Aristotle asserted that thinking in opposites is necessary both to arrive at the true state of a matter (opposition as an epistemological heuristic) and to anticipate counterarguments. This latter, practical purpose for investigating opposing arguments has been central to rhetoric ever since sophists like Antiphon (c. 480-410 BC) provided model speeches (his Tetralogies) showing how one might argue for either the prosecution or for the defense on any given issue. As such, [this] names not so much a figure of speech as a general approach to rhetoric, or an overall argumentative strategy. However, it could be manifest within a speech on a local level as well, especially for the purposes of exhibiting fairness (establishing ethos[audience perception of speaker credibility].

This pragmatic embrace of opposing arguments permeates rhetorical invention, arrangement, and rhetorical pedagogy. [In a sense, ‘two-wayed thinking’ constitutes a way of life—it is tolerant of differences and may interpret their resolution as contingent and provisional, as always open to renegotiation, and never as the final word. Truth, at best, offers cold comfort in social settings and often establishes itself as incontestable, by definition, as immune from untrumque partes, which may be considered an act of heresy and may be punishable by death.]

I was like the riddle: What is big, but also small? A shadow. But that’s not all I am. I am a cook. I am a brother. I am a benchwarmer. I am a consultant. In fact, I put the “con” in consultant. Twelve years ago, I came up with the idea for making up fake emotional maladies, convincing people they were suffering from them, and then “magically” curing them, sometimes overnight. I even invented an “organic compound” that would bring them around and maintain them. It was highly addictive, so almost every client created a permanent cash flow. I was busted by the FDA, and also by the Fed for criminal deception: posing as a licensed health care provider.

I did 2 years in an ultra-low security prison jokingly called “Hotel California.” It was for starched white-collar criminals. We ranked above the permanent press white collar criminals who were mostly tax “fraudies” and embezzlers. The “Hotel” had a golf course, tennis courts, a bar, a drag strip, a vape salon, a gambling casino, and numerous other amenities. It was initially built in anticipation of Ricard Nixon’s incarceration. He evaded justice, so the Fed opened the prison anyway, designating it for high-class offenders who could afford the rent.

I was still determined to go after emotionally disturbed people, where maintenance, not curing, was all that could be done. If I could get 100 clients on the hook, I’d get rich. Accordingly, I studied to be a licensed psychologist while I was in prison. I got on online degree from “Clownfear College of Psychology” located in Guatemala, but accredited by the American Association of Accreditors LLC, located in Panama, New Jersey. My residency was conducted with my next door prisoner. He had been convicted of selling shower-curtains with built-in spy cams. His major market was hotels, motels, and professional voyeurs. His specific crime was “equipping, aiding, and abetting weirdos in the conduct of their weirdness.” He suffered from agoraphobia: he wouldn’t leave his cell. In my internship, I worked with him for a year before he finally put one foot outside his cell. As soon as his foot hit the concrete floor, he had a heart attack and died. And then I thought: if I specialize in agoraphobics, I won’t even need an office! I can do everything over Zoom while they stay in place.

I wrote a book entitled “Your Outside Chance” and sold it on Amazon. It posed as a self-help manual, but it actually worked to keep agoraphobics entrenched in their illness. In collaboration with a corrupt Amazon book packer, I developed my client base from the people who purchased my book. Since I was on Zoom, it did not matter where they lived, but I settled in New York City, where the “Association of Agoraphobics” estimates there are 12 agoraphobes per block in Manhattan alone!

I use a sort of music therapy. During our sessions I play my clients music encouraging them to get outside. Lou Reed’s “Take Walk on the Wild Side” is a favorite along with “Viva Las Vegas,” “Kansa City,” “Walk Like a Man,” and a bunch of others, and for the romantics, “Walk Away Renee,” “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” “Harvest Moon,” and hundreds more. My clients keep coming because I am “encouraging and supportive,” but it is an act. I have clients who have hung with me for eight years now—a steady cash flow paving the way to a wonderful retirement.

Now, I’m branching out a little. I’ve developed a special product for my fellow specialists. It’s called “Bad Dog” and makes the sound of a growling rabid Pit Bull. It also contains a spy cam. It can be mounted across the hall from the client’s apartment. When the coast is clear, you can make it growl viciously by remote control. When the client hears it, it affirms the client’s belief that it’s dangerous “out there.”

I haven’t been out of my own apartment for six years. The convenience of Zoom has drawn me away from actual embodied interactions with other people. I am happy here in my little nest of solitude. When the cleaning lady comes on Wednesdays, I hide in my bedroom closet until she leaves.

I often sit and stare at the bathroom wall. I think, “John, your life is one big whopping lie, and that’s the truth.”

Definition and commentary courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text by Gogias, Editor of Daily Trope.

A paper edition of The Daily Trope, entitled The Book of Tropes, is available for purchase on Amazon for $9.99. There is also a Kindle edition available for $5.99.

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

Distributio

Posted on September 18, 2023 | Leave a comment

Distributio (dis-tri-bu’-ti-o): (1) Assigning roles among or specifying the duties of a list of people, sometimes accompanied by a conclusion. (2) Sometimes this term is simply a synonym for diaeresis or merismus, which are more general figures involving division.

Ok Norm, you’ll feed him the lies we’ve been working on. Charles, you’re on board for the promises that will never be kept. Jillian, you’ll float him the usual bogus accusations. Don, you just sit there on your fat ass. If your prefab feeds go south, just say “hoax” over and over like a hypnotized hippo. I’ll do the usual before-show extortion, and we’ll be all set for a stellar performance on “Meet the Press.”

Yikes!

This is what goes on as the Bullshit Express rolls across America on behalf of “Fog Horn” Trump whose smoking brain spins around inside cranium, belting out blather that passes for anything but what it is, among his angry sheep that consider him America’s Lord and Savior—a perfect genius, a credentialed saint, a prophet and a seer anointed by the Lord and endorsed by the Mandate of Heaven and FOX News.

Yikes!

He can do no wrong. His conviction for sexual assault and libel was the result of bribery and the cleverness of Satanic prosecution lawyers. But, even if he did the things he was charged with, Trump’s loving romantic urgings were misconstrued, and what was called “libel” was actually the truth packaged in strong language.

Yikes!

Now they’re saying Trump erred when he said Biden is taking us into WWII, when we’ve already fought it. Hah! We say there was a stretch of time between the battling, but we were always fighting Germans all the time. As far as the Japanese go, we say that was hardly a Word War—it was more like Viet Nam, but we won. “So, back off! WWII hasn’t come yet. Neither has WWIII or IV for that matter.”

Yikes!

Trump’s political cup overflows will bullshit. Certainly, just and merciless verdicts will propel him to prison where he will dwell for the rest of his life, and then, off to Hell where he will spend eternity eating shit with his tongue on fire and hungry leaches sucking on his eyeballs.

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

A paper edition of The Daily Trope, entitled The Book of Tropes, is available for purchase on Amazon for $9.99 USD. It contains over 150 schemes and tropes with their definitions and at least 2 examples of each. All of the schemes and tropes are indexed, so it’s easy to find the one you’re looking for. There is also a Kindle edition available with links to all of the schemes and tropes. It costs $5.95

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

Ecphonesis

Posted on September 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

Ecphonesis (ec-pho-nee’-sis): An emotional exclamation.

I hadn’t volunteered like the others to be on the cruxifixction detail. I was assigned by Sergeant Jedidiah because I was the lowest ranking member of the squad. I was nailing a spike in the palm of our victim’s hand when my mallet slipped and I hit my finger. I yelled “Goddamn hell shit” and my hand turned into a piece of shit, and I heard a voice booming from above. It was God who turned my hand into shit..

God said: “Yes, Mikamekkalak you have become the Shit-Handed one. Soon the shit will cure in the desert air, revealing fingers and affording you the grip of 50 men. Do not despair. Your Hand of Shit will be like a mighty sword slewing infidels and proving the wisdom and power of God, not to mention His existence.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “What about the other guys on the cruxifixction detail? They volunteered, Goddamnit!” God said, “Stop saying ‘Goddamnit’ or I’ll give you the Sodom treatment and pour you into a salt shaker like Lot’s wife. Now, to answer your question.

I like to induct nondescript idiots into my crew. Who was Noah before he built the boat? What about Job? Just a normal guy, until. . . Then, there’s Abraham: the knife, the son, the sacrifice, My last-minute intervention. It’s got Hollywood written all over it. But it’s not fiction. It’s fact! Now, it’s time for you to get out there and get smiting, my Shit-Handed one.”

I was propelled into the 21st-Century on the wings of a giant snow-white dove. That could’ve been front page news, but the dove dumped me in the desert somewhere in the USA. In this century, nearly everybody is an infidel. The Hand of Shit was going to be busy. After a couple months, I wandered out of the desert into a place called Las Vegas. I kept my Hand of Shit in my vestments until I saw a place named “Beat it!” selling Michael Jackson paraphernalia. I noticed a stack of white sequined gloves in a showcase inside the store. When no one was looking, I stuck my Hand of Shit through the glass and grabbed one, along with matching socks. Then, I materialized myself into a Michael Jackson suit, complete with loafers and a fedora. It was all very chic. I ran out the door. My Hand of Shit was concealed. I was thinking of moon walking around Las Vegas. Then God said in a voice of rumbling thunder, “It’s bad enough you stole all that Michael Jackson junk! Now you want to moon walk? No! Start looking for infidels! Remember the salt shaker! Soon, you will be sprinkled over a large order of fries if you don’t straighten out!”

I begged for forgiveness and started looking for a really big-time infidel to smite, and maybe, fulfill my obligation to God once-and-for-all. I worked my way through the herds of Elvis impersonators, and the drive-in wedding chapels, and the casinos filled with blue-haired women blowing their Social Security checks on the slot machines. But, I turned up no infidels that met my criteria. Then I saw it!

It was somebody named Cher. On a poster she was dressed like one of Satan’s jezebels. Her eyes drilled into my soul and almost threw me off course from my divine duties. I went to the library and checked out Cher’s autobiography. In it, she never thanked God once for all of her success. I found out that she was being paid $60 million for a three-year residency in Las Vegas. Smiting her would do the job. I would jump up on the stage, pull off my Michael Jackson glove, and my mighty Hand of Shit grip would squeeze her head off like a pimple.

The big night came. Just as she began to sing “Do You Believe in Love After Love?” I climbed onstage and squeezed off her head. The place went crazy. It seemed like the whole audience was coming after me. Suddenly, everything froze. There was a clap of thunder and God said, “You idiot. You total absolute idiot. Not only is she not an infidel, from time to time she sings in my Celestial Choir. Not only that, she is my favorite female vocalist. You dolt. You moron. You nitwit.” There was another loud rumble of thunder, and everything was restored to what it had been before I decapitated Cher, and Cher continued on with her show.

God fired me as an infidel hunter and made my Hand of Shit back into a hand of flesh, and eventually, a hand of spirit as I was deported to heaven. Presently, I work for St Peter (AKA Pearly Gate Pete). I work with a couple of other loser angels maintaining heaven’s gates. Basically, we polish the gates and keep the hinges from getting squeaky, We also stand with arms outstretched welcoming new arrivals. Right now, we’re getting ready to welcome Jimmy Carter. Like Cher, he is one of God’s favorites.

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

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

Effictio

Posted on September 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

Effictio (ef-fik’-ti-o): A verbal depiction of someone’s body, often from head to toe.

“Five foot two, eyes of blue, has anybody seen my gal?” Why not seven foot eight, feet like crates? Or, four foot nine, big behind? I don’t know and I don’t care. To each his own. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Preferences are extensions of our freedom, but they are also founded in what we’ve been taught, for better and for worse, over the course of our lives. Taken on faith as unshakable foundations of thought and action, learned at the knees of respected authorities, as children we imbibed them without the critical apparatuses that come with age. As such, they may be immune to revision as “common sense,” “first principles” or “self evident truths.”

I was born with very short limbs—about six inches long. I’m not five foot two and I don’t have eyes of blue. I am “Turtle Boy.” I wear a realistic plastic shell and appear in “Chessy’s Rolling Freak Show.” We travel around the US in 2 motor homes, a camper van each, and a tractor trailer. Those of us who need it have a camper van driver. We do mostly county and state fairs. I am the main attraction, the king of the road. I make over $200,000 per year and live comfortably in Sarasota, FL during the off season, where I do the occasional birthday party for some rich family’s spoiled kid.

I have the same desires as everybody else. My parents loved me more than anybody can hope for. Although I resisted, I ‘m glad they gave me to Mr. Chessy, who has always been as kind and loving as my own dad. My parents still visit me in FL and we have a great time. I have professed my love for two women in my life and was quickly and forcefully rejected. It hurt so bad both times, but the second time was the worst. She made me think “I was the one,” while in reality she was trying to woo me away from “Chessy’s” and being paid by “Rumpo’s” to make it happen. When I eventually refused to join “Rumpo’s”, she called me every turtle boy insult in the book and smashed my shell to smithereens with a bar stool, almost killing me.

Well, despite all the hell I’ve experienced, I’ve hooked up with Sarah. She’s a contortionist. Part of her routine is to pose like a crane on my shell as I slowly trek across the stage. She’s on one leg and her balancing ability is almost like magic. When we retire to my van, she gently removes my shell, gives me a sponge bath, and applies skin lotion to my whole body. When we do other more intimate things, I feel like I’ve been liberated from solitary confinement—from a life sentence in hell pronounced on an innocent man by a jury of vindictive space aliens.

I want to marry Sarah, and live to old age with her. I am confident she will say “Yes” when I ask her to marry me. My confidence comes from our common bond as freaks, and the needs and desires we fulfill in each other’s lives as human beings.

Love has no limits: it may be borne by those we love, but it is the soul that animates love, as the movement of right desire toward the threshold of wonder, reaching out with edifying joy.

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

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

Enallage

Posted on September 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

Enallage (e-nal’-la-ge): The substitution of grammatically different but semantically equivalent constructions.

“We was whacked” they moaned from the depths of hell. “We done what they told us. They shot us in the head fifty times each. It was like they run my head through a chipper or a blender. It was liquified. I had one of them ‘out-of-body’ experiences, so I seen it all.”

A puff of smoke was hanging in front of me talking to me. Clearly, he was one of those old-time New York City gangsters. He was probably eating at an Italian restaurant, wearing a pin stripe suit, and lavender spats when he was “whacked.” But, I didn’t give a damn. I blew hard at the cloud of smoke and fanned my hand. The smoke dissipated and the gangster bugged off. It was like changing channels.

I inhaled and blew another cloud of “Toady’s Talking Smoke.” I bought it at “Nature’s Dong,” a place like some kind of grocery store selling “exotic organics.” “Toady’s Talking Smoke” was a traditional Irish remedy for loneliness and depression. They say, for centuries, it has worked “from glen to glen and across the countryside” in lieu of whiskey to perk people up with conversation partners manifest in clouds of smoke. At $400 per ounce, it has gotten so expensive that it is generally out of reach of the “huddled masses” who populate America’s major cities, as well as towns, villages, and hamlets.

I first found out about “Toady’s” when I was writing Al Jolson’s biography. Al had serious identity problems. The raging success of “My Mammy” had made him feel guilty about hoodwinking so many fans—he didn’t even know where “Alabammy” was, or what it was. He just sang the song, and became more and more alienated from his fans and everybody who loved him. He was considering suicide when a compassionate leprechaun appeared in his dressing room. “Have a pull on this Al. I’ve made a wish for you,” the leprechaun said as he held out a beautiful Peterson pipe. Al gave it a huff and blew out a nice cloud of smoke that said, “Hey Al, I’m here to tell you this rut you’re in is gettin’ shallow. We’re going to write you a hit tune about something you know about and care about.” The leprechaun vanished as Ai and the voice went to work, and “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” was born, and it was collaborating with the talking cloud as they composed it, that turned Al’s life around.

After my discovery of its impact on Al Jolson’s life, I had to find and try some “Toady’s.” I Googled it and nothing turned up except vague rumors asserting its existence. One hit stood out though. It was a woman with the screen name “mymammy25.” We talked on FaceTime and she told me about “Nature’s Dong.” She told me she was from the past and not to try to contact her again. I was severely disappointed when she told me that—I had fallen in love with her the second she answered my call. I called her numerous times anyway, changing my phone number and screen name and wearing different disguises so she would answer. When I finally revealed myself, she told me right from my first call, disguised as Abraham Lincoln, she knew it was me—for all 52 calls. She hung up and my my phone’s screen went blank and my phone got hot. I threw it on the ground and it burst into flames. That was the end of my relationship with mammy25.

So, I found my local “Nature’s Dong” and found it after crawling through a tunnel under CVS. paid $200.00 for a 1/2 ounce of “Toady’s Talking Smoke.” Smoking “Toady’s” can be like conversational Roulette—you never know what you’re going to get. If you don’t like what you get, you just dissipate the smoke. There is also the option of asking the cloud for help with something. In that sense, its like Siri. Either way, if you don’t like it, you can dissipate it.. Tomorrow, I’m going to “Nature’s Dong” to buy a “Toady’s Talking Smoke” vape. Then, I’ll be able to summon a talking cloud wherever smoking is permitted. I got knee pads to make the crawl to “Nature’s Dong” less painful.

Although it’s a little pricey, I highly recommend “Toady’s Talking Smoke.” Don’t be lonesome tonight. Smoke some Toady’s.

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

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

Enantiosis

Posted on September 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Enantiosis (e-nan-ti-o’-sis): Using opposing or contrary descriptions together, typically in a somewhat paradoxical manner.

Despite its problems, my truck was my most beloved possession. I named it Buck the Truck. The cab was filled with memories. The seats smelled like sweat. When I took a drive, I had many memories riding alongside of me, no matter where I drove.

I had so much fun with my daughter riding the country roads with windows rolled down on warm summer days, singing “The Wheels on the Bus.” We still laugh about the time I picked her up at day care in a really bad snowstorm. We jumped in and threw Buck into four wheel drive and headed home. But pulling out of the parking lot, due to the snow, I drove off the driveway across the adjacent field. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that all the other parents’ cars were following me through the snow, across the field! Somehow, we all made it to the road and drove home safely. It was funny in retrospect, but when it happened it was sort of scary.

Buck had a dark side too. The worst was when his brakes failed coming down a hill. The downhill road intersected with a busy highway. Once again, I was driving my daughter home from day care. I thought for sure we were going to die. I looked at my little girl who was oblivious to what I thought was her impending death, and cursed Buck. The intersection was empty, and we sailed through unscathed and actually came to reset in a rut in our driveway, with a front wheel well smoking from leaking brake fluid.

There were other problems. I was pulled over for speeding on the MassPike. I was going 10 mph faster than my speedometer registered. My daughter thought it was a great adventure, being pulled over. I found out when I got home that the tires were the wrong size for the speedometer. About fifteen minutes after I was pulled over for speeding, the muffler started to fall off. We found a dry cleaner in a strip mall, and got a coat hanger that I used to hold the tailpipe up. In another episode Buck’s driveshaft fell off. Then, another time, the wire came loose from his starter motor when my daughter and I were up in the Adirondacks—in the parking lot of the place where are ate dinner. With the wire detached, Buck wouldn’t start. A crowd gathered to try to help us out. A woman climbed under Buck and held the wire to the starter motor while I turned the key, and I was able to get Buck started, but I couldn’t shut it off or we’d have to do the climb under thing again. So, we took off on our way home. The road was closed due to a terrible fatal accident. We had to wait there with the motor idling until the mess was cleared. All of a sudden, a woman appeared at the rolled-down window on my daughter’s side of the truck. She said: “You look really worried.” I said “Yes” and explained what had happened. She said, “I know a way around all this—I’ll pull around and you follow me—I’m in a red Datsun pickup.”

We followed her onto a dirt road and stopped at her house. It was a cabin. She had to check on her baby who her brother was taking care of. I tried to call my wife, but there was no answer. I asked if they’d try to call her if I left her number. They said they would, but they had nothing to write with. I wrote the phone number in the driveway’s dirt with a stick, and off we went.

The end of Buck came when I was driving home from getting a haircut at the mall. As I turned onto my street, there was a horrendous crunching, and then, what sounded like an explosion from under the hood. The engine died. There was something like steam coming out from under Buck’s hood.

The tray holding the battery had rusted out, and it came loose, dumping the battery into the engine. The battery had hit the fan and exploded, spewing battery acid all over the place. The next day, I donated Buck for a $200.00 tax deduction, and that was that. I replaced Buck with a Subaru Outback. I didn’t name it.

Buck was like “A Tale of Two Cities.” He was the best of trucks. He was the worst of trucks.” On the balance, Buck was the best of trucks given the platform it provided for father-daughter adventures. I know that nothing is capable of bearing opposite qualities at the same time, under the same circumstances. This is Aristotle’s primary axiom and the foundational principle of logic. But then, there are the “mixed feelings” that constitute a sort of epistemic marble cake—where the flowing oppositions constitute something whole in its own right called “marble cake.”

I don’t know exactly what I’m trying say, and I’m sure it has already been said, or even refuted, by some credentialed philosopher, or even ignored altogether as the kind of question that talking apes could make quick work of.

But, I’m not a talking ape. I’m a father.

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

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

Enigma

Posted on September 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Enigma (e-nig’-ma): Obscuring one’s meaning by presenting it within a riddle or by means of metaphors that purposefully challenge the reader or hearer to understand.

Espionage kicks your ass. Keeping separate worlds intact with no interaction whatsoever is a challenge that is beyond imagination. My husband is a spy. I was recruited 5 years ago by the CIA “to find out what I could.” I was shocked when I found out he was working for the CIS (Canadian Intelligence Services). I had absolutely no inkling whatsoever that he was a spy. It made me mad that he had been spying for a foreign intelligence agency—it wasn’t as if he was working for the Soviet Union, but working for any country as a spy is pretty bad.

My handler, Mike Hardonne, worked out a code we could use that would be uncrackable. If he wanted to meet he’d say “The nest is empty.” We always met at the same time at the same place. If he wanted me to hand over my latest report, he would say “Let’s go dancing.” That meant we would meet at “The Blue Moon.” We’d dance a slow dance and he’d reach into my dress for the report. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was aroused by Mr. Hardonne’s groping. Mr. Hardonne was a virile muscular man with blues eyes and a manly tan. My husband, Bob, was a jerk—a bald-headed overweight spy who was about as sexy as a flounder. In my mind I called him “Tubby Traitor.” We had no kids. The only thing we had was a lot of was money.

Bob worked as a janitor at Griffis Air Force Base, near the Canadian border. He worked at night when nobody was around and had keys to everything that ever needed dusting, mopping, cleaning, or polishing. This was just about everything. He specialized, as Mr. Hardonne told me, in defense secrets. The military thought there was always a chance that Canada would invade the US. The US held the largest reserves of poutine in North America in clandestine caches as far south as Pennsylvania. Not only that, lately, the US was working on a top secret project: machine-gun mountable snowshoes for the use of US Marines in the event the US invaded Canada. With a weapon like this, it was estimated by the CIA that Canada could be conquered in one or two days, especially in January.

If the Canadians were to get the secret codes securing the poutine caches, it would be a disaster for the US if Bob handed them over. Moreover, the Canadians were putting nearly all of their intelligence gathering resources into getting the plans for the Machine-gun snowshoes currently being tested at Griffis Air Force Base. The stakes were high and Bob was in the middle of it.

I got a call from Mr. Hardonne. It was the most dreaded coded message in the code book: “The sun is setting.” I was being ordered to terminate my traitorous husband. I had trained for this moment. One problem, though. My husband had been listening in on the phone. But, that’s what the code is for. I told my husband that I knew as much as he did. Obviously it was some kind of crank call. He bought it!

I had been trained to kill by sticking a poison suppository up his butt while having sex. Hr. Hardonne and I had practiced this scenario several times with a placebo. My aim was true.

That night when we were having our ritual weekly sex, I jammed the capsule in. Suddenly he went silent. He was dead. I rolled him off of me and he hit the floor with a loud thud. I called Mr. Hardonne and said “The eagle has landed.” He showed up about 10 minutes later. I packed my things and he whisked me sway to a safe house—a three-bedroom split-level built some time after WWII. I don’t know what they did with my husband’s body.

Mr. Hardonne poured us each a glass of what looked like “Southern Comfort.” When I sipped it, it was maple syrup! Alarm bells went off! My god, Mr. Hardonne was a double agent working for the Canadians! The maple syrup toast was a telltale sign. He said, “Your husband was getting ready to turn. He knew too much. He had to be liquidated. Now, it’s your turn to serve the Dominion of Canada. You can take over your husband’s janitor job and keep my secret. What say?”

I said “Yes.” We headed for the bedroom. I had a backup poison suppository hidden in the waistband of my underpants. As we got undressed, I hid it in my hand. He got on top of me and my aim was true! I rolled him onto the floor and made a call. In the clear, I said “Mike Hardonne is a goddamn double agent. I killed him. Get me the hell out of here before CIS comes after me and kills me.” There was no other way to put it. Secret code be damned! I became a legend in the Agency. They nicknamed me Karen the “Candle” for what I’d done to Bob and Hardonne—more code. They couldn’t resist it.

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

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

Enthymeme

Posted on September 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Enthymeme (en’-thy-meem): 1. The informal method [or figure] of reasoning typical of rhetorical discourse. The enthymeme is sometimes defined as a “truncated syllogism” since either the major or minor premise found in that more formal method of reasoning is left implied. The enthymeme typically occurs as a conclusion coupled with a reason. When several enthymemes are linked together, this becomes sorites. 2. A figure of speech which bases a conclusion on the truth of its contrary. [Depending on its grammatical structure and specific word choice, it may be chiasmus].

Him: It’s raining outside. You better take an umbrella.

Her: You’re bossing me around again. What is the umbrella’s function? Tell me how it will help with rain? Something’s missing here. I know you think it’s common sense, but where I come from we use umbrellas for shade—to keep from roasting in the desert sun.

Him: Whoops! The umbrella, as you just told me, is a tool to put over your head to block the sun. Similarly, with its mushroom shape, when you put it over your head in the rain, it can block the rain and keep you dry.

Her: Ah ha! Now I get it. By the way, your bathroom towels feel a little stiff, you better change them.

Him: What? Stiff?

Her: I’m not sure why, but stiffness in towels means there are filthy dirty. Sniff them, and you’ll know what I mean. They don’t smell “fresh.” Put the two together—smelly and stiff—and it’s laundry time.

Him: Wow! Oh my God! There’s something wrong with that? Where I come from smelly and stiff towels are tolerated in single men’s bathrooms as a sign of manliness and the biological drives that make men, men. If you find my towels offensive, I can accommodate you by doing my laundry. I hate doing it, but we’re developing a relationship, leeway is important.

Her: Wow! That’s a revelation! I thought you were just a disgusting slob with the hygiene skills of a pig. I was going to start calling you Mr. Oinker, Ha ha!

Him: Oh. My towels’ “smell” can be fixed by a washing machine. What about your smell? I’m really really hesitant to say this, but you smell faintly of poop. Where I come from, that’s a sign of really poor hygiene. But maybe where you’re from a smelly butt is a good thing, like the smell of spicy pumpkin pie or chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Her: Oh, really? I’m sorry. I’ve been forgetting to use your bidet. I am not used to the hygiene methods here. Where I come from, we just throw a handful of Plaster of Paris on our spread butt cheeks. When it hardens we squat over a bucket and the butt-cast drops into the bucket. The buckets are picked up and replaced every week, and the contents ground up, sanitized, and repackaged for reuse. Most of use “Disaster Master Plaster,” Less popular is “Booty-Wise Absorbent Plaster.” But they are really the same. Butt plaster is butt plaster. Where I come from, butt fragrance is a primary source of attracting mates. One of our most popular love songs is “Just One Sniff.” The greatest movie of all time is “Buttzilla.”

Anyway, what about your breath? It smells like mint candy. I’m sorry, but I find it repulsive. Where I come from it should smell like the swamps of our ancestors—a bit like mashed hard-boiled eggs mixed with beer and crude oil.

Him: Whoa! I feel Ike I’m losing touch with reality, but I can accept these differences, simply as differences, with no need to judge. I am open-minded and deeply sensitive. I am a 21st Century man. As long your otherness is not a pretext to kill me, I am willing, if not able, to see you as a person, not a thing. Come here. Sit next to me and we can find out what we have in common.

Her: You are a barbarian. I brought a bottle of “Dregknoker,” the most popular intoxicating beverage where I come from. Let’s drink all of it. That’s what we do where I come from.

POSTSCRIPT

They drank the bottle of “Dregknoker.” He drank more than her. When he came out of his stupor, she was gone. He had no recollection of what happened after they started drinking. But his umbrella was gone, and his towels smelled like Febreze. There was a tube of what looked like toothpaste called “Schwamp Jaw” on his bathroom sink. There was a cone-shaped piece of Plaster of Paris in the bathroom trashcan and an opened bag of “Disaster Master Plaster” alongside the trashcan on the floor.

Aside from the itching, he felt pretty good. He was proud of his adaptability and his 21st-century sensibilities toward “others.” Then he turned on his TV. He was on “Home Invaders,” a FOX reality Tv show that mocked liberal values. “Liberals” were befriended in bars, identified by their political T-shirt imagery and by listening in on their conversations. Subsequently, they were “visited” and “spoofed” by presenters, who spent about a week getting to know them and earning their trust as fellow liberals and as their “new besties.”

He went outside to the parking lot and lit his Febreze-soaked towels on fire using what was left of “Drogknoker” to get them going. He squeezed out the “Schwamp Jaw” in a circle on the blaze.

He kept the bag of “Disaster Master Plaster.” As he slipped off the edge of tolerance and caritas, he thought, “I have been wronged. I have been made a fool. Vengeance will be mine. Everywhere, there are cracks that need to be filled, and I shall fill them with plaster.” At that moment “The Midnight Troweler” was born, and NYC would go on high alert as he began his bizarre plastering capers. He wore a full-body red leotard with a crude drawing of a dripping trowel on the chest. He had a red balaclava. He had a belt pouch filled with “Disaster Master Plaster” and holsters holding his trowel and a Taser. He cackled as he looked at the glow of his Taser’s electric arc. He had the address of the “Home Invasion” presenter that made such a fool of him, mocking his tolerance, and his humane outlook on life. Once he was a Philosophy Professor, teaching ethics. Now, he was the “Midnight Troweler.” Now he was going to get revenge. But it didn’t happen. Not yet, at least. His plaster hardened in his belt pouch before he even got out of his house.

He would redesign his belt pouch and build a zip-lock sandwich bag into it to keep his plaster moist.

POST-POSTSCRIPT

He was working on his pouch when the doorbell rang. It was the presenter. They looked deeply into each other’s eyes and the next episode of “Home Invaders” was born. It was titled “The Apology” and showed how alcohol, MDMA, and sex can help people bridge their differences. God only knows what will happen when he sees it on TV.

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

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

Epanodos

Posted on September 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Epanorthosis

Posted on September 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epanorthosis (ep-an-or-tho’-sis): Amending a first thought by altering it to make it stronger or more vehement.

I was so damn mad. I wanted to take a deep breath calm down. No! I wanted to pound my anger into the ground and lower a two-ton boulder onto it. I was mad! I kicked the fence around my swimming pool. My flip-flop got stuck and I got even madder. I wrenched it loose and headed for the garage. I wanted to try out my new electric hedge trimmer. Maybe I was too mad. Maybe I would cut off my fingers. Maybe I needed professional help. Why was I so damn angry all the time? “Oh, the hell with it.” I thought, positioned myself in front of the overgrown Spice Bush, and pulled the trigger on the hedge trimmer. A little bunny hopped out from under the back porch and startled me. I dropped the hedge trimmer. I was on lock setting , so when I dropped the hedge trimmer and it landed on the bunny, it was still trimming. The bunny made an awful squealing sound as it was trimmed to death, right there at my feet.

Instead of crying and feeling really sad, I got mad at the bunny, who had made a mess of my shiny new hedge trimmer. I kicked the bunny’s remains across the yard into my neighbor’s yard and then angrily hosed the down hedge trimmer. As I rinsed off the bunny’s blood, I realized I was probably around the bend and needed professional counseling, and possibly, some kind of anger suppressing drug. I called the first psychologist listed on the web for my zip code: “Dr. Abraham Mezlaw.” I made an appointment for the next day.

I explained my problem. He told me my anger came from having expectations, which are fantasies about the future. As such, they are nearly never fulfilled. If I lowered my expectations, my anger would evaporate “like the morning mist.” I thanked him and he referred me to a psychiatrist who prescribed medication that would help curtail my expectations. I walked into psychiatrist’s waiting room. It was packed with obviously dysfunctional people—he was a real nutcase magnet. There was a woman waving a little American flag and softly saying “pigshit” over and over. There was a guy with a shoe strapped on his face with a bungee chord. There was a man in an electric wheelchair spinning around in circles. I started to get mad. Just then, I was called into Dr. Wellbeeski’s office for my session. I have no idea why I was put ahead of all the nuts in waiting room. He said to me: “So, you little piece of shit momma’s boy, I see you have trouble with managing the anger. I will prescribe you ‘Fuggit’ to keep our anger in check. Is there anything else you little namby-pamby loser?” I was so mad I wanted to run home and get my hedge trimmer and run it across his face. I bolted out the door and drove to the drugstore to pick up my “Fuggit” and get started becoming Mr. Placid, and forget about Dr. Wellbeeski’s insults.

I took a pill and sat on my couch lowering my expectations. The medication planted a voice in my head that said “No!” whenever conjured an expectation. Mt wife was 3 hours late coming home from work and she hadn’t called me. Normally, I would’ve been angry, but now I wasn’t as I heeded the “No!” in my head. That was just the beginning. My expectations became so low, that they pretty much disappeared altogether. I was a happy camper. Then, one day I forgot to take my medication. My expectations went through the roof. There was a knock on the door. There was a guy at the door and I asked him who the hell he was. He said, “You know me. I’ve been here almost every day for the past month for my upstairs workout with your wife. I pushed him off the porch and ran upstairs to kill my wife. She had cleared out the spare bedroom and made into a mini-gym. There were two treadmills, weights and a medicine ball. I put down the brick, kissed my wife, and ran downstairs and took a “Fuggit” so I could get my expectations down again.

My expectations plummeted, and I didn’t care. I was proud of myself for not killing my wife. I was making progress.

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

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

Epenthesis

Posted on September 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epenthesis (e-pen’-thes-is): The addition of a letter, sound, or syllable to the middle of a word. A kind of metaplasm. Note: Epenthesis is sometimes employed in order to accommodate meter in verse; sometimes, to facilitate easier articulation of a word’s sound. It can, of course, be accidental, and a vice of speech.

I was drivin’ my shit pumper way the hell out to Cramyon National Park. I’m a porta-potty p.u.-pumper. I suck 3,000 gallons of poop and pee and paper, and other things that get stuck in my hose. It is total A+ hell cleaning the hose when it’s clogged. A poop-soaked Teddy Bear? I’ve seen it. A high heel shoe? I’ve seen it. A blond wig? I’ve seen it, and so many diapers I could build a two-story igloo out of them. I go home smelling like shit. I go to the movies smelling like shit. I go shopping smelling like shit. Damn! I do everything smelling like shit. I tried calling it “shite” like a Brit for awhile, but it was still shit. Then I tried calling it “she-it” to give it a regional spin, but I had the wrong region. I was in New York, and she-it was in Georgia. So, I’ve settled on just plain shit.

My business is named ‘Mr. Stinky’ and my logo is a porta-potty with a skunk holding its nose and waving one hand. It is modeled after Pepe LaPew, the the famous cartoon skunk who thought he was a cat. My motto is “I Suck.” My wife thinks it’s stupid, immature, and nearly obscene. I tell her to stand in my boots and suck some shit and see if she changes her mind. She tells me to “Eat shit!” But, we are happily married with twins, named after the “Sesame Street” characters Bert and Ernie. They live in a large shed out back so they don’t have to deal with my smell when I’m home. They have electricity and everything, and we eat dinner together every night on Zoom. I tell them not to follow in my footsteps or they’ll have to throw away their shoes.

Business is a little off. That’s why I’m dumping shit in the national park on the sly. I wish I could afford to pump out at “Pike’s Poo Pits,” but I can’t. I’ve been pumpin’ into a beaver dam. It’s starting to look like a cesspool, but what can I do? If you see a beaver covered in shit layin’ by the side of the road, you can thank me for the sighting!

When I got home, I saw that my wife had bought three fake Christmas trees and decorated them with about 100 of those little pine tree car fresheners. Now, I call that love. She and the boys were wearing brand new carbon filter face masks. We hugged and boys ran outside to their shed and my wife headed to the kitchen. I may smell like shit, but my family treats me like Shalimar.

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

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

Epergesis

Posted on September 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epergesis (e-per-gee’-sis): Interposing an apposition, often in order to clarify what has just been stated.

I was losing touch with everything, time, space, neon signs, ATMs, bicycle seats. You name it, I’m out of touch with it. I can’t “write”—I’m out of touch with my keyboard, so I am dictating this to my neighbor Marlene, who I am out of touch with, and who is out of touch, but who can hear me and more or less write down what I say. That’s not the case with my phone or any electronic device that could record me. Some days I’m so out of touch that I’m in another century!

It all started when I wanted to get totally out of touch with New York City where I had lived forever. The noise, the bustle and cost had finally gotten to me after 25 years of struggle. I had made a bundle of money and it was time to pack it in. I did some research and zeroed in on West Virginia. I bought a 200-year old cabin in Barnsmell Hollow. Given the condition of the road, I had to hire 10 porters to carry my worldly goods to my cabin. The lead porter, Jellby, said to me as we started out, “Don’t step on those gumdrops yonder on the trail. My brother Elroy stepped on one ‘en he’s still stuck there. We feed him every day, but he git’s cold in winter.” I thought he was joking, but actually, as I quickly learned, he was acutely out of touch. At first, I thought it was a genetic thing, resulting from bothers and sisters hooking up. But, I quickly rejected the “inbreeding” theory as an unfounded supposition rooted in prejudice.

As we passed Elroy, firmly glued to the ground, I thought, yes, Elroy is out of touch too. Maybe he’s hypnotized. Maybe he’s a world class trickster. Who knows? But he’s certainly out of touch. As a citizen of Barnsmell Hollow, I learned to accept things at face value, and eventually, like my fellow Barnsmellers, believe everything I heard or read, even ignoring contradictions. In New York, I would have been run over by a cab, or pushed out a window for thinking this way. I joined the Republican Party, whose representatives cultivate my Barnsmell thinking. Before I new it, I was completely out of touch and didn’t know it. It was bizarre knowing that I was completely out of touch and not knowing it.

I joined Barnsmell Hollow’s “Conspiracy Club.” We would meet once a week, on Friday’s, and discuss the latest conspiracy theories. Zebaluba said they would keep us in shape. “In shape” meant “out of touch.” We all agreed being out of touch let us be in touch with what we weren’t in touch with. Last Friday we discussed the way ants worked tirelessly for Hunter Biden, building an escape tunnel to Cuba, where he will become its next Emperor and fire missiles at Key West, Miami, and Las Vegas, where all his troubles started with Cher’s unwanted pregnancy and Hunter’s refusal to let her go to New York for an abortion. Instead, he made her snort so many crushed morning-after pills that she got a bloody nose and almost died. He recorded everything on his laptop, and left it at a tattoo parlor where it was found by a techie who will be cracking the password soon.

This was bombshell stuff and we reveled it in it, discovering the seductive pleasure of being out of touch and not knowing it, but “knowing it” as the real truth, unlike everyday people who don’t know what they don’t know, victims of the Socialist Democrat Hoax, and so-called self evident truth. Ha ha! I had a faint recollection of being in touch. Living in Barnsmell Hollow, I didn’t have to be in touch. I didn’t want to be in touch. I was out of it.

At this point Marlene stopped writing and said, “You’re so far out of touch, you could be Mayor of Barnsmell Hollow, or even Governor of West Virginia.” At that point there was a loud knocking at my cabin door. There were four men wearing camoflauge. One had a pair of handcuffs. “We are members of ‘Truth Touchers’ and your mother wants you to come back to New York to get you back in touch by deprograming you.” I struggled but they cuffed me and dragged me out to the highway to a waiting van.

We arrived at the clinic and the first thing they made me do was read “The New York Times” cover to cover. After intensive deprogramming over a period of four months, I got back in touch. When I looked at Marlene’s notes I discovered she had been drawing stick figures of people having sex. So, I had to reconstruct this all myself.

I will never doubt the sanctity of NYC again. I rejoined the Democrat Party, and now, I stay in touch.

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

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Tagged elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope, ultra short story

Epizeuxis

Posted on September 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

Move! Move! Move! It should’ve been Moo! Moo! Moo! We were being pushed around like a herd of rebellious cows. I got stuck in the middle of this crowd while I was on my way to work. The handle had come lose on my briefcase and I stopped to look at it it and I was engulfed. I didn’t know where I was going—I was like a piece of flotsam. I looked at the guy next to me. He was wearing a cowboy hat. I counted six earrings swinging from his ear. He was wearing one one those sleeveless t-shirts. He had a black circle tattooed on his upper arm.

“Where are we going?” I asked politely. He turned his head and looked at me. He had another black circle tattooed between his eyes. He said “We’re going, going, just going until we are gone. They will throw us bottled water and roast beef sandwiches while we are on our way.” “How do I get out of this mess.” I asked. He said, “When we get THERE. And, by the way, it isn’t a mess, it’s a ritual celebrating The Herd Instinct.” “What?” “The fu*king herd instinct, loser! Why don’t you just lie down and get trampled, numnuts?”

At that point, a marching band started playing the theme song from “Rawhide” a cowboy show popular in the late sixties: “Roll ‘em, roll ‘em, roll ‘em. Keep those dogies roll’in, though the creeks are swollen. Rawhide. Move ‘em up, head ‘em out, Rawhide!” I couldn’t believe I was somewhere in Chicago being propelled along by at least 1,000 lunatics. Right then, I got hit in the head by one of the Roy Rogers roast beef sandwiches the “Trail Bosses” were throwing at us. Yes—they were “Trail Bosses” the guy alongside told me as he managed to catch a sandwich. Subsequently, I was hit in the head by a small bottled water. Then, the marching band started playing “Night Herding.” The guy next to me told me it was an old cowboy song: “I’ve cross-herded, circle-herded, trail-herded too, But to keep you together, that’s what I can’t do, Bunch up, little dogies, bunch up.” When they got to “bunch up,” everybody stopped and rubbed their hips up against each other, and then kept going. The guy next to me told me we were almost THERE. Although they had been closed for years, I could smell the famed Chicago Union Stock Yards.

This was totally surreal. I was a successful businessman. In my head, I was chastising myself for not taking a cab that morning—why was I so damn cheap? Maybe it wasn’t me anyway. Maybe I had died and been reincarnated as a cow that looked like a person. I was freaked out through the roof. The smell of the stockyards got stronger. The guy next to me said, “We are THERE.” The herd stopped. My heart almost stopped too. A man with a Bull Horn, sculpted like a bull’s horn, climbed a fifteen-foot step ladder in front of stock yards’ gate—all that remained of Chicago’s once vibrant meatpacking industry. While the ghosts of millions of doomed cows mooed softly in the background, he addressed the crowd. Herdmaster “Gristle” Jones put a bull’s horn to his lips and yelled: “Welcome fellow Herdites to our 300th annual Roundup, where we give thanks to our cow brethren for their enduring commitment to being herded, for our sake, to their final destination to be transformed into the red meat that we adore, and that sustains us as hamburgers, Porterhouse steaks, T-Bone steaks, all-beef hotdogs, and other delicious sliced, sawed, and chopped-off parts of their gutted, decapitated, skinned, and refrigerated bodies.”

The Herdmaster hoisted a T-Bone steak high in the air and the band struck up another sing-along: Eddie Arnold’s “Cattle Call”: “The cattle are prowlin’ the coyotes are howlin’, Out with the doggies bawl. Where spurs are jinglin’ a cowboy is singin’, This lonesome cattle call [moan].” Everybody moaned for about five minutes. Imagine 1,000 people having an orgasm all at once. That’s what it sounded like.

The Herdmaster climbed down from the ladder and everybody disbursed. There were booths set up selling Herdite-related products like meat cleavers, grills, meat grinders, skewers, seasonings, and aprons with humorous sayings like “Let’s Meat At My Place.” The Herdmaster was selling and signing his book “Cold Cuts.” I heard it was about a man so full of baloney that he turned into a submarine sandwich. It sounded pretty stupid to me. Anyway, he was wearing a mu-mu. Under the circumstances, I thought that was really funny.

As I walked back home, I decided to call in sick—no work today. I stopped at Mr. Squeaky’s Butcher Shop and bought a 1/2 pound of ground beef, almost without thinking. I took a shower and sat down to think. I asked myself, “John, what the hell happened to you today?” I Googled “Herdite” and found nothing. I made a big beef patty, fried it up, and ate it with my hands without a bun or ketchup. I felt my herd instinct rising. I got dressed and took a cab to “Cuddles” which was always jam-packed on Saturday night—shoulder to shoulder, dancing, drinking, sweating. When I went there in the past, I felt like a sardine in a tin, but tonight, I felt like a cow in a herd, and I liked it.

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

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Posted in epexegesis, Uncategorized

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

Epilogus

Posted on September 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epilogus (e-pi-lo’-gus): Providing an inference of what is likely to follow.

Sometimes I wish I was “way down upon the Swanee River,” then I don’t. It is Florida’s state song. It has been traditionally sung at the Governor’s inauguration ceremony. It is definitely a paen to the Old South. Who the hell wants to live in a “little hut among the bushes”? The lyrics of “Swanee River” long for it, as if a little hut among the bushes was Mar-A-Lago or some classy hotel in South Beach.

It was Sunday and I was sitting by my pool reading the paper. It was a nice day in West Palm Beach and Millie my maid had just brought me one of her super sugary mint juleps. I turned to the real estate section to see if my friend Mewbert’s beach-front mansion had sold yet. It was up for sale for $15,000,000 so I was sure it would make the news. Then, there it was: “Little hut for sale on bank of Swanee River. Has dock. Fixer-upper. Prone to flooding. For sale by owner. Call Steve Foster (252) 228-9922.” It was a North Carolina area code. Given the coincidental connection to my earlier musings, I had to call Steve.

He answered after two rings. I told him I was interested in the property in Florida and wanted to have a look at it. Also, I asked him to tell me the asking price. He said, “That depends. Are you for us or agin’ us?” Without thinking I answered “For ya!” trying mimic Steve’s accent. He told me the price was negotiable and emailed me directions to the hut on the Swanee River (aka Suwannee River). It was near a weigh station off Route 90. Zeb, my chauffeur, jumped behind the wheel of my Rolls and we sped off, north, starting out on Route 95.This was an adventure.

We arrived around 5:00 and we had hiked about mile when we arrived at the hut. There was plenty of light left. It was indeed a hut, with the river flowing slowly about ten feet behind it. It was surrounded by bushes. This was it! Part of the inspiration for “Swanee River.”

A shotgun barrel suddenly poked out one of the broken front windows. “What in the hell do y’all want?” asked a male voice in a menacing tone. I said, “We’re here to look at the property, and possibly buy it from Steve Foster.” He laughed, “Haw, haw! You gotta’ be kiddin’ we ain’t seen him since The Civil War. Now git! My trigger finger’s a startin’ to itch.” “Yes sir!” I said in the most obedient-sounding voice I could summon. Zeb and I ran for the Rolls as the mystery-man took a shot over our heads to speed us along.

We were silent during the ride back home. I tried to call Steve several times on my cellphone but there was no answer. I swore Zeb to secrecy and we never spoke about the incident, but I couldn’t get the damn song out of my head. Five years later, we went looking for the hut again. It was gone. Nothing remained but overgrown bushes. But I stepped on something that mad a crushing sound. I was the mains of a clay pipe that had “Foster” scratched on the stem.

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

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

Epimone

Posted on September 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epimone (e-pi’-mo-nee): Persistent repetition of the same plea in much the same words.

“Will you think it over? Will you please think it over? Will you consider it? Come on! Skydiving! Floating to earth under a colorful canopy of polyester. Landing on your feet won’t be a metaphor! The view from 12,000 feet is stunning. You can see the earth’s curvature. You can take pictures. You can brag about it. Plus, you have a reserve parachute! Fail safe!” I couldn’t believe my mother was trying get me to jump out of an airplane with what looked like a giant tablecloth billowing above my head.

All my life she had prodded me to play it safe—from the playground to the parkway—safe, safe, safe. No Monkey Bars. No driving over the speed limit. She would give me call and response pep talks. “What’s the most important thing?” she would yell. I yelled back “Safety!” “What keeps you alive?” “Safety!” “How did Columbus get to America?” “Safety!” “ Why did you wear diapers?” “Safety!” On and on it went. Safety was the Holy Grail.

So, why does she want me to take up sky diving? It isn’t safe. Far from it. People die. So, I asked her. She said, “Skydiving is a perfect pastime for an unmarried middle-aged uninteresting coward. I met a girl who’s a skydiver. We made friends and I told lies about you to get her interested. I told her you’re a skydiver too.” “Jeez Mom, I’ve pent my life protecting my cowardice with safety’s shield. You put me on that path and now pushing me off it. Ok, I’ll go skydiving.”

I took some lessons at the airport from “Soft Droppings,” the skydiving school. I was ready. I hadn’t made any actual jumps yet—all the lessons were conducted in virtual reality. I called Mom’s friend and asked her out on a skydiving date. She sad she would love it after what my mother had told her about me. She told me she had never met a professional race car driver before and was really eager to jump with somebody in “The 1,000 Jump Club.” I was screwed.

We were 8,000 feet above some hick town in central Minnesota. It was time to “Go!” and I was first out the door. The green light came on and, eyes closed, I jumped. My parachute deployed automatically and shredded like a piece of lettuce. I panicked and peed in my parachuting pants. But then, I remembered what my mother used to say about diapers, and I yelled “Safety!” I pulled the handle on my reserve chute. When it deployed, it wrapped around my neck. It looked like a giant condom fluttering in the wind, but it did slow me down a little. At that point, my date came flying out of nowhere and grabbed my harness. She cut the reserve chute loose with a big switchblade knife. She was facing me. She pulled close and kissed me, sticking her tongue in my mouth. It was my first kiss since my landlord’s daughter five years ago.

We landed on our feet. But, that wasn’t the end. She found out the truth about me and told everybody that I had peed my parachuting pants.

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

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

Epiplexis

Posted on September 1, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epiplexis (e-pi-plex’-is): Asking questions in order to chide, to express grief, or to inveigh. A kind of rhetorical question [–the speaker does not expect an answer].

I woke up on my dinosaur floatie in the middle of my swimming pool. I had summoned my usual creative powers and named him “Dino” after Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis’s partner in their comedy team. Jerry would play a man afflicted with Tourette’s and Dean would play a slick (if not sleazy) straight man. It was in poor taste, but nobody cared in the late 50s before Lewis & Martin went their separate way.

There was a party going on in my home. I got out of the pool to check it out. I yelled through the door: “Why are you making so much damn noise? What the hell is that red stuff spilled all over the carpet? Who the hell are you?” There we’re about 10-15 little people in my living room that I had never seen before. “We’re from The Lollipop Guild“ one of them yelled louder than “Over the Rainbow” playing on the stereo. Again, the chief spokesperson said,”You’ve a huge place here and you’re trying to do it all alone—shame on you! Things are falling apart and you look malnourished. We can handle your landscaping, maintain your pool, clean your house, and hunt and cook meals for you. I assume you need a driver too. All we ask for is room and board.”

I was stunned. These were the good guys from “The Wizard of OZ.” It had to be some kind of elaborate joke. My fist thought was Reggie. His life-purpose seemed to be playing jokes on me or trying to make me think I was going crazy. Last week, he had a fake Amazon Prime truck deliver 800 pizzas—each one separately boxed with tape and everything. The fake driver piled them up in my driveway and lit them on fire. It was quite a sight and I immediately knew Reggie was behind it. So, I called Reggie and asked him what was going on with The Lollipop Guild. He told me he never heard of it. I thought he was lying, but what difference did it make? The offer being made seemed legit, so I went for it.

Things were going great until “The Guild” split into two factions. The second faction called itself the “Hip Hop Guild” and wanted to dress like B. A. Baracus from the “A-Team” TV show. That was all they wanted—they thought the lollipops made them look stupid, but gold chains and Faux-hawks would make them look bad-ass. I agreed with them. The leaders of The Lollipop Guild grumbled, but they accepted my decision.

That night there was a rumble on the tennis court. The Hip Hop Guild swung corded microphones over their heads, while the Lollipop Guild came at them with battery-powered weed whackers. Before they could meet in battle, they all went up in a puff of pink smoke. A beautiful woman walked out of the smoke wearing a opalescent sequin coated baby-blue dress. She wore a tiara topped with giant emerald and carried a wand tipped with a sticky note covering a star that said “Property of the Good Witch Glendale, Curator of the Neon Museum of Art, and Head Minder of the Lollipop Guild.” “I’m sorry for your trouble,” she said “This happens about once every two months. They look like they’re finally getting along, so I drop my guard, and boom, there’s another schism. Last time, Madonna (The Material Girl) was almost killed trying to bring order when the splinter group came at her with a backhoe. I intervened and saved her life. Luckily things didn’t get that out of hand here.” Then the Good Witch Glendale disappeared in a puff of pink smoke.

I was shocked, stunned, flipped out, and bin-bound. I went to bed and dreamed I was wearing ruby slippers that did nothing when I clicked them together and yelled “Take me back to New York!” I woke up and went downstairs to make a snack. I opened a tin of caviar and dipped in a cracker. There was a faint knocking on the basement door. Like a fool, I opened it. It was the leader of the Hip Hop guild. He said, “Hey sucker! I can be your bodyguard. I’ll save your ass every day.” I took B.A. up on his offer and he’s been saving my ass every day for ten years now. I have never asked him a single question about his past, or where he comes from, and I never will.

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

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

Epistrophe

Posted on August 31, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epistrophe (e-pis’-tro-fee): Ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words.

I went to the beach. I walked on the beach. I love the beach. I picked up seashells on the beach. One of the shells had writing on it. It said “I am a shell.” It made me think of my estranged wife. She was a shell: hard on the outside and like an ashtray on the inside. Or, she could play shell games with you—hiding her cheating lies in her hollowed-out soul. If you held her to your ear you could hear moaning sounds like the ones I heard outside “The Masquerade Motel” window two months ago when I finally worked up the nerve to follow her and my best friend Mike to what was supposed to be an AA meeting—if it was AA, it was Anterior Acts. I looked through a crack in the room’s drapes. I got out my phone and videoed the whole thing. It was like a tornado was brewing my head—Sharon and my best friend Mike. Mike and I had cheated on our wives for years, at parties, at bars, and wedding receptions—anywhere people gathered and booze was served. We never gave it a second thought. Why the hell did Mike have to zero in on my wife?

I’ll never know. He left town when I threatened to kill him. When I confronted Sharon with a baseball bat in my hand, she laughed and told me it was “perfectly innocent.” I said “That’s perfectly bullshit” and raised bat a shook it. “Let’s watch the video I took of you and Mike and you can point out the ‘perfectly innocent’ parts. OK?” She yelled “No!” and picked up the garbage bag filled with her crap, flung it over her shoulder, and trudged out the door like Santa Claus on his way to the dump. I yelled “If you take our car, I’m calling the cops.” Just then an Uber pulled up. Mike was behind the wheel and waved and mouthed “Fu*k you.” That did it. I gave him the two-handed finger and went back inside.

I called Sherry, Mike’s nineteen-year-old sister. She was going to the local community college and majoring in brewery science. I told her what had happened with Mike and she cursed him out and asked how she could help. I invited her over and asked if she could bring some of her beer. She said “Sure. I just finished a batch of Thor’s Hammer. It’s 12% and lives up to its name.” I gave a whoop, and changed the sheets on my bed.

We had a wild night. Sherry moved in with me two days later. We love each other. As soon as my divorce is finalized we’re going to get married. Yesterday, the pee-pee tester told Sherry she’s pregnant—something Sharon and I couldn’t accomplish. We both wondered how Uncle Mike and Sharon would take the news. I hoped it would piss him off and make Sharon cry her ass off. She and Mike had parted ways. She is working as a waitress at Hooters and Mike retired from Uber, owns a used car lot, “Mike’s Car Garden.” I, on the other hand, run “Diligent Detection,” my detective agencey specializing in infidelity and missing persons. Sherry’s brewery is wildly successful. “Thor’s Hammer” made it all the to Munich’s Oktoberfest where, according to the organizers, “it got more people shit-faced than any beer in the whole history of Oktoberfest.” We’re perfect for each other, like two clamshells attached together by a hinge of love.

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

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

Epitasis

Posted on August 30, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epitasis (e-pit’-a-sis): The addition of a concluding sentence that merely emphasizes what has already been stated. A kind of amplification. [The opposite of anesis.]

They told me that soon I’d be dancing with the Devil. “They” were the town full of hypocrites I had grown up with. My feet felt hot—the Sinner Maker was tuning up his violin. He handed the violin to Judas along with the usual 30 pieces of silver. Judas looked terrified. He put down the silver and tucked the violin under his chin and started to play the most popular song in Hell: The Rolling Stones “Sympathy for the Devil.” As we danced, the Devil told me there was a slim chance that I could get out of Hell. He could employ me in the Above World as a minion, and I could eventually work my way to Way Way Up (Satan never said “Heaven”).

You see, I had been sent to hell on a bum rap. My so-called friends had knocked me out, doused me with gasoline and thrown me in my flaming chicken coop. Of course, it was assumed to be an insurance scam—I had the coop insured for $100,000 and my sister stood to inherit it.. That may seem excessive, but it could barely compensate for the loss of my life-long chicken companion Cluck. The truth is, I was thrown into the burning chicken coop because I owed money to Big Mack Millione. I had borrowed $4,000 to help pay for my sister Angel’s cosmetic surgery—build up the boobs, whittle down the butt. Everything was fine until I got laid off at the Ford tail-lens factory in Linden. Somehow my “case” was misreported to the “Big G” and I ended up in Hell, dancing with the Devil. The angel who screwed things up was named Clarence, and I suspect he was the same Clarence as the one in the movie where Jimmy Stewart tries to commit suicide.

So, I’m going up, riding the Satanic Elevator to the bottom of Death Valley, and then, the Hell Train to NYC for my first assignment as a minion. There was a Millennial dickhead who was on the verge of cleaning out his employer’s assets and heading to some broken country in Africa. He had been binging on Ketamine and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer for a week. I just needed to give him a nudge and he would belong to Satan upon his death, which I was responsible for orchestrating as well. I planned on straight-up murder using my Made in Hell Satanic Handgun. His name was Jeffery.

I walked into his office tricked out in the most expensive clothing money could buy—all knock-offs made in Hell. Summoning my hypnotic voice, I said “Take the money Jeffery. Your mother will be proud. That bully Fred will kiss your ass out of envy. You will be so rich, you could run for President. And the girls! They will climb all over you like you were a set of playground monkey bars!” Jeffery sat down behind his computer, tapped in something, and yelled “Done!” He flipped over his big leather swivel chair and peed on it. His pee hit a multiple outlet extension chord on the floor and electrocuted him.

“Satan’s gonna love this!” I thought to myself as I started my return trip to hell. All elevators will take you to Hell if you have a Minion Hell Ride Card. I inserted my Hell Ride Card into the panel and plummeted straight to Hell. I had Jeffery’s soul in a pizza box—camouflaged for my trip from his office to the elevator. When I got off the elevator Jeffery re-materialized. Satan met us and sent Jeffery off immediately to the Infinite Inferno to join the other damned miscreants. Satan said, “Boy, you’re going to Way Way Up. You did a good job and Clarence told me what happened. Your name has been added to Pete’s Book of Saints. Be gone!”

I landed at the Pearly Gates and Pete smiled and said “Welcome. It’s about time.” Eternity awaited me. I wondered if they had Sudoku.

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

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Posted in epitasis

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

Epizeuxis

Posted on August 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

“Shuck, shuck, shuck.” I worked in a seafood restaurant named “Flounder” as an oyster shucker. We were required to “contribute to the atmosphere” by yelling “shuck, shuck, shuck” whenever we finished shucking a half-dozen or a dozen oysters. I didn’t think it mattered, so I yelled “suck, suck, suck” and “schmuck, schmuck, schmuck” and nonsense words like “shunk.” One night, right before closing I yelled “shuck you, mother shucker.” I had gone off the rails.

The Boss, Mr. Tony from New York, came up to me and said “You think you’re smart don’t you, wise guy?” I told him I was going to college and I would graduate soon, so yeah, I was smart. He told me we were going for a boat ride after I got off work. I wondered if I was going to be thrown overboard wrapped in cinder blocks. I got off at 11.00 and me, Mr. Tony, Tommy Chadrool, and Sticky headed to the dock. It was a beautiful night. Stars filled the sky and it was warm with no breeze. We boarded Mr. Tony’s boat. It was named “A Billion” for all the money Mr. Tony had made in the “restaurant” business. It was majestic: mahogany, teak, polished brass, and two huge diesel engines. The cabin was as big as my whole apartment, furnished in leather with 5 AK-47s set in a gun rack hanging from the wall. “A Billion” was fifty feet long with a crew of six.

The engines started, we untied and headed slowly around the harbor. as we passed “Flounder” Mr. Tony pointed at it and said “That place is a big success. If anybody does anything to hurt it, they will be in big trouble.” When he said “big trouble” he looked me in the eyes—I felt a burning.

So, from then on, I stuck with “shuck, shuck, shuck” when I finished a batch of oysters. I was yelling “shuck” one night when Mr. Tony’s daughter wandered in. She was 22 and beautiful. She said “you’re a big shucker, I’d like to shuck you after you get off work.” I had been warned about Carlotta. If anybody so much as looked at her for too long, they’d be found floating face down in the harbor. It was rumored too that she actually enjoyed playing death bait. So, I said, “We can shuck right now in the walk-in refrigerator.” She looked shocked: “What do you think I’m talking about you filthy goon?” Just then Mr. Tony walked up. “Is he bothering you Carlotta?” He asked. “He said he wanted to shuck me in the refrigerator.” she said. Mr. Tony started laughing uncontrollably—so hard his Beretta came out of its shoulder holster and fell on the floor. “Pick it up oyster boy” said Tony. I picked up and it fired, instantly killing Mr. Tony with a bullet to the head. Carlotta calmly dialed 911. When she was done with the call, she told me she had to go home and I could come over later if I wanted to.

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

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Posted in epizeuxis

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

Erotema

Posted on August 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

Erotema (e-ro-tem’-a): The rhetorical question. To affirm or deny a point strongly by asking it as a question. Generally, as Melanchthon has noted, the rhetorical question includes an emotional dimension, expressing wonder, indignation, sarcasm, etc.

Have you ever seen a llama wearing pajamas? That’s from a children’s song I used to sing with my daughter. It all happened down by the bay. It was so much fun, I decided to invest everything I had in an amusement park themed after the song, where the names all of the exhibits and rides were from “down by the bay.” It was a real challenge. “Down by the Bay” played constantly in the background in the park, which , of course was named “Down By The Bay Theme Park.” We dug a fake bay and filled it with water. It was a lot of wrk keeping the mosquito population down and keeping it looking like a bay instead of a swamp—cattail control was difficult too. We’re still trying to figure out what to do about the muskrats and their reed-pile houses.

It cost $25.00 to get into the park and that covered everything—all rides, all exhibits. The “Whale With a Polka Dot Tail” is by far the most popular ride. It bounces up and down and spins around, squirting water out of a blowhole drilled in his back. It also plays sound clips of whales talking to each other. The “Fly Wearing a Tie” is pretty popular too. It consists of giant flies wearing ties mounted on the spokes of wheel that goes around and up and down. There’s a giant fly swatter mounted on the hub of the wheel. It starts swat the riders, but stops half-way down, giving them a thrill.

Then, one night when I when I was closing up the park, a llama wearing pajamas ran past the port-a potties. I had just smoked a joint and thought I was seeing things. It was some the best weed I’d every had. It was Peruvian Whacker and it really did the job. I saw the llama wearing pajamas again. It was down by the bay getting a drink of water. It’s pajamas we’re dirty and frayed. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was like the “Llama in Pajamas Ride” had come to life. I whistled at it and it turned around and started coming toward me. It got about two feet away from me and then spit in my face and walked away. I kept yelling “Come back!” But it ignored me and went back down by the bay, near where the watermelons grow.

I ran down by the bay, but the llama in pajamas had disappeared. I could see where he had stepped on a couple of watermelons as he took off. Then a giant fly wearing a tie almost knocked me down as it flew past me toward the rising moon. I went down by the bay, to the water’s edge, and tossed in my bag of Peruvian Whacker.

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

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Posted in erotema

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

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