Tag Archives: example

Eustathia

Posted on August 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

Eustathia (yoos-tay’-thi-a): Promising constancy in purpose and affection.

Dear Babe,

Promise me anything. I don’t care if you make it in the heat of the night, or during a thunderstorm, or at the Shooting Moon Casino out on Highway 69. Remember? That’s where we first met—side by side at slot machines, holding our paper cups filled pennies. You told me you liked how I “did” the buttons. When I hit the $20.00 jackpot I stood up, and you did too. You hugged me and tried fish my wallet out of my back pocket. I considered having you arrested for trying to pick my pocket, but you told me you were feeling a little dizzy and put your hand in my back pocket to steady yourself. I didn’t believe you, but I didn’t care. We were two sixty-something gamblers and I figured we were risk takers. After what you’d done, the odds were against us. So, I asked you if you wanted to have a drink in the casino’s Boom Boom Room. You said “Sure baby” and off we went.

We drank vodka martinis and talked about ourselves. I told you how I had spent my life working in a tomato soup canning factory in Indiana, how my pension was pretty good, and my Social Security was really good. I told you how my wife had died when she had hit a tree bobsledding in Montana one year ago, tomorrow. I told you everything. You told me how you had run away from home when you were fourteen, got hooked up with a bad boyfriend, stole cars, worked as a hooker and sold Mary Kay Cosmetics, earned a pink Cadillac and retired two weeks ago. You were going on a cruise next week to Cancun with your 30 year-old daughter Scarletta. You told me she was born out of wedlock to you and a migrant apple picker in Washington State.

We were pretty drunk and I invited you to my room. You said “Yes baby” and off we went. We were both too old to have sex—I’d given out five years before. It was embarrassing, but I survived. I tried every supplement in the universe to get it going again—from powdered goat testicles to ground gorilla armpit ointment. Nothing worked. That was it. So, we told dirty jokes nearly all night long. You were like a dirty joke machine—l lagged way behind you, mostly with knock knock jokes.

Then, out of nowhere, you told me you had fallen in love with me when I didn’t have you arrested. I was shocked and skeptical. I made you promise to love me “until death do we part.” you did. You cried and said this was the best thing that ever happened to you in your dismal unlucky life. I made the same promise to you. Now I’m sitting in the motel room in my underpants. Everything is gone: my cellphone, my wallet & my credit cards, my clothes, my watch, and my car. But I’m not as big a sucker as you think I am.

It’s 10:30 now, so the car should’ve blown up 25 minutes ago. I could’ve easily defused the bomb, but you left the motel before I had a chance. Ha! Ha! Even though I’m 99% sure you’re dead, I’m writing this letter to ease my conscience. I’m going to book a ticket on the Cancun cruise. I doubt Scarletta will spend any time mourning you. We’ll meet, and if she’s anything like you, I’ll be giving the gorilla armpit ointment another try.

I’ll “love” you forever.

Just kidding,

Norm

POSTSCRIPT

Norm was all set. The car he had blown up was stolen, so it could not be traced back to him. His friend Rollo had hacked into the cruise line’s manifests and found Scarletta’s itinerary. She was leaving for Cancun in two months. So, Norm booked onto the same cruise—on “The Octopus.”

As Norm boarded the Octopus, he was checking the photo of Scarletta that Rollo had taken from her Facebook page. Then, he saw her! She was pushing a woman in a wheelchair whose head was bandaged. Norm struck up a conversation. He introduced himself as Waylon, and asked who the woman in the wheelchair was. “My mother,” Scarletta said. “She was injured in a car explosion. She lost her vision and hearing.” Norm felt like God was watching over him as they headed to the bar, and along the way, dropped Babe off at the ship’s day care center.

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

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

Eutrepismus

Posted on August 18, 2023 | Leave a comment

Eutrepismus (eu-tre-pis’-mus): Numbering and ordering the parts under consideration. A figure of division, and of ordering.

A one, and a two, and a three. I have become convinced that dividing things by threes follows some kind of divine mandate. What can you add to father, son, and Holy Ghost? Do the Macarena? Ha ha ha. What about pot roast? Or, buttered toast. Or, fence post? Ha ha ha! All we have here is raw blasphemy, like the kind you get in pool halls, saloons and automobile repair shops—all home to cursing devil-doers making their places in hell with their filthy mouths.

But that’s beside the point. I have come to see the triune nature of my activities, and their triplification’s consistency with the divine plan—the cosmic urge for three. If I can’t do it in three steps, I won’t do it. Paying careful attention to the rule of three, I have flourished in accord with the universal trifecta—betting my life on it triplicated ways.

So, when I walk I take three steps, stop, and then start again. When I eat: 1. I pick up my fork, 2. I stab my food, 3. I shove it in mouth. I wait 3 seconds. Then, 1. I chew it, 2. I swallow it, and 3. I digest it. I can feel myself tuning to the great beyond after dinner as 1. I sit in my chair, 2. I hit the remote, and 3. I watch TV. I could list hundreds of examples of my spiritually cleansing threesomes. I feel like a Holy Lawrence Welk.

But now, I have a three-problem. My wife and I have three children. It, of course, is an intergalactic part of us living three—three children, just right. After number three, I got a vasectomy. I always wanted two more wives to round things out, but my wife Jezebel totally refuses unless she has three husbands. Anyway, by some magic trick Jezebel has become pregnant. I’d like to kill her but I’m having trouble breaking a murder down into three steps. So, that leaves the question: What do we do with a fourth child? 1. Go through with the pregnancy, 2. Have the baby, 3. Leave it somewhere? Then it dawned me!

The baby will not be mine! It is the result of Jezebel’s infidelity! The third step will be giving the baby to its father! I asked Jezebel to tell me who the baby’s father is. Finally, she told me she wasn’t sure. She said it could be one of 10-12 men she’d been seeing. “That’s fu*king amazing!” I said. I told her I wouldn’t kill her if we could have two more kids, so we’d have the right number, and I would treat the little bastard as my own. We scheduled my vasectomy reversal and then, after the little bastard was born, we went to work on number five.

The little bastard looks a lot like my errant brother Mick. He’s 1. rich, 2. famous, and 3. an asshole. He has finally agreed to a DNA test. As soon as I prove the little bastard is his, I will blackmail him so his wife and everybody else do not find out the little bastard belongs to him. I’m currently working on a three-step blackmail process.

A one, and a two, and a three, Mick will belong to me!

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

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

Exergasia

Posted on August 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

Exergasia (ex-er-ga’-si-a): Repetition of the same idea, changing either its words, its delivery, or the general treatment it is given. A method for amplification, variation, and explanation. As such, exergasia compares to the progymnasmata exercises (rudimentary exercises intended to prepare students of rhetoric for the creation and performance of complete practice orations).

Sometimes I wonder about things. There are so many thing to wonder about, I wonder about a new thing every time. Yesterday, I wondered why I have hands. That was easy! I think “getting a grip” is the most important reason why I have hands. I wish I knew how to use them better. My father keeps telling me “You better get a grip pretty soon or you’ll end up in the shitter with all the other losers.” He keeps pointing out how I am 32 years old and I still live at home, my mother makes my bed and does my laundry, and I play the “Grand Theft Auto” video game that I got when I was in high school. I pointed out to him that I have a lucrative job at Speedy Lube and I buy my own clothes. But, most important I showed him my grip. I put my hand on his throat and started to squeeze. He started choking. I said, “See dad! I have a grip!” He started gurgling and flopping around like a fish, so I let him go. He yelled “I should call 911! The police would throw the book at you!” He yelled as he ran out of the room and started rummaging in his desk for his letter opener to defend himself with. I said, “Don’t worry, I know we have a grip and I’ll never show it to you again.” Pointing the letter opener at me, he said “Ok son, but we’re going have to put you in your ‘play cage’ down in the basement for awhile—maybe overnight.” I was used to this and even looked forward to it because when I was in the cage Mom made my favorite pumpkin pie and slid through the feeding hole when the pie was still warm.

They let me out this morning after two days. I needed to take a shower and change my pajamas. I wanted to wear my PJ Specials: Moon Walker Mike’s Lunar Landers. They were getting a bit frayed from all the years of wear, but you could still see the “Official Lunar Lander Deputy” badge printed on the chest. Although it was rare, today I wanted to think some more about getting a grip. I realized after a night in the cage that strangling my father wasn’t the best way to show I’ve got a grip. First, I crumpled up a piece of paper into ball. Then, I squeezed the boil on my butt that had been plaguing me for a month. I took a selfie for proof. Then, I set my phone on video and aimed it at the yard from a tree. I got on my wheelie bike, gripped the handlebars, and did a wheelie across the lawn. It was like the good old days when I once did a wheelie all the way to school—two blocks!

Grip. Grip. Grip. I had it! I proved it!

Now, Dad would not doubt that I had a grip. I was elated. No denying it now, and I didn’t hurt anybody showing it. But Dad wasn’t happy. Dad said, “Son, you don’t understand what ‘getting a grip’ means. It isn’t literal, it is a figure of speech.” I had heard of figures of speech when I was younger and Dad was an English teacher at Muffet Middle School, before the “incident.” Right then and there I decided to stop wondering about “get a grip” and start wondering why Dad was fired from Muffet and now runs a 12-man, 1 woman squeegee crew by the entrance to the Holland Tunnel in New York City. I wondered, and wondered, and wondered to no avail. All I could think was “Wow. He must’ve done something really bad!” So, I asked him.

He looked at me like a cornered rat and yelled “I was framed!” “Oh, did they take your picture and hang it somewhere?” I asked. “Eventually” he said, “But it never got to the point of being hung up.” From the look on Dad’s face, I decided to let it drop and wonder about something else.

Then, I thought abut the angels. It was high time I wondered how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. I had first been asked this question when I was an Altar Boy at St. Polyps Catholic Church. Father Joe had posed the question when we were passing the bottle of sacramental wine back and forth in preparation for Sunday services. We toasted Jesus several times, and then, he me asked the question. I burped and both we laughed.

So, the time had come to to deal with the angels. I laid down on my bed, put my hands behind my head, and started to wonder.

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

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

Exouthenismos

Posted on August 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

Exouthenismos (ex-ou-then-is’-mos): An expression of contempt.

Dear Lina:

Your hair looked like a bird’s nest that fell out of a tree. But then I looked more closely. It was a bird’s nest. It had three blue eggs in it. Suddenly, a mother Robin flew in the window and settled in the nest. You told me you fell asleep on the glider on the front porch and when you woke up there was a nest woven into your hair with three eggs. Moments later, the mother Robin looked at me and and cocked head..

I asked what you were going to do. You told me your dad was going to get the nest out of your hair and throw it in the garbage where it belonged. I snapped. I called you terrible names—baby killer, murderer, monster. The little blue eggs were all innocent, and you and your dad were going to smash them just to get them off your head. It was disgusting.

My rage made you cry, but you made it clear to me that your dad lays down the “law” in your family. You said he calls himself “Moses” when he looks in the mirror and has a pile of dirt in your backyard that he calls Mt. Sinai. You cried and cried. Then, to show my love, we agreed that I would take the nest and wear it on my head until the baby birds hatched and flew away.

This was easier said than done. We went inside, and with much effort, we cut the nest out of your hair, and I apologize again for the gash across your forehead. Then, we glued the nest to the bottom of a plastic mixing bowl that fit my head perfectly. We punched 2 holes along the edges of the bowl and strung the laces from my trainers through the holes for a chin strap. I promised I would only take off the nest to shower and to sleep. I’ve kept my promise.

I went Wal-Mart wearing the nest with the mother Robin in it and everybody stared, and some people pointed and took pictures. The next thing I knew, I went viral on social media. They called me “Mr. Nest Hat.” My picture had 1,000,000 hits on the Audubon Society website. Somehow, they found out my name and address. I am being asked to endorse bird products: bird feeder seed, hummingbird feeders and food, bluebird boxes, cuttle bones, birdbaths, and badminton birdies. I’m pretty sure I’ll make at least $1,000,000.

Well, the eggs have hatched and the babies are getting more and more unruly. When I take the nest off my head I have to put a bushel basket over it. So their mother can feed them, I’ve built a platform in the maple tree where I sit wearing the nest most of the day. The mother sits on the branch above us, watching over us. She has tried to feed me several times. I pretend to take the worm, but I drop in in my shirt pocket and she’s none the wiser.

So, I was wondering: since the babies will soon fly away, will you marry me? I will be rich, so you can’t go wrong! I kept my promise. Now, it’s your turn.

Love and tweeties,

Ted

POSTSCRIPT

Ted and Lina got married and live in a trailer park on the outskirts of town. Ted continues to wait for his wealth to materialize. Lina works as a server at the Golden Chicken, a saloon catering to bikers. She hates Ted and is going to file for divorce as soon as she saves enough money. One of the baby robins was eaten by Ted’s cat Patter Paws. The other two grew to maturity. One flew into its reflection in a window and died at the age of 2. The remaining Robin sibling was mistaken for a dove and shot dead by a hunter in Texas at the age of 4. The mother Robin is still going strong, living comfortably in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains.

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

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

Gnome

Posted on August 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Gnome (nome or no’-mee): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

My father taped pithy sayings all over my bedroom ceiling and walls. He thought they would “infuse” me with wisdom and help me grow up and be somebody. They glowed in the dark, so they never went away. I would try to sleep with a pillow over my head to block them out, but I nearly suffocated. I would briefly wake up at night and see in the greenish glow: “Broken crayons still color.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I would try to get back to sleep, but I couldn’t until I could figure out what Ralph was trying to tell me. If we had computers back then, I would’ve just Googled it’s meaning. I moved my pillows around and focused my attention on it, although the other glowing sayings were calling out to me. First, I had never seen a broken crayon. Mine all wore down to nubs, and then, I threw them away. Nevertheless, I could see how you could use a broken crayon, and you would even have more crayons at the same time! Two, I got the idea that Ralph was trying to tell me to use broken things. Like if you break your toy fire truck, you can use it as a doorstop, or maybe, as a paperweight. This was kind of like saying on the ceiling: “Waste not want not.” I found this comparison interesting and wrote my thoughts down in my bedside notebook. Last: I thought “Why did Ralph use crayons to make his point?” I figured that out almost instantly: he probably wrote this for his children, who would be more “connected” to crayons than their elders, making the saying that much more salient and effective.

Voila! I had cracked it: there is no hidden meaning. Ralph is telling his children, and all children to stop whining for new crayons when the old ones break. When the children take the saying to heart, it will save him, and all fathers around the world, money. What a clever man!

Unlike my father.

When my hair started falling out and my gums started bleeding he took me to the Doctor who told us the glowing posters were highly radioactive and had been banned 2 years ago for safety reasons. I was suffering from a mild case of radiation poisoning from sleeping in a room full of radioactive posters. I took potassium iodide twice a day for the next year.

My father thought he was being really smart when he pulled the posters out of a random trashcan on his way to work, and then, plastered my bedroom with them to influence me. But as Melinda Gates said: “We have to be careful in how we use this light shined on us.” If I had lead pajamas, the light shining on me would have been harmless, and all of my physical problems would’ve been averted. In the future, after I recovered, I would say that my father almost killed me with wisdom. It was true. All he would say was “No pain, no gain, dipshit” and I would lunge at him and we’d wrestle on the floor until my mother broke us up with a wet mop. Quoting Edgar Allen Poe, she would yell “Nevermore!” We never went anywhere, but at least we stopped wrestling for awhile.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is also available for $5.99.

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

Graecismus

Posted on August 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

When Aristotle caught an arrow in his teeth, Homer kýlise ston táfo tou as (tolled over in his grave) as if he was a Greek loukániko (hot dog) grilling on a skewer. “Oh we Greeks” my mother always said. She was Greek and had performed with the troupe paparoúnes kai kalamária (“Poppies and Squid”). She was one of the “poppies.” They travelled around post-WW II Europe performing their act in the Skoúro Tsírko Krasioú (Wine-Dark Circus), a Geek enterprise formed to “heal the wounds of war-time folly.”

As a “Poppy” my mother did the chorós opíou (opium dance). A giant hookah would be set in center stage with the poppies circled around it, each holding a smoking tube. Hercules would be lowered on a rope over the hookah holding a flaming Zippo lighter. He would say in broken English, “Who wants to get high?” All the Poppies would giggle and wiggle around saying, “Me! Me!” However, my mother’s role was to object: “No! This is not the way to deal with our pain. We must stand up straight and rebuild, sober and clear-eyed.” At that moment, it would start raining actual squid. Writhing and slimy they would extinguish Hercules’ Zippo. Then, the squid actors would come on the stage and shake hands with Hercules. Next, the whole cast would sing “Que Sera, Sera” in the language of whatever country they were performing in.

People cried and embraced. It is said that when Prime Minister Churchill saw the performance he thought of the basic outline for “a History of the English-Speaking People,” which won a Nobel Prize for Literature. He said the idea came to him when the lead Poppy (my mother) admonished the willing opium smokers. It reminded him of the Opium Wars and the easy defeat of the Chinese maniacs, who were subsequently oppressed by the English, and later, by the French too. Colonial conquest and ruthless exploitation went hand in hand with the English language. It has many words for denigration that are celebrated in English books, poetry, and song.

My mother lost her job when the troupe began to have difficulties obtaining live squid, whose raining-down sliminess was key to the denouement of the troupe’s performance. Fried calamari had caught on across Europe and was served everywhere as a side dish—in Amsterdam they served it in paper cones with mayonnaise, in France it was served in rubber berets with dijon mustard. It was everywhere.

The troupe broke up and everybody went their own way. My mother hooked up with an American G.I. named Salvatore. She hid in his duffel bag and sailed with him on the troop ship back to the USA. He would let her out of the duffel bag at night and they would sleep together in his hammock. They got married after he bought a license in New York after disembarking, and he lugged her to a church, where they got a priest up in the middle of the night to marry them. When my father dumped my mother on the altar, the priest started crying and he and my mother started speaking in Greek. They had grown up together in a little village in Greece. My father told the priest to “Shut up and perform the marriage!” So, they were married. They got a street sweeper to witness the marriage. He asked for a dollar afterwards and my father punched and called him a “stinking leech.”

My dad already had a job. He worked in the US branch of an olive oil import/export business, a family enterprise located in Sicily. As a tribute to our luck, my mother cooked calamari on Sundays. I knew his future in the family business was dim when my brother Fredo would never eat calamari. He would demand a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or Colonel Sanders fried chicken instead. My father would glare at him.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is also available for $5.99.

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

Hendiadys

Posted on August 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

Hendiadys (hen-di’-a-dis): Expressing a single idea by two nouns [joined by a conjunction] instead of a noun and its qualifier. A method of amplification that adds force.

Fish and chips. Love and marriage. Spaghetti and meatballs. Shoes and socks. Fire and ice. Oil and water. Salt and pepper. Bacon and eggs. Hope and fear. The list of nouns connected by conjunctions stretches around the world. Here and there and everywhere, over and under.

I am a graduate student at Rugbert University in South Jersey. Rugbert was founded at the end of the American Revolution as a place to warehouse General Rowan Pulaski’s war booty. Pulaski was a Polish mercenary who headed a company of other mercenaries known as the “Weather Group.” They were responsible for the “Fall of Secaucus,” in what was known as the “Battle of Pig Run.” Thousands of pigs were liberated, compromising the Loyalists’ food supply and resulting in the near-starvation of the entire population. The rhyme “This little piggy” was composed as a protest to the pigs’ incursion and destruction of the food supply. It author, Wilfred Ginger, was nearly hanged, but he devised a game to play with his little daughter, squeezing her toes while he recited the poem. This deflected interest from the politics of the poem and it became all the rage in affected communities.

Today, Rugbert is flourishing. Some people compare it to Rutgers, but there’s no comparison. Pulaski’s war booty is sill in the university’s possession and it’s value has grown to 1,345 billion dollars, making the endowment the world’s largest. Last year, the trustees considered buying Puerto Rico as a faculty vacation resort and as a “field lab” for its environmental degradation program. The purchase was called off at the last minute when they found out Puerto Rico is an island and can’t be driven to in university vans. The decision is the result of the “if you can’t drive there, you can’t go there” policy instituted on the recommendation of the Middle Fingers accrediting body after its most recent review of Rugbert.

I am working on my dissertation in the field of the anthropology of math and linguistics. As you’ve probably guessed, I have an interest in nouns connected by conjunctions—specifically, the conjunction “and.” My dissertation title is “AI, Oi Vey, and Ee I ee I oh: The Strange Case of X and X.” My dissertation committee does not like my idea. Professor Crumbutt, my major advisor, actually called me stupid. Since I am a Pulaski legacy, I am allowed—even expected—to be stupid. So, I’ve been sitting in my dorm room for the past two years thinking up phrases made up of two nouns conjoined by the conjunction “and.” At this point, I’ve amassed 340,000. So far, I’ve noticed that many food dishes consist of “conjuncto-combonios” indicating something possibly important to my study, but I need to think about it some more—possibly over winter break when I’ll be staying at the manor house in Princeton with my family and dog Luther and feasting on family recipes—like pineapple and pheasant on a shovel, or deep-fried bunny and cheese sticks.

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

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Heterogenium

Posted on August 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Heterogenium (he’-ter-o-gen-i-um): Avoiding an issue by changing the subject to something different. Sometimes considered a vice.

The police officer asked me if I knew how fast I was driving through the School Zone I had just passed through. I told him “If I studied hard, I could probably learn.” I though I was really funny. The cop didn’t. He said, “Ok wise guy, out of the car.” I got out of the car and stood there waiting to be shot or beaten up. The cop asked me: “Are you taking drugs?” I answered, “Sure, what are you giving?” The cop put his hand on his gun. “Get in the police car,” he said in a very angry voice. I said, “Ok, do you want me to drive?” He pulled out his gun and pointed it at me: “Get in the fu*king car shithead.” I promptly got into the car. Sitting in the back seat behind the wire mesh, I said “Your police car smells real good, like my mother’s perfume.” He yelled “shut up!”and turned on sire ..

Getting back to what had started my trip to jail: I did know how fast I had been driving in the School Zone. I had been crawling along at 15MPH—the speed limit. So what’s going on here? I am a “Goader.” I drive people in authority over the edge. I employ the strategy of being “passively annoying” focusing on the relational dimension of communication (verbal and nonverbal) with those people in authority who invite goading. I guess you could say, I’m disrespectful of authority. That’s why I became an anarchist.

It all started with Bob Dylan and “The Times They Are a Changing.” The world was turning upside down. I was experimenting with Lucky Strikes and nudy-nudy magazines. I found them perfectly acceptable, although people in authority told me they would ruin my life—make me into a coughing sex fiend. I thought to myself, “So what? What’s wrong with that?” When my mother found my magazines, she rolled one up and beat me with it. I pretended I enjoyed it and she beat me even harder. I had goaded her. I found that power and control are a two-way street. The tables can turned by acting like you don’t care—that you are unaffected, that your response may be irrelevant, like laughing at being spanked,.

Once, when my boss asked me “When are you going to get off your ass and do something?” It was probably a rhetorical question—he wasn’t expecting a response. This is fertile ground for a goad! I answered: “I stand for lunch. Your treat?” He tried fire me, but he couldn’t because I had photos him and Ms. Strabo in the basement, and they weren’t taking inventory, unless you do it naked laying down. The boss’s wife would surely maim him if she found out. Anyway, my response sent the boss to flip-out-ville. He was about to throw a stapler at me and I yelled: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” He knew exactly what I meant and dropped stapler.

I’ve started running workshops for powerless people. The workshops are titled “Golden Goads.” I’ve been quite successful teaching my students how to briefly turn hierarchies on their heads. No matter how brief they last, they let their overseers know that hey are vulnerable—that power is granted, not achieved.

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

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Homoeopropophoron

Posted on August 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

Homoeopropophoron: Alliteration taken to an extreme where nearly every word in a sentence begins with the same consonant. Sometimes, simply a synonym for alliteration or paroemion [a stylistic vice].

NOTE: I have translated all text to English from Babylonian and French. I take full responsibility for any errors.

“Suffering succotash!” was coined by Sylvester Cat in 1951. Nobody knew what it meant, but he was allowed to say it by the cartoon company where he worked because he was a major star. Nobody could touch him. “Suffering succotash” is an alliteration—where the first consonants of adjacent words are the same. It has its roots in ancient Greece, and other ancient cultures, like Babylon, in Hammurabi’s Code: “6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen stuff from him shall be put to death.” I’ve highlighted “stolen stuff” because it is an alliteration. But, far out on the frontiers of alliteration is a more radical consonant-clanking concoction: homoeopropophoron.

In homoeopropophoron: almost every word in a sentence starts with the same consonant. My great great grandfather, the revered 18th century French philosopher, Marco Poulet used it to great effect in his “Memoir of a Macho Man.” In it, he recounts his life of debauchery until he met love of his life, a palomino named Monsieur Eduardo; a show pony of Spanish origin that he met in Italy at the annual Palio di Siena. Poulet was wandering around Sienna, checking out the competing neighborhoods and looking for a horse and jockey to bet on. As he entered the Caterpillar Neighborhood he saw a giant caterpillar which made him nervous. He didn’t know why. But, as he rounded a corner he heard a voice with a Spanish accent to say: “Cable coded clumps of coddled cod create clanking chords of conscience—Buy me! Purchase me! Make a bid!” It was the horse, of course, Monsieur Eduardo who was begging to be bought.

Poulet was stunned and, of course, immediately purchased the horse. They stayed in a very expensive hotel in Florence for one week before heading for Paris. Poulet had found his muse and could not help but speak, think and write in homoeopropophoron. His influential treatise “Cranial Constipation Closes Colonial Cabanas” liberated generations of Frenchmen and women from ethnocentric thinking and paved the way for the French Revolution, which initially excluded horses. That changed when they stampeded the Bastille and fell in a hail of spears and arrows. Eduardo, who led the charge, was the first to fall, calling out to Poulet as he lay dying: “Tentacles of time thoughtlessly trace transforming territories, transilluminating trouble’s tomb.”

Poulet remained heartbroken for 25 years, taking the blame for Eduardo’s death and falling deeper into homoeopropophoron. In the 25th year of his grief, he broke its spell with his most important work that would become the benchmark of excellence for all subsequent works of French philosophy. It’s title “Cloaked Closet Canary Cabal” rings out like the bells of Notre Dame to all patriotic French people. It was quoted over and over again by the best of French philosophers, and others around the world. The French philosopher Jean Jaques Rousseau wrote in the introduction to his “Confessions”: “Augustine aggregated angelic avenues aglitter with apples, but alas he was acerbic. I Rousseau radiate rectitude, rashly ranging rabbitlike; remiss, ridiculous, and rebellious.”

Poulet died peacefully in a blue brocaded armchair he had placed at the top of the Champs-Élysées, on the Place de l’Étoile, underneath the Arc de triomphe. He languished for weeks, attended only by his adoring nurse whom he had affectionately nicknamed Eduardo, who would read to him day and night, rain or shine. He loved Ovid’s works and the novel “Bélisaire.” When he died, the city of Paris erected a banner across the Arc de triomphe in his honor: “Truth is a Tyrannical Treadmill Tactfully Telling Tales.” After his death, Poulet’s nurse worked tirelessly in support of the establishment of “Joan of Arc Park” down the street from the Tuileries.

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

Excerpts from the Daily Trope are available on Kindle under the title The Book of Tropes.

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Homoiopoton

Posted on August 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

Meant to be what?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Homoioteleuton

Posted on August 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

Homoioteleuton (ho-mee-o-te-loot’-on): Similarity of endings of adjacent or parallel words.

I dropped my bowling ball on my foot, but that wasn’t all. It must’ve fractured my toe. It was the 10th frame. If I got a strike, I would have two more balls, and I would win it all—the trophy, the $500, and the adulation of the bowling groupies who were starting to look at me with hungry stares. I had had my eye on Leda throughout the entire tournament, fantasizing about kissing her long curved neck. But right now, I was in a crisis. My toe was killing me. It was like somebody had poured sulphuric acid on it and it was bubbling away inside my bowling shoe.

Lance Prono, my chief rival since we started bowling in the sixth grade, looked at me menacingly and said, “If you don’t roll that ball in ten minutes, you’re disqualified Borjack, and I have a shot at winning the tournament.” After he said this, he held his bowling ball over his head with two hands and pumped it up and down, and spun around on one foot, mimicking my injury and talking like Elmer Fudd: “Boo hoo mommy I hoot my whittle foooty.”

That did it. I tore off my bowling shoe. My toe had started to swell. There would be no way I could make a tenth-frame strike, limping to the line and rolling my ball in agony. I made my way to the men’s room, dragging my foot like the mummy in the old movie. I looked in the mirror. There I was in my turquoise and black bowling shirt with my name in script, appearing backward in the mirror: pihC—Chip. Hoping the swelling might go down, I stuck my bare foot in the toilet and flushed it to cool the water down. I was crying like a baby, like I did whenever my hopes were thwarted. Call me a crybaby, but I didn’t know what else to do.

The men’s room door opened and Leda was standing there. She saw my foot in the toilet and she started laughing uncontrollably. Snot was pouring out of her nose. She wiped a little off her lip and told me through her laughter to take my foot out of the toilet and dry it off with a paper towel. Then, she wiped the snot on her finger onto my toe and ran out the door.

Nothing happened from Leda’s snot, but the toilet’s cold water helped my toe quite a bit. I walked out of the men’s room without a limp, wearing one shoe. I picked up my ball and rolled it. I hit a strike. If I could strike the bonus frame, I’d win the tournament and bowl a perfect game. I saw Leda out of the corner of my eye. Her nose was still running. Then, Prono yelled “You stink, loser baby boy.” I didn’t respond. I rolled my ball. I pulled a 7-10 split—the bane of all bowlers’ existence. Some people say that Jesus bowled a 7-10 split at the Last Supper, courtesy of Judas planting a piece of silver on the lane.

I did what I had been taught to do by my high school bowling coach Mr. Rollings: summon Thor the god of rolling thunder and patron of bowlers and bowling alleys. I looked up and begged: “Please Thor, let me make this split.” Nothing happened. I may have alienated him somehow—maybe because I wore earplugs at the lanes. Anyway, I was on my own. I rolled my ball, trying to hit the seven pin so it would fly sideways and take down the ten pin. I failed.

But Prono didn’t beat me. In his final final chance to win the tournament, the rear seam of his of pants ripped as he bent over to pick up his ball, revealing his Yosemite Sam underpants. Then, just as he went to roll his ball, his pants fell down! He fell on his face and his ball veered into the gutter and slowly rolled out of sight. I won the tournament!! I thanked Thor.

I looked around for Leda, but she was gone. I found a used Kleenex where she had been sitting. I took it home with me, pressed it in my scrapbook, and drew a big red heart around it.

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

Selections from The Daily Trope are available as a book under the title of The Book of Tropes.

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Horismus

Posted on August 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

Horismus (hor-is’-mus): Providing a clear, brief definition, especially by explaining differences between associated terms.

“Car, car c-a-r. Stick your head in a jelly jar.” It was my first taunt, and I had authored it my self. I was nine and I yelled it out the car window when my mother was driving me home from school.

At nine, taunts were the coin of the realm. More aesthetically pleasing than teasing, some of them even rhymed like my jelly jar taunts. Most important, they presented a challenge, tending to induce anger, not shame or embarrassment like their weaker, more mean-spirited cousin, teasing.

In the late 50s we’d hang out at Charlie’s Soda Shoppe taunting each other after school. Charlie’s was a perfect replica of the Waverly Tavern down the street. It functioned as a training ground for hanging out at the bar when we got older. You could get a shot of ginger ale, and all of Charlie’s sundaes were modeled after the mixed drinks at the bar. For example, the Singapore Sundae: strawberry ice cream drizzled with Grenadine syrup, topped with a cherry and an orange slice alongside an umbrella. You’d learn how to nonchalantly remove the umbrella and politely pull the fruit laden toothpick out of the ice cream, slide the cherry and orange slice off the toothpick and slowly eat them, being careful not to bite into the orange peel. That was called a “smooth landing.”

Then, one day everything changed. Bruce Flanger asked George Bigelow if his mother had a mustache. It was a simple question, but George took it as taunt and threw his Vanilla Sour at Bruce and yelled “Your mother is so fat, when she wears high heels they poke holes in the sidewalk.” Bruce shot back: “You mother smells like the men’ room at exit 35 on the Parkway.” The Exit 35 men’s room was fabled for it’s stench. Some people believed it had been built over a mafia burial ground. Others believed it had been cursed by John Spellman, the “Farting King” from Union, NJ who used his trombone-sounding stench to clear convenience stores, and then rob them. He had been caught in the Exit 36 men’s room preparing for a robbery. State Police stormed the men’s room wearing army surplus gas masks. That’s when Spellman supposedly hurled his curse: “I swear this place will stink forever” and then he blew one that lasted for two minutes. The state police said the cloud coming out of Spellman’s pants had “a life of its own, altering the color of the wall tiles and becoming a part of the men’s room structure.”

Back to Charlie’s: The “your mother” give-and-take was starting to spiral out of control. Voices were raised, postures were angry. Then, Berty Russel raised his hands and made a conciliatory gesture. He said: “I like taunting as much as the next guy, but I’m a registered pacifist and don’t want to see it escalate into violence. I propose we view the ‘your mother’ taunt as a jest intended to elicit undirected laughter where ‘your mother’ is the ‘primordial mother,’ the ‘every mother.’ Moreover, the first known ‘your mother’ joke is 3,500 years old and inscribed on a Babylonian tablet: ‘Your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. What/who is it?’ We must respect these ancient origins. Any taunt that is substantively true, will be understood as an affront, and measures will be taken, For example; your mother is so fat she’s n a wheelchair. Expect violence.” Berty was nearly making sense for once. He was from England.

So, ignoring Berty’s BS history lesson, as far as we were concerned, the “your mother” jest was born that day at Charlie’s Soda Shoppe. It has held its own into the 21st century, and will continue being used as long as there are mothers. Just then, Charlie said to nobody in particular “Your mother has a mustache.” Everybody looked at him. Five guys stood up ready to let Charlie have it, George Bigelow threw his Strawberry Mary at Charlie and we all laughed as it streamed down Charlie’s chin and dripped on his shirt.

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

A print edition of The Daily Trope is available from Amazon under the title of The Book of Tropes.

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Hyperbaton

Posted on August 4, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. An additional edition is available on Kindle for $5.99.

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Hypozeuxis

Posted on August 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

Hypozeuxis (hyp-o-zook’-sis): Opposite of zeugma. Every clause has its own verb.

I waved the crayon around over my head. I smiled and jumped up and down. My chest tattoo of a dormouse started showing as my cowboy shirt started to come unsnapped—pop, pop, pop, pop went the snaps as they came undone, revealing the tattoo’s caption: “Feed Your Head.” From “Alice in Wonderland” to The Jefferson Airplane, I had fed my head. So, I picked up my gold-plated kazoo, and did my best Jimi Hendrix, blasting out “Voodoo Child” like somebody was sticking pins in me. Then, I ate a handful of Smarties, as I did every day, as a tribute to Princess Diana. It was her favorite candy. Some people say she was eating a handful Smarties when she was killed in the car crash in Paris. It is almost too horrible to contemplate, but they say she had a red one stuck in her eye when they removed her body from the car. It reminded me of the time I was hanging out with the Stones, and we all put Red Stipe bottle caps in our eyes pretending we were blind Jamaican zombies with our hands stretched out in front, bumping into each other. That’s when we found out that Kieth Richards actually was a zombie. He kept saying “I smell the brain of an Englishman.” I pulled the bottle caps out of Keith’s eyes and he returned to his aged, wrinkled, nicotine-stained 80-year-old looking 35-year-old-self. I never saw him eat a brain, but he would talk about it after he smoked a little weed. He would talk about how much a “prime” brain weighs, the different “cuts” of brain and how the medulla was tremendously useful in making the heart keep track of the beat, and how it was very soft because it didn’t do any thinking.

Eventually Kieth went to South Jersey in the US for the cure. He was buried up to his neck on the beach, a perfect target for urinating dogs. After being “splashed” 13 times, he was cured. It is rumored that “Honky Tonk Woman” came out of this experience.

I was in the rock group “Sputtering Flame.” We sang songs we composed about serial killers, farm animals, and roller blading—looking for the kind of success The Beach Boys had achieved with with surfing with our music about rollerblading, Our biggest hit was “Crazy Gacy,” a song about the American serial killer John Wayne Gacy. At the same time, we were booed off the stage even if we hinted we might perform it. So, we focused on farm animals and roller blading. “Old McDonald Stole My Pig” made it to 72 on the charts—that was the best we did, although “How Now Tattooed Cow” made it to 89. Rollerblading was a catastrophe—it was almost ephemeral in its longevity. “Let Me Roll You to the Motel Next Door,” “Squeaking Wheels,” and “WD-40” were our best, topping the charts at 105, 107, and 125, and then the rollerblading craze crashed. The venues closed and “Sputtering Flame” was extinguished..

We were heartbroken, but we had to carry on. I gave up my musical career. I was awash in drugs, and still am—mostly pot and opiated hash. Although I’m nearly 80, after 40 or so years of debauchery that makes Dorian Gray look like the Pope, I got a full tuition scholarship at Candy Land Community College. I’ve dyed my hair black and lost a few pounds. I was pretty sure my creative writing professor Ms. Wangford, had some kind of crush on me. She told me I needed to come to her office for a “special lesson.” My imagination took off. It would be amazing. I got to her office and she was on all fours on her desk. She jumped down and we both sat down. She took off her wig. It was Alice Cooper. He said “Do you get the irony my man?” I was coming on to my third pipe load of opiated hash. Alice looked like the yellow circle in the center of a daisy, with white petals. Only he wasn’t only yellow—he was flashing purple and red too. Misunderstanding him, I said “I don’t do ironing. Everything I own is wash and wear.” He started spinning like a wheel of fortune and cackling. I ran out the door, slamming it so hard the glass broke.

I am almost ready to graduate with an Associate Degree in Topiary Sciences. I specialize in making hedges into squirrels and ducks. But I do have my creative moments—my senior project was a firefighter with a mug of beer in one hand and a BIC lighter in the other. I have a job with “Trendy Trimmers.” Although it sounds like a hair salon, it is the Number 1 topiary operation in North Jersey. My first gig will be making all of Jon Bon Jovi’s hedges into parked Harleys. It should take about a year.

So, it looks like I’ve landed fairly gently in life. With all my failures, it looks like I might have some success ahead. But still, I like to reminisce about the bad old days—taking the stage with “Sputtering Flame” and trying hard to be a star.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is available for $5.99.

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

Hysterologia

Posted on August 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

Hysterologia (his-ter-o-lo’-gi-a): A form of hyperbaton or parenthesis in which one interposes a phrase between a preposition and its object. Also, a synonym for hysteron proteron.

“Under” (wrote the Swiss poet) “where” confusing and shocking literary critics and breaking new poetic ground, along with the “red wheelbarrow,” and “milk wood,” and “my thumb” thus eclipsing Ricola, Heidi, Swiss Miss, and the Swiss Army Knife as foundational to Swiss self-understanding along with safe deposit boxes, wrist watches and tidy smooth-running ski lifts. Nevertheless, despite the emergent markers of Swiss cultural identity, Swiss Cheese maintains its preeminence as Switzerland’s national odor.

Recently, it was discovered that Pinocchio fled to Switzerland when he was accused of elder abuse against Geppetto by shaving off his mustache when he was sleeping and hiding his glasses in a big lump of donkey poop. He is wanted in Italy and Geppetto has disowned him—saying Pinocchio will never be a real boy. Pinocchio assimilated well to life in Switzerland. He works in a Swiss Army Knife factory. Part of his job is to think of new functions for the knife. He is currently working on the hemorrhoid scratcher, tattoo needle, tea warmer, and glow-in-the-dark toothpick. Even though Pinocchio will always be a wooden boy, at 52 he’s still going strong and looks great with his youthful birch bark skin and red dye 40 dyed lips and cheeks. That’s not all—he keeps his joints lubricated with Emu Oil, never a squeak. He’s going a little bald, but that can be remedied with Super Glue and black rabbit fur. He takes medication that keeps his nose from growing.

Pinocchio lives with his wife Marloda who is a Russian nesting doll. Accordingly, Pinocchio has an extended family to take care of. He pops open Marloda on Friday nights and dumps everybody on the floor—removing them one-by-one from each other. Then, lining up and forming a chorus they sing “Edelweiss” and “Smoke on the Water.” Now, it’s bedtime and everybody scrambles back inside Marloda for a good night’s sleep. Pinocchio gives Marloda a kiss and they go to bed.

Meanwhile, in Italy as the years go by Geppetto, almost 90 years old, becomes angrier and angrier at his errant son. His mustache never grew back and people laugh continuously at the fat lip it’s absence revealed. He has been training a small troop of fashion designers from Milan who can cross borders without raising suspicions and “get” Pinocchio. He has equipped each one with a concealable pocket saw to “Cut that bastard down to size.” They each have a quart of gasoline “In case worse comes to worse.” Geppetto has become mad with his obsession. He has started making dangerous toys. The worst is the rocking horse with shards of glass protruding from the saddle. You can imagine what it does to its rider!

Geppetto and his troop of Milanese mercenaries were ready to go. When they got to the Swiss border, Geppetto cracked, pulled out his gasoline bottle, dumped it on his head and set himself afire. The Milanese mercenaries ran back into Italy discarding their pocket saws and bottles of gasoline. The Swiss guards bagged Geppetto up and dragged him back across the Italian border. The Milanese mercenaries left Geppetto in a ditch and continued back to Milan. Pinocchio heard about his father’s demise at the border and wanted to retrieve him for a proper burial. However, if he crossed into Italy he would be arrested on the elder abuse charges that had been leveled by Geppetto years ago.

Pinocchio contacted a local Gnome for help. He knew Swiss Gnomes were beneficial to gardeners. He told the Gnome if he brought his father’s body back over the border, he could use it for fertilizer. The Gnome agreed and, feeling compassion for Pinocchio, dumped the Geppetto fertilizer onto Pinocchio’s garden, greatly improving the garden’s yield of tomatoes and peppers, and winning Pinocchio a gardening prize.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is available for $5.99.

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

Inopinatum

Posted on July 31, 2023 | Leave a comment

Inopinatum (in-o-pi-na’-tum): The expression of one’s inability to believe or conceive of something; a type of faux wondering. As such, this kind of paradox is much like aporia and functions much like a rhetorical question or erotema. [A paradox is] a statement that is self-contradictory on the surface, yet seems to evoke a truth nonetheless [can include oxymoron].

I couldn’t believe it when he told me our friendship was over after 45 years. He offered me excuses like “It’s stale,” “You’ve become boring,” “You’ve gone blind,” You drool a lot more than you used to,” “You’ve become really contentious,” “Those Italian cigars you smoke smell like cat shit.” I would’ve punched him in nose, but my blindness prevented me from doing so—I couldn’t see his nose. So, I decided to get a “Home Aide” to fill in the blanks left by Ted’s abandonment. I called social services to ask for help finding somebody reliable. The receptionist put me in touch with “Helpless Humans Social Stoics.” It sounded pretty philosophical. I thought I would mistrust philosophy after I took a course in my Freshman year of college. The professor had a beard and smoked a pipe—two key indicators of Communist sympathies. My father had warned me, and he had gotten it right! Professor “Beardy-Pipe” told us we live in a cave and watch TV too much, to the point that “Bonanza” has made us want to own Lake Tahoe, be landlords, and live in a giant log cabin where we are served by the Chinese slave, Hop Sing, who cooks meals, chases bad people with a meat cleaver, and complains.

That class helped a lot. It opened my eyes and showed me the truth. I became a Communist and agitated for its implementation in the small Southern town where I lived. People called me names and wouldn’t let me live a normal life. McCarthyism was rampant. I had to leave town & that’s how I ended up in Berkely, California—a safe haven for Commies.

Anyway, Marla from Helpless Humans Social Stoics was on her way. The bell rang and I made my way to the door, stumbling over something. I opened the door. “Hi! I’m Marla and I’m here to make your life easier. Where do you keep your valuables?” She smelled so good. I just wanted to press my nose against her and keep it there forever. Instead, I told her my valuables, such as they were, were hanging in the top part of the upstairs toilet in a ziplock freezer bag.

She started into the house, tripped and screamed. “There’s a dead man on the floor!” She screamed. I felt the dead man’s face and it was Ted’s. “God Almighty!” I yelled. “Does he have a knife stuck in him?” I asked. Maria said “Yes.” “We’ve got to get his body out of here and dump it in the river.” I said. “Yes. Disposing of bodies is in my job description, and it isn’t clear whether natural causes or murder matters. Just give me your valuables and I’ll call my colleague Grinski.” When I gave her the bag I could hear her rifling through it. At one point she said “Ooh! A Buck Rogers Super Decoder Ring, worth thousands!”

Ted’s gone. The floor’s clean again, and Maria and Grinski moved into my bedroom. I sleep on the garage floor in a sleeping bag.

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

Intimation

Posted on July 29, 2023 | Leave a comment

Intimation: Hinting at a meaning but not stating it explicitly.

I’m not sayings it, but something’s wrong with my car. Ever since I ran over a squirrel on Broad Street last week, it’s been acting up. I drove past a grove of oak trees and the steering pulled to the left—almost imperceptibly. The squirrels stuffing their cheeks with acorns under the tree, stood on their hind legs like they wanted to box with me. I never thought I’d be intimidated by a squirrel, but there were six or seven of them facing me with their little paws clenched into fists.

My car pulled to the curb and the door opened. The foraging squirrels held their boxing postures. Something pushed me out of the car. There I stood facing the fighting squirrels. I didn’t know what to do. All I could think to do was to kick them like little teed-up footballs. I was bitten by a squirrel when I was a kid. I crept up behind it and grabbed its tail. The bite had broken the skin and I ran home bleeding and told my mother I had tried to pick her one of Mrs. Broadbent’s roses, but I had been pricked by a thorn. She told me, “Don’t worry son. Some day you’ll get it right, and I’ll have my rose.”

But that was then. This is now. I think I’ll be swarmed and beaten to death by a pack of angry squirrels. I had become rooted to the sidewalk and couldn’t move. Suddenly, an older-looking squirrel stepped forward. He put his paws down. He asked “Are you remorseful?” I answered with an instant emphatic “Yes!” “Good” he said “So many of you just flatten us without even swerving to avoid us.” The other squirrels nodded their heads, looking at each other. The elder squirrel continued: “Oaky-Doakey was a restless squirrel who took shortcuts. I tried to warn him over and over that ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’” All the squirrels nodded in silent agreement. “He’s still laying flattened in the street. He has been run over hundreds of times. He looks like a leather frisbee with a tail. Would you pick him up and sail him into those bushes over there?” “Yes.” I said.

I picked Oaky-Doakey up with my handkerchief. The squirrels bowed their heads and raised their fists. I got Oaky-Doakey into a good frisbee position, and I tossed him. I tossed him too hard. After being dried out for weeks in the street, he broke into pieces. The squirrels looked really angry and were making a growling chattering sound as they came toward me. “Now I’m going to die for my sins!” I thought in a total panic. But cooler heads prevailed. The wise old squirrel said, “You tried. We should have known he would turn into squirrel jerky brittle. Go in peace. Drive carefully.”

I still don’t believe it all happened. I must’ve been overworked or sleep deprived. I know I ran over a squirrel and there’s a stain on my handkerchief. Two days ago I found an acorn on my front porch.

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

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

Kategoria

Posted on July 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

Kategoria (ka-te-go’-ri-a): Opening the secret wickedness of one’s adversary before his [or her] face.

I thought I knew you. I knew what you liked to wear: Chanel. I knew what you liked to drink: Dom Perignon. I knew what you liked to eat: Porterhouse Steak with Truffle Butter. I knew what you liked to drive: a Mercedes Maybach. I knew your favorite place to live: Paris. I knew your favorite book: “Atlas Shrugged.” I knew your favorite movie: “Nightmare on Elm Street.”

I could go on for ten pages of “what you like.” But you already know what you like—it’s no mystery to you. But after scanning the ensemble of things and preferences, I realized too late that I don’t know you! I thought I married you. I thought I fell in love with you. I thought I lived with you.

I’ve been watching you and spying on you since you came back from the grocery store with your skirt on backward. I asked you how it happened and you told me it was “the wind” in the parking lot, that your chauffeur Brino had to cart you to the car and lay you down on the seat, where your skirt probably got turned around. You credited Brino with saving your life. But we both know there was no wind. We both know you’re lying.

Then you stayed out all night. You told me you were running in a marathon and got lost. Your phone went dead and you were panic- stricken, afraid you may be assaulted or mauled by one of the viscous dogs that lives by the beach. Once again, you credited Brino with saving you and taking you to his mother’s home for the night. But we both know there was no marathon. We both know there’s no “Brino’s mother.” We both know you’re lying. Then there’s my gold Rolex that disappeared. The next day, I noticed that Brino was wearing a gold Rolex. You told me he had gotten it for his birthday from his brother. But we both know there was no birthday or brother. We both know you’re lying.

I said, “Now I think I know you: You’re a cheater and a liar.” At this point my wife started crying. She sobbed: “I’m no good. I’m rotten. I stink.” I said, “Ok. I’ll add that to cheater and liar, and I’ll have a really good idea of who you are.”

I anguished all night. For some bizarre reason I couldn’t live without her. It was like I had reconciled myself to taking a small dose of poison every day. First thing the next morning, I met with an “associate” of mine from Palermo and hired him to do a hit on Brino. That would solve the cheating problem; maybe the lying problem too. I resolved that our next chauffeur would be a young blonde woman with an open heart.

But alas. Brino got wind of my plan and stole the Mercedes and a cooler full of Porterhouse steaks. My traitorous wife went with him. I told my associate from Palermo, if he could bag them both, he could keep the car and the steaks for himself.

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

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Posted in kategoria

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

Litotes

Posted on July 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

Litotes (li-to’-tees): Deliberate understatement, especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite. The Ad Herennium author suggests litotes as a means of expressing modesty (downplaying one’s accomplishments) in order to gain the audience’s favor (establishing ethos).

How undeserving. How unworthy. How embarrassed by all this. I say “So what?” I am half the man you think I am. I’m “not what I’m cracked up to be.” I didn’t build anything, but I did make a difference—a minimal difference that destroyed as much as it produced, showing everything has two sides, at least. You’re all sitting here in rags with rice bowls hanging around your necks because of what I did—but instead of wanting to kill me, you want to hug me. And I should give credit to my imp friend Harry Stillskin, sitting over there with his hand on my wife, who helped me pull it all together.

I was stumbling through life with no direction when I met Harry perched on a stool at The Blue Moon Bar and Grill here in Lodi. I sat down next to him and he bought me a beer. He asked me to guess his name. He was wearing a bowling shirt that said Harry on it. So I said, “Harry?” He said, “Damn, that’s right. I should’ve listened to my wife—she told me not to wear my bowling shirt when I wasn’t with my buddies.” We drank a few more beers and got half-loaded. Harry asked me what I did for a living. As a joke, I told him I was a deep-sea diver. He looked shocked. He told me that salt water would set him on fire, so he had to stay from the ocean. I thought he was kidding me, so I let it pass. He told me he was in the kidnapping business. Now, the bullshit was getting out of hand. I ordered two more beers and asked him to elaborate.

He told me he had a spinning wheel that had been in his family for hundreds of years. The spinning wheel spun gold! He would find desperate mothers and make a deal: He would take the babies and spin gold. If the mother could guess his name, she would get to keep the gold and get her baby back. If she failed guess his name, he would keep the baby and the gold. He said it was surprising how few women could guess his name. One would think that “Harry” would be pretty easy to guess. He sold the babies to a baby broker in Canada, no questions asked.

I was stunned. “Bullshit!” was all I could think to say. With slightly slurred speech Harry said, “Oh yeah? Come on. Let’s take a walk.” We walked up the street and came to an old barn—a vestige of Lodi’s horse and buggy days. Harry waved at the door and it slowly opened. Inside there was a spinning wheel, an executive leather swivel chair, a wooden stool and a crib. God! He wasn’t kidding. He churned out a couple of ounces of gold and we split them 50-50. I asked him if we could hire a crew to spin night and day and Harry said “Ok.” So, that’s what we did out of sheer greed. But then, we had so much gold that we bagged it up and dumped it all over Lodi, and then all over the US. Our spinners had come under some kind of spell and couldn’t stop spinning.

The rest is history.

The world was glutted with gold. The price plummeted to 10 cents per ounce. Paper money lost it’s value, among other things, it was used as kindling to start fires. Bartering made a comeback. We have learned to do without. I am valorized for causing a worldwide economic collapse (along with Harry). But, so much good has come of it. When we’re all poor, everybody’s poor. We achieve an equality of misery and freedom from the nagging hunger for material gain. We may be ill-clothed and hungry all the time, but at least we’re all still alive (with the exception of the infirm and the elderly).

Harry and I are so undeserving. Really, it’s our out-of-control gold spinners who made all this happen. So let’s raise a toast to them, resting in their urns in the showcase back there. It was the only way to stop them. .

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

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Posted in litotes

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

Maxim

Posted on July 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“Life is a landfill.” I grew up in poverty. I came of age in poverty. I am still in poverty. I will always be in poverty. I know what it’s like to have one uncooked turnip between four people. The gas and electricity have been shut off for weeks. My mom tells us we’re having “crunchy turnip” and we all pretend it’s the best thing ever, even though it gives us diarrhea and we only have one bathroom. We’re lucky we live in Florida or we would need shoes and winter clothes. I have a pair of flip flops and hand-me-down gym shorts that I hold up with a duct tape belt. In addition I have three t-shirts. My favorite one has a picture on the front of Nickerson’s Hardware Store with a woman in a bathing suit swinging a hammer and smiling.

The technical term for Dad is “lout.” He stands on the front porch and calls people names as they run past the house trying to avoid him. He called my teacher “Ms. Dipstick” as she ran by. She stopped and turned and yelled back “You’re a pimple on the butt of humanity!” Nobody had ever had the nerve to yell back at him. Everybody stopped running and turned toward my father, and waited. They weren’t disappointed. Dad turned and whipped out his butt and yelled “Kiss this!” Ms. Cornweather gave him a double middle finger and continued on her way. She had earned my undying respect. After that, Dad threw cherry bombs off the porch at passers by. It’s a wonder that nobody called the police. Some people thought he was in cahoots with them. He had served on the police force for two weeks. He had “executed” a Poodle named Pierre for what he called “homicidal barking.” Of course, the Poodle’s owner demanded that Dad be terminated. When the man came to the police station to register his complaint, Dad taunted him by speaking in a French accent: “Are vous upsetez mon-sewer? Havez some soufflé.” The owner of the Poodle lunged for Dad and grabbed Dad’s gun. He pointed it at dad and said “Now you die, you murderer.” Dad barked at him and held his hands up like cute little paws. The man dropped the gun and left the police station sobbing. Dad was fired on the spot. Dad’s brother, Mayor Weed. He made sure Dad wasn’t charged with anything and was given a commendation for “protecting and defending.”

Mayor Weed is our landlord. We have never paid rent because there are “certain secrets” that Dad knows. We try to prod them out of Dad. All he will say is “I don’t want him to go to prison.” That’s a pretty big hint! Mom always says “You have to humiliate me, don’t you?” It’s pretty intense.

Last night, I fell through the living room floor and landed on the washing machine in the basement. The house has termites. The Mayor rented us two anteaters from the Zoo. We keep them in the basement and they do good job with termites that fall out of the ceiling beams, but there’s no way for them to get up into the beams. I looked in “Popular Mechanics” and found plans for an Anteater beam ramp. I’m on my way to Nickerson’s hardware store to try to steal the components, and also, possibly meet the girl on my T-shirt. I started a fire in a back room, grabbed everything I needed and made my way home. The girl hadn’t been there. I was disappointed, but I wouldn’t let it kill me.

I got the ramps built and you could hear the anteaters grunting and skittering up and down them night and day. They were getting fat. Then it happened! The Mayor, “out of respect for my father” was giving me a job he called “No Show.” I was responsible for “staying away” and being paid by direct deposit every week. That was pretty good. I am writing a book now. It’s titled “Blackmail” and Dad is helping me. Our two rental anteaters are going to town. They’ve started sticking their heads though the hole in the living room floor with their little babies, and making little whiny sounds.

By the way, we’re still living in poverty. Since I got the “No Show” job the Mayor has made us start paying rent.

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

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Posted in maxim

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

Medela

Posted on July 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

Medela (me-de’-la): When you can’t deny or defend friends’ faults and seek to heal them with good words.

You’re not funny. With all your comedy stylings the only thing that’s made me laugh is your ineptitude. You can’t even do a knock knock joke right. Like this one you recently told at a party: “A man with a kaleidoscope walks into a bar. Who’s there?” Somebody said: “A man with a kaleidoscope?” Everybody laughed at you. The was no knock knock. You should stop telling jokes.

There are so many other things that you’re good at. One thing’s for sure, you’re good at using your electric can opener! You can make a can rotate without spilling a drop! Same goes for pop tops. POW! Goes the soda can when you pull the ring. Same goes for sardines—I’ve seen you pop a sardine can with sardines packed in mustard without dripping it all over the kitchen counter like Joey does. He’s such a slob—he never wipes up his trail of spills. The cat ends up licking it up and puking in a corner of the living room.

Another thing: you’re good at walking. You go in a solid straight line, unless there are obstacles in your way, like your baby Buster playing on the floor, or a toy, or a pair of shoes, or an empty gin bottle—you go around them. You’ve only stumbled over Buster once, and that was at night. Remember? You forgot to put him in his crib when you passed out on the couch. When you got up to pee, you kicked him a across the living room. At least you didn’t step on him. That might’ve killed him. But you know, you learned a lesson from nearly killing Buster, and that’s really good.

But, do you know what you are really, really good at? Being a contentious pain in the ass. When was the last time you agreed with me about anything? You want to argue about the day of the week, the time of day, how old you really are. It is maddening, but it has made me a better attorney. When I point out that everything is contestable, the prosecution is visibly shaken. When the prosecution says “The defendant was seen exiting the liquor store waving a pistol with one hand and clutching a wad of cash and lotto tickets with the other,” I say “Everything is contestable. Try and prove it. I bet you can’t. Nah! Nah! I’m waiting. Cat got your tongue bumpy butt?” It never works, but it makes me feel tough and strong. Being in contempt of court is a badge of honor for me and a testament to the positive influence your craziness exerts on me. That brings me to your talking to yourself, or should I say to “Sir Dottlescone” your imaginary lord protector from the 15th century.

When you converse, your British accent is quite good. I don’t know about Sir Dottlescone, because I can’t hear him. But, I believe he frequently tells you to do naughty things like steal cars and stand naked in your bedroom window. Our cul-de-sac has been packed with hooting teenagers and neighbors have been standing on their sidewalks in awe for 2 weeks now. Thank God, Sir Dottlescone hasn’t told you to kill anybody. Although I did hear you say something about “the rude shelf stocker at Wegmans” and how he should be flayed. But your dramatic skills are admirable—the one-sided impromptu dialogues with nobody who is actually there, are amazing. It’s like a two-sided soliloquy.

Anyway, now you can see—you stink at comedy, but you’re great at other things. We’ll keep you off of your medication so you can continue to pursue those “other things” without missing a beat. Can you ask Sir Dottlescone where my credit card is?

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

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Posted in medela

Tagged example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Meiosis

Posted on July 22, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in meiosis

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

Merismus

Posted on July 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Merismus (mer-is’-mus): The dividing of a whole into its parts.

It was a pancake, flat and round, buttered, soaked with maple syrup. It had a top, a bottom, and sides. I picked up my fork and dug into it—holding my fork on its side, rocking it back and forth, and up and down to cut the pancake. There was sausage too, but the pancake was the focus of my attention. Ever since I was eleven, when I had pancakes for the first time, I’ve had them for breakfast every day. I figure I’ve had a hundred gallons of maple syrup. I dress like a lumberjack—Carhartt overhauls, buffalo-checked red shirt, Timberland work boots, and a navy blue watch cap. I carry an antique peavey wherever I go. I have trouble getting into night clubs, but I just check my peavey in the coat room. At the grocery store, I check it in the manager’s office, same with the liquor store.

So anyway, who makes my pancakes? It’s not my mother! It’s my girlfriend Shirley “Baby Batter” Tapper. It took her nearly a year to learn to make perfect pancakes. When she first started, the pancakes were the size of quarters and had flour dust inside from her failure to adequately mix the flour. I was so mad that I pulled my .45 and shot up the pancakes, and the dish, and the kitchen table. I was about ready to shoot up Baby Batter, when I started to calm down and put the gun away.

One morning, I asked Baby Batter to make pancakes with something interesting mixed in. I was thinking of blueberries or something like that. She mixed loose Oolong tea into the batter. It was the most god-awful pancake I had ever had in my whole life. The tea looked like snuff on my teeth and it tasted like my dog’s collar smells. I pulled out my .45 and pumped five rounds into the pancake from hell—the plate shattered and the five slugs went through the kitchen table and lodged in the kitchen floor. Baby Batter was crouched in a corner crying. I went to comfort her and she yelled “No!” and swung her stainless steel spatula at me. I had gotten it for her birthday. She was so happy! Now, she was a miserable wreck sobbing in the kitchen. I decided then and there to drizzle her with maple syrup and eat her.

I had never eaten a person before. I Googled “cannibalism” and found instructions for butchering and some “natural organic” recipes for Homo Sapiens Comedere that were quick and easy to prepare. The “Breaded Thigh Garlic Pizza” looked great. I couldn’t wait to get my teeth into Baby Batter. I was reloading my .45’s magazine. My mouth was watering. I could already smell Baby Batter baking in the oven. I got my butcher’s knife out of it’s drawer and jacked a round into the 45’s chamber. Suddenly, Baby Batter jumped up and scraped my face with her spatula, like my face was a crusty cookie sheet she was trying to clean off. I was bleeding profusely. Baby Batter grabbed my .45 and pressed it against my forehead. She said, voice trembling, “If you ever do anything like this ever again, I will blow off your testicles and shoot you in spine so you’ll be riding a wheelchair for the rest of your life, with no balls. And I will never make you pancakes again—not even on your birthday or Christmas. You WILL go to counseling.”

I agreed to everything. I went to counseling and found out that I was suffering from “Rapid Onset Cannibal Syndrome.” It is triggered by temper tantrums directed toward loved ones, and overindulgence in pancakes, which makes you want to eat people. The formula: ANGER+PANCAKES=CANNIBALISM is a part of my therapy, I am required to recite the formula to my therapist on Moodle twice a day.

My face is disfigured from Baby Batter’s spatula scraping. Every time I look in the mirror, I can’t believe that Baby Batter did this to me. We are married and have a daughter named Sally “Nonstick.” I’ve started tapping my maple trees and making my own syrup. I’ve created a maple syrup cologne that is selling really well in Canada. I haven’t wanted to eat Baby Batter for four years, although I must admit, sometimes my stomach growls when I look at her for more than 30 seconds.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is available for $5.99.

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Posted in merismus

Tagged elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric

Metalepsis

Posted on July 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

Metalepsis (me-ta-lep’-sis): Reference to something by means of another thing that is remotely related to it, either through a farfetched causal relationship, or through an implied intermediate substitution of terms. Often used for comic effect through its preposterous exaggeration. A metonymical substitution of one word for another which is itself figurative.

I am the screwdriver man. I have screwed many screws, making them go round and round, driving them to the finish, into soft wood, As in a 500 mile race at Indianapolis, fastening, fastening, fastening up to the finish line, The screw is mightier than the sword. You can’t just pull it out. You have to unscrew it!

But the screwdriver is the screw’s master—it is an affair of the heart—it is love at the first turn of the screw— it is Romeo and Juliet—star crossed tool and fastener, made to bind things together—to eclipse the dowel and the nail: fasteners of a baser shade, furiously beaten by mallets and hammers, not the sunshine of love ignited by the screwdriver’s spinning waltz with its chosen screw: together, screwdriver and screw connect and bore into the wooden plain like lumberjacks looking for the wood of gold. Will a lasting connection be made? Yes! The screwer, the screwdriver, and the screw will bring things together in a relationship deigned to last, and perhaps, to outlast the screwer’s screwing in the sun, snapping his mortal coil.

Anyway, I currently use a “Whip Tip” racing screwdriver. It is made in Germany where all great tools are made. When I started my career as a competitive screwer, or “screwy,” my father gave me his screwdriver—a Stanley Spinner. It was made in China (not Germany). Also, it really wasn’t designed for competitive screwing. It had a clear yellow plastic handle with a black rubber grip-improving sheath. The shaft was silver—garishly chrome plated. The blade seemed sturdy—like it could take the rapid hard turns that competitive screwdriving is known for.

Briefly, the first competition went badly. I inserted dad’s screwdriver into the screw’s slot. The slot was deep. The blade fit well— no wiggle, tight. The starting gun fired. I started screwing like my wrists were lubricated with WD-40. I was like wrists of fire. I had been following the exercise regime in “Screwing It,” by Philip Head. He was known as “The “Screwing King.” He lived in Germany’s Black Forrest where he made world-famous Cuckoo clocks, held together entirely by beautiful brass screws. Anyway, I was furiously turning my screwdriver when I had a catastrophic handle failure: the plastic cracked making the screwdriver shaft a free-spinning non-sequitur: killing the screwdriver’s capacity for screwing. Out of anger, I started stabbing my workbench with my screwdriver. A judge saw me and I was escorted out of the venue by a giant usher. He said, “I know how feel,” as he pushed me down onto the pavement. I considered stabbing him with my broken screwdriver, but decided not to. I wanted to be around for next year’s competition.

So, here I am—competing again. I’m clutching my German “Whip Tip” in my fist. In practice, I’ve got my screwing down to 2.6 seconds—almost a world record. Oh damn: there’s Philip Head. He’s competing. He’s holding a screwdriver that looks like it’s from a science fiction movie. I can see through the plastic handle that the screwdriver pivots on ball bearings. The shaft has a diameter the size of the handle and appears to be made of lead, for extra pressure on the screw head. Mr. Head’s innovations are too much for me.

I dropped out of the competition, and, clutching my “Whip Tip” caught a bus home. My dad, trying to be funny, said “Screw ‘em” when I told him what happened. Crying, I went out to the garage and starting screwing things together. I had to put a drill into play. I screwed the lawnmower to Dad’s car. I screwed the chainsaw to the wheelbarrow. I screwed my bicycle to the workbench. I had gone insane! I called my therapist and told her what I had done. She told me to pack a bag and catch an Uber to “Head Games,” the new mental hygiene facility near the county landfill. She would call ahead an set things up. I knew I could get well if I could get rid of my “Whip Tip” and say goodbye to competitive screwing. As we we rode along, I decided to throw my “Whip Tip” out the car’s window. That was a mistake. I speared a bicyclist in the leg. I called 911 as we sped off to “Head Games.” I was looking forward to taking medications and was hoping there would be a good snack time.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is available

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Posted in metalepsis

Tagged elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric

Metaplasm

Posted on July 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Metaplasm (met’-a-plazm): A general term for orthographical figures (changes to the spelling of words). This includes alteration of the letters or syllables in single words, including additions, omissions, inversions, and substitutions. Such changes are considered conscious choices made by the artist or orator for the sake of eloquence or meter, in contrast to the same kinds of changes done accidentally and discussed by grammarians as vices (see barbarism). See: antisthecon, aphaeresis, apocope, epenthesis, paragoge, synaloepha.

I told my mother “I paahked my caaa in owuh naibuh’s yahd,” I thought I was pretty funny imitating my great-great-grandfather’s Maine accent. He had been a sailor all his life. His nickname was “Yardarm” and he had actually served on clipper ships. He was 112 and had been forced to move in with us after the “incidents” at the nursing home. He had been accused of “snacking out of order” and running over peoples’ toes with his wheelchair. The snacking thing was ridiculous. Snack time was 2.00 pm every day. Everybody got one apple, sliced, on a plate. My great-great grandfather would sneak into the kitchen and steal an apple at 1.00 pm, and eat it in front of everybody in the day room before the designated snack time. I asked him about the whole thing and he told me “Those bahstads! Make’em wawkh the plank!”

I thought, what the hell is wrong with eating an apple when you want to? I went to Red Crest to find out. I asked Yardarm’s caregiver, Nurse Cakes, and she said “protocols” and took off her nurse hat, and looked me up and down. She said, “He was the roughest customer I ever had. I wanted to push him down the stairs. But, I didn’t. It’s illegal.” She gave me a flirtatious look. It was temping, but she looked like a human moose, and I had a girlfriend. Also, I thought she was crazy.

I ran to the VP’s office with the nurse walking quickly after me. When I got there, I slammed the door in her face. She pounded on the VP’s door and yelled “Come on! I can take care of you! I won’t hit you with my shoe or push you down the stairs.” More craziness. The VP told me to ignore Nurse Cakes. She helped make a lot of people happy at Red Crest Home—mostly younger staff who appreciate her hands-on approach to their welfare.

I had to leave Red Crest before I went crazy. Nurse Cakes was over the rainbow and I was beginning to believe the VP wasn’t too far behind. Before I left, I asked him about Yardarm’s wheelchair incidents. He told me that without cause, by surprise, and with malice and forethought, my great-great grandfather had rolled over a few people’s toes, chipping their toenail polish, and generally damaging their expensive pedicures, causing waves of sorrow throughout Red Crest. I was really angry, I asked him, “Is that all?” Due to “protocols,” I knew I couldn’t do anything. So, I yelled as I went out the door and headed home: “You crazy ass losers! You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!” I didn’t have lawyer. I don’t have a lawyer. I’ll never have a lawyer, unless I win the lotto. But, it was still a good thing to yell it. People do it in movies all the time.

When I got home, I saw Yardarm sitting at the kitchen table working on something made of wood. I asked him if he wanted some grog and he said “shoowuh.” I brought the mug to the table and he gulped half of it down. I asked him what he was making. He said “Lobstah buoy.” I asked him if he was going to make it into a lamp. He said “Naw.” That was it. End of conversation.

Great-great grandfather left that night without letting us know. The next day’s headlines told us where great-great grandfather had gone—Red Crest. Nurse Cakes had been seriously injured by an intruder. There was a freshly painted bloody wooden lobster buoy found at the scene where Nurse Cakes had been assaulted. The lobster buoy was brown and yellow, the colors of my home which I had just finished painting. I kept the unused paint stored in the garage. Clearly, the buoy found at Red Crest was the one Yardarm had been working on in my kitchen.

POSTSCRIPT

Great-great grandfather called us that night from Canada. He had dual citizenship from his sailor days. He had checked into a “much niceuh” facility, Maple Grove, using his Canadian passport. “It reminds me of a hotel I stayed in in Baahbahdos when I was in the rum and sugah trade.” Great-great grandfather’s life is a saga. Now, he’s living as a fugitive at Maple Grove, learning the Canadian accent so he can blend in.

By the way, Red Crest went out of business. Soon after the Nurse Cakes incident, the VP was arrested for replacing resident’s jewelry gemstones with Swarovski crystals.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is available for $5.99.

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Posted in metaplasm

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

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