Tag Archives: example

Cataphasis

Posted on June 30, 2022 | Leave a comment

Cataphasis (kat-af’-a-sis): A kind of paralipsis in which one explicitly affirms the negative qualities that one then passes over.

A: You are a cloud hovering over an otherwise wonderful day—stuck in front of the sun and dimming the landscape with your darkening presence. But today, I don’t want to revisit your brooding bullshit. I want to talk about your “announcement” and ask how you think you got pregnant?

B: Honestly, I don’t know. I forgot to take my birth control pills for a couple of months. But it was only a couple of months, they shouldn’t wear off that fast. Anyway, I wanted a baby. We’ve been married five years and have nothing to show for it.

A: Don’t you think we should’ve discussed this, especially since we haven’t been trying to get pregnant? We haven’t had sex for a year. So, the big question is: Who’s the baby’s father?

B: Scooter Boone.

A: OH MY GOD! The developmentally delayed towel boy at The Confederate Car Wash! He’s the stupidest person in Mississippi, and that’s saying something. Did he rape you?

B: No. We did it in the car going through the car wash. I am very truly sorry. I don’t want our marriage to end. I love you.

A: I have my doubts, but I think we can see this through. As you know, abortion’s illegal here in Mississippi and we can’t afford to drive you to hell and back to get you one in some other state. I guess you’ll have to have Scooter’s baby. I just hope the baby’s nothing like Scooter, especially in looks. Scooter has a nose like a vulture beak—unmistakeable. What the hell will we do if the baby’s born with Scooter’s beak?

B: I don’t know. Can’t we please go to Illinois so I can get an abortion?

A: I don’t know. I work overtime all the time at the feed mill, and we still barely have enough to pay the rent and eat. How about this: Ask Scooter to drive you to Illinois—he’s the father, he should take responsibility.

B: Ok, I’ll give it a try.

Postscript: Scooter and Marla took off for Illinois to get the abortion. Marla got the abortion and she and Scooter settled in Chicago where Scooter found employment at the Abraham Lincoln Car Wash, specializing in luxury cars, and making tons of money in tips. Marla had her dream come true: eat deep dish pizza twice a week and send poison pen letters once a month to her husband Wayne, who had a nervous breakdown and lost his job at the grain mill. He took Scooter’s old job at the car wash, but he can’t get any women to do what his wife did with Scooter. He’s thinking of driving to Illinois and killing Marla for what she did. Now that he’s single, he can afford the drive and she stupidly puts her return address on her letter’s. Wayne feels fortunate that Mississippi has such liberal gun laws! The two Glocks and ammunition he bought set him back a bundle, so he’s got to save up while he waits and decides whether to kill Marla, and Scooter too.

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

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Cataplexis

Posted on June 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

Cataplexis (kat-a-pleex’-is): Threatening or prophesying payback for ill doing.

A: You better never come near me again. I’m taking martial arts lessons. So far, I’ve learned how to turn your balls into giblets with two swift kicks, and poke out your eyes with my thumbs while I knee you in the solar plexus and punch you in the heart. My school of martial arts, Chimei-tekina Kazaguruma, means “Deadly Windmill” in English. Imagine a windmill chasing you with spinning silver steel blades honed by Samurai warriors, like a medieval war blender machine mowing down its enemies—liquifying them on the battlefield, so they ooze steaming into the earth. This is my schooling in martial arts. I am Chimei-tekina Kazaguruma—a Deadly Windmill: I will liquify you.

B: No, you will make me laugh. You can’t even run a blender, let alone be a windmill blender. Windmill blender? That’s ridiculous. However, your threat to make my balls into giblets is distressing. I think if I drag out my protective jock from playing catcher in my Little League days, I will thwart you. If it can stop to a fastball, it can stop a kick.

A: You idiot. My steel-toed boots will break your jock’s protective cup into tiny pieces, putting your balls in acute jeopardy. So, you better never come near me again. You will be destroyed.

B: Destroyed? This martial arts stuff is just a bunch of bullshit. Come here baby.

A: Oh, martial arts make you laugh. How about this scumbag, does it make you laugh too? It’s a Glock. It’s loaded. Along with martial arts, I’ve learned how to use it. I would love it if you would come at me so I can rid you of your balls the easy way.

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

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Chiasmus

Posted on June 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

Chiasmus (ki-az’-mus): 1. Repetition of ideas in inverted order. 2. Repetition of grammatical structures in inverted order (not to be mistaken with antimetabole, in which identical words are repeated and inverted).

At sunrise drinking strong hot coffee, at sunset he stalks the internet. He can’t stop clicking, looking for a trace of somebody to love—spending his wages in chat rooms, every one a dead end. When his money runs out, his time runs out and he is closed out of the room. Where should he go? What should he do? “Unhappiness anywhere is a threat to happiness everywhere,” he thought he thought as he looked out his window, down to the busy street. He had a sudden revelation. When he was a kid he listened to a radio program called “Big Joe’s Happiness Exchange.” He could start a blog and he would call it “Big Joe’s Happiness Exchange II” as a tribute. The only rules: nothing sexual, no death threats. People would message their wants in the comments box and he would organize them and keep people on track, making them happy.

He got the blog set up and waited. And waited, and waited. no messages except spam—life insurance, car insurance, gadgets for lonely people, ED remedies, US Army recruitment blurbs, security cams, Bitcoins. Blah, blah, blah. He got really mad and called the web host’s service number. A woman answered the phone with a sweet musical voice. Before he knew it, they were having a pleasant and lively conversation about climate change and how much they both liked Beer Nuts. Although she could get fired for doing it, she made a date with him. They were going to meet at a nice restaurant the next evening at 7:30. As she walked toward the table where he was waiting, he was elated. She was beautiful—totally beautiful. He shook her hand and they sat down at their table. He asked her if she was married. She said “Yes” and that her husband was waiting outside in the parking lot in their car. He looked at the floor, motioned to the waiter, and ordered a double vodka. His life was so screwed up. He grabbed the steak knife that was beside his plate and violently stuck it in the table. He asked her what the hell she was up to. She told him her husband comes along on her dates to make sure everything’s on the up and up. He pulled the steak knife out of the table and pointed it at her heart. He told her he was going home, and to say “Hi” to her nutcase husband.

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

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Climax

Posted on June 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

Climax (cli’-max): Generally, the arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of increasing importance, often in parallel structure.

It was cold, cracking, rushing, crushing everything in it’s way. It was going at least 100 mph. Moving, rolling, throwing rocks and blocks of ice. I was going to die in about a minute. Suddenly, the landscape froze, like God had pressed a cosmic pause button. It was bizarre. Then I saw a person-sized niche emerge from beneath the snow. If I could reach it in time, I would live. If not, I would die. Simple, yet complicated, vexing, and terrifying. I started to run. I saw my mother beckoning to me and I kept running until I was dead.

Somehow, I’ve been granted the privilege of telling this little tale on The Daily Trope. Don’t worry about me. The niche had a staircase leading straight to heaven, like the Led Zeppelin song.

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

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

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Coenotes

Posted on June 24, 2022 | Leave a comment

Coenotes (cee’-no-tees): Repetition of two different phrases: one at the beginning and the other at the end of successive paragraphs. Note: Composed of anaphora and epistrophe, coenotes is simply a more specific kind of symploce (the repetition of phrases, not merely words).

I am the reason for your total undoing. A terrible mystery with dimensions of misery stabbing at your hope. As your optimism bleeds on the dirt, I have broken your spirit with the hammer of regret and guilt. No peace, no solace, awaits your ruined soul. I have embraced you with deceit.

I am the reason for your total undoing. And now you are undone, like an errant shoelace, an untied bow, an unplugged chord, a fallen clothesline, a snapped loop, a broken hinge. I have embraced you with deceit.

I am the reason for your total undoing. You are caught. You are revealed. You are had. You are suffering. I am the undertaker that will bury you deep in the dirt and litter of your undoing. I have embraced you with deceit.

You may be asking, “Why?” It is my hobby to ruin people’s lives. I have wealth. I have good looks. I am glib. I am eloquent. I am easily able to entrap and seduce people like you: discontented, ignored by the people who should love you, looking for a thrill; feeling old, resentful, and ready for a change. Given my seductive skills and monetary resources, it is almost too easy. You’re the 61st woman I have destroyed—31 married and 30 in committed relationships—you’re number 31 in the married category. And what’s really funny is that my hobby isn’t illegal! As long as I don’t blackmail or extort, I’m good to go. Adultery is legal, but clearly, there can be severe penalties.

Go ahead and call me all the names you want to call me. It’ll give me a laugh: bastard, MFer, asshole, blah, blah blah. The deed is done, and it came up “unfaithful bitch” for you, baby. I’ll be calling your husband in a few minutes. What will he do, forgive you? Ha ha! Dump you? Put you out on the street? Beat you? I’m betting on dump you.

What’s that?

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

You bitch. Call 911. I’m . . .

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

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

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Colon

Posted on June 23, 2022 | Leave a comment

Colon (ko’-lon): Roughly equivalent to “clause” in English, except that the emphasis is on seeing this part of a sentence as needing completion, either with a second colon (or membrum) or with two others (forming a tricolon). When cola (or membra) are of equal length, they form isocolon.

I am mystified. Nothing of the past is left knowable to me. I wander without memories, trekking across now without then, when, where, or why.

I know I am lost. Living in a deep trance. I have been legally certified.

I am medicated. I am eradicated. I am insane.

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

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Comparatio

Posted on June 22, 2022 | Leave a comment

Comparatio (com-pa-ra’-ti-o): A general term for a comparison, either as a figure of speech or as an argument. More specific terms are generally employed, such as metaphor, simile, allegory, etc.

The bottom is like the top—a terminal point in the world of up and down. Up and down are value-laden words—as George Lakoff tells us, “up is good, down is bad.” Throwing up. Growing up. Showing up. Blowing up. Screwing up. Turning up. All these “up words” can represent a range of values on the good-bad continuum. I don’t see how screwing up can be a good thing. I guess blowing up can go either way, depending on the context. For example, blowing up an inflatable adult doll can be a good thing for those who find them attractive. But blowing up your home might be a bad thing, unless it is a planned demolition. Also, the same goes for the doll: if it’s being blown up as evidence in divorce court, then, it can be seen as a bad thing for its owner. Context matters more than the words in determining their good-bad valence. But of course, you need the words to make meanings.

What about down? Down the hatch. Down the road. Down to the beach. Downtown. Down and dirty. Down and out. Down my spine. So, down is less nuanced than up. I don’t know what that means beyond an abundance of the negative attaching to “down.” I like “get down” quite a bit. It reminds me of the 70s when it was a key catch phrase among cool people. It was usually yelled at disco dancers wearing white disco suits, male or female high-heeled shoes, and males, with unbuttoned shirts showing off five-feet of gold chain coiled around their necks. There was cocaine snorted and pot smoked by everybody in the disco joints. Everybody got down! Sometimes that did include falling down and passing out on he floor, but the “faller downers” were quickly dragged out the back door where they would usually be robbed of their wallets and high-heeled shoes, and sent home in cabs.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’ve misrepresented Lakoff here. Basically, he says that metaphors (which are comparisons) provide us with our orientation toward life. So when you’re “fit as a fiddle” you should be “happy as a clam.” As a violin with mollusk-like sentiments, get down! You’re di-noh–mite!

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

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Comprobatio

Posted on June 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

Comprobatio (com-pro-ba’-ti-o): Approving and commending a virtue, especially in the hearers.

Ladies and gentlemen, my praise for you is as boundless as my golf handicap, my hair, and my hatred of Hilary Clinton who should’ve been locked up in Guantanamo with the other war criminals and terrorists. What a disgrace that she’s walking the streets and defaming me.

But you, you, you! You are brilliant and on the right side of history! Some of you have done, or will do, time in jail for your loyalty to what Bill Barr has called “BS.” It takes special people to risk their lives and futures for BS, like the Vietnam War, which my painful bone spurs kept me from serving in. But you, you, you, you’re out there on the front line chanting the brilliant rallying cry: “Stop the steal,” a rallying cry made up by a woman school bus driver from Another Lake, Minnesota. It caught on and you picked it up as you rallied at the Capital Building, with bullhorns, baseball bats and bear spray. Brilliant! Although the coup failed, you did a lot of damage, killed at least one person, and showed the libtards who’s boss. I commend you.

And me! I was your spiritual guide, your guru, and the voice of your consciences, but the little innocuous barely audible speech I gave that day was just me saying what I thought about the election. To think it could prompt an insurrection, is like believing the music from an ice cream truck can make people follow the truck around. I am not responsible for anything that happened on 1/6. It was you Trumpers. You planned it. You executed it. You did it all: everything that happened on 1/6 was due to you and you alone. I wish I had grabbed a bullhorn and joined the crowd, but my bone spurs were killing me, and I could barely walk.

2024’s just around the corner. Just in case: keep your baseball bats clean, your bullhorn batteries fresh, and have an ample supply of bear spray on hand. The Democrats will steal the election again. If you want to make America great again, be prepared.

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

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

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Conduplicatio

Posted on June 20, 2022 | Leave a comment

Conduplicatio (con-du-pli-ca’-ti-o): The repetition of a word or words. A general term for repetition sometimes carrying the more specific meaning of repetition of words in adjacent phrases or clauses. Sometimes used to name either ploce or epizeuxis.

I decided to get away—to get away from it all. “It all” was my job. I worked in a breakfast cereal mill operating the flake-pounder, pounding away, flattening flakes and moving them down the line on a dirty old conveyer belt that’s been moving cereal flakes since cereal flakes were invented somewhere in Michigan hundreds of years ago. I’d been running the same flake-pounder since I graduated from high school—that was 16 years ago. Even though I could have all the breakfast cereal I wanted, that just wasn’t good enough any more. Last year, I started eating scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast—breakfast that should’ve been cereal, but I didn’t care any more. I was breaking away. So, here I am holding a yard sale, a week before my official resignation. My boss shows up and sees the cereal bowl I was awarded for “ten years of loyal service.” It’s up for sale for twenty-five cents. He looks at me like I should be dead, and buys the bowl. He throws it on the sidewalk and it shatters into fragments, one of which hits my neighbor Barbara in the forehead. She screams in pain and my boss starts running to his car, which isn’t easy—he’s 5’ 6” and weighs around 300 lbs. Suddenly, he made a grunting sound and fell writhing to the ground. He dropped his car keys. I saw my chance. I motioned to Barbara, I grabbed the keys off the ground, and we got in Boss’s Maserati and took off. We stopped at a convenience store for supplies. When I opened the trunk to put the groceries away, we saw a large suitcase. I opened it. It was filled with hundred-dollar bills. There was also a photo of the boss standing behind a table piled high with cocaine. That’s when we decided our future was set. We had evidence that would put the boss away forever. We knew he couldn’t report what had happened on my lawn—he would be nailed. Barbara and I hugged, got back in the boss’s Maserati, and took off for the tropics, AKA Key West, where we were married, lived, and had three lovely children.

Barbara passed away three years ago. Our children are grown, and successful with families of their own. You are reading this now because I have passed and left a provision in my will that this story be made public so people can see that sometimes crime pays. With me and Barbara it all happened on the spur of the moment. If we had planned it, we would probably have been caught. Thanks Boss!

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

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Congeries

Posted on June 19, 2022 | Leave a comment

Congeries (con’ger-eez): Piling up words of differing meaning but for a similar emotional effect [(akin to climax)].

Big. Medium. Small. Short. Tiny. Microscopic. Who cares? How did size get connected to so many things? Larger than life. Big time. Huge. Big as a house. Colossal. Size matters, even if it doesn’t matter. But it does! It does too much. I have a foot-long penis. It is a blessing a curse. When I talk about it, most people find it fascinating. I’m happy about that until I get questions like, “Couldn’t you make a lot of money in an adult circus sideshow?” “Do you have a cam-site?” I prefer questions like “How do you stuff it in your pants?” “Has it made you more confident?” “Does it keep you from playing any sports?”

I remember when I became aware of my bigness. My father joined me up with the YMCA when I was ten. Back then, naked swimming was the norm. I was late and all the boys were lined up naked by the pool when I got there. I saw their tiny dinks and knew I was special. But, I left for fear I’d be teased. I don’t know why my father did that to me, but I thought that he might have a big honker too and wanted to toughen me to teasing. My suspicion was confirmed when my dad died and the mortician felt obligated to tell us what was there. If the penis museum in Iceland was open at the time, his giant wang would be floating in a jar in Reykjavik.

I could write a book about my gargantuan pecker. It has defined me and given me my orientation toward life. Next time you’re eating a wiener on the 4th of July or Labor Day, put some mustard on it and think of me.

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

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Consonance

Posted on June 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

Consonance: The repetition of consonants in words stressed in the same place (but whose vowels differ). Also, a kind of inverted alliteration, in which final consonants, rather than initial or medial ones, repeat in nearby words. Consonance is more properly a term associated with modern poetics than with historical rhetorical terminology.

Here at Lop and Chop we fill all your firewood needs. Pine kindling gets it going. Maple makes the fire really burn. Redwood kills the smoke, and oak keeps it going all night long. We’ve been clear-cutting here since my ancestors “bought” this land from the Indians in 1840. There’s only about 10 acres of forest left. Half of it is redwoods, so that’ll give us a year here to sell firewood. When that goes, we’re going to make this an ATV and trail bike course. Also we’re going to do an annual “Bull Pull” where drivers pull bulls behind their ATVs in a race down the mountain, speaking of which, the mountain has already become a choice venue for “Erosion Riders” competitions, where drivers have to surmount ruts and gulleys to make it down the denuded mountain to the finish line. On the way down, they are required to scoop up a handful of mud and hit Rachel Carson’s statue with it as they roar by.

You can take out a firewood subscription if you like, but don’t talk too much about the redwoods, please. So, our motto says it all: “Yearn to Burn? Lop and Chop Will Light Your Fire.”

Damn! Here comes those tree-hugging losers who want to shut us down. Get out the chainsaws. Rev ‘em up and hold ‘em high.

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

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Correctio

Posted on June 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

Correctio (cor-rec’-ti-o): The amending of a term or phrase just employed; or, a further specifying of meaning, especially by indicating what something is not (which may occur either before or after the term or phrase used). A kind of redefinition, often employed as a parenthesis (an interruption) or as a climax.

I did not have a banjo on my knee when I went to Louisiana. “Knee” rhymes with “see,” as in “My true love for to see.” I was drunk (not totally drunk) when I wrote the song. I was shocked when it became popular and was sung in bars and roadhouses around America. The first time I sang it in public the audience went crazy (not literally) and threw silver dollars at me. I made $200 that night, enough to buy a horse and buggy and travel around and sing my song to farmers, miners, roughnecks, mechanics, and shoe clerks. Doo-dah Doo-dah Day!

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

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Deesis

Posted on June 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

Deesis (de’-e-sis): An adjuration (solemn oath) or calling to witness; or, the vehement expression of desire put in terms of “for someone’s sake” or “for God’s sake.”

Me: For God’s sake, if you don’t stop doing that, I’ll put you out of the car at the next rest stop. In the meantime, I’m putting down the windows to blow some of the stink out of here. “Zombie Flower.” I didn’t know “The Walking Dead” had an online gift shop. What the hell are they trying to do selling perfume that smells like carrion? If I wanted a dead person in the car, I’d run somebody over and pack them in the back seat. I know it’s littering, but throw that crap out the window.

(Sirens Howl)

State Trooper: License, insurance card, and registration please. Hmm, ok. I saw this bottle fly out of your car window a couple of miles back. Littering is a criminal offense here in South Carolina. I am going to have to arrest you until we determine who threw the bottle. Oh my God! What is that stench? It smells like rotten meat, like a decaying dead body. Step out of your vehicle sir and open the trunk, please.

Me: it’s only my daughter’s stupid zombie perfume she got on the internet.

State Trooper: Sir, I’ll only say this once more: Step out of your vehicle and open the trunk. Sir, is that a dead moth in the corner over there? It looks like the endangered moth, Flamenmetuclosis. This is a protected species. It is a criminal offense in the State of South Carolina to kill and/or transport it. Put your hands behind your back. Hmm, these zip-ties match your T-Shirt. Mr. Botch, I am arresting you on suspicion of protected species molestation. You have the right to stand there while I make room for you and your daughter in my police cruiser. Anything you say will be doubted and anything I say will be believed. Do you understand?

Me: What is this, a new episode of “The Twilight Zone?”

State Trooper: Oh, so you want to be wise guy? Let’s add resisting arrest, and charge your daughter with complicity in your heinous crime. Barbara, come over here so I can cuff you and read you your rights. God! You stink! I feel sick. I think I’m going to pass out. Ooooh.

Barbara: Come on dad. Let’s get the hell out of here! The border’s only two miles away & the State Trooper’s full of shit about the moth —there’s no such thing. I swear, when we get home I am going file so many charges against him he’ll think he’s a credit card.

Me: Thank you for stinking. Give me a hug! Oh jeez. Let’s wait until you’ve had a shower.

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

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Dendrographia

Posted on June 14, 2022 | Leave a comment

Dendrographia (den-dro-graf’-ia): Creating an illusion of reality through vivid description of a tree.

This mulberry tree just showed up in my back yard one spring. It was about 2 inches tall and looked like a weed of some kind. I didn’t care if it was. I wanted to let it grow and find out what it was. Over the next five year I diligently sprayed it with deer repellent and carefully mowed around it when I cut the grass, and it grew, starting to look like a tree with brownish silver bark and fattening limbs. And it kept growing. Now it is about forty feet high with symmetrical spreading branches. In summer, it leafs out and bears little white mulberries that turn dark purple as they as ripen. When the berries come, the tree becomes packed with Cedar Waxwings, which do not show up any other time during the year. I think they are beautiful birds and I don’t care if they strip the tree of berries.

Sometimes I stop to consider how all this began: a single seed landed from somewhere and, with minimal care, made a pretty big tree. I know this sounds crazy, but sometimes when the wind rustles through it’s leaves it sounds like the mulberry tree is saying “hug me.”

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

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Diasyrmus

Posted on June 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

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

Your argument is like asking people to jump off a cliff to see if they can fly. It would require an audience of idiots to comply. But, your lack of respect for your constituents is always evident in the way you run your office. Your arguments for building the dam are more like building a scam. You and your family will directly benefit from building a huge concrete structure fed by a trickle of water that may evaporate before it collects even into a puddle. The only thing that will be dammed is the dam—the damn dam. This is how you run your office: self-interest, cronyism, nepotism, bribery, and more. It’s all about making an extra buck. Your arguments are like picking your nose and wiping it on people and telling them it is a gift they should grateful for. As you can tell, I want you out of office. Please resign tomorrow. In any event, you will be arrested.

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

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Dicaeologia

Posted on June 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

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

Yes. Yes. Yes. I did it. But, your account of what happened is missing a major part. I was wearing my slippers outside in the rain. A huge gust of wind blew open my bathrobe and spun me around like a wind turbine. I was dizzy. I fell down and was crawling home toward Elm Street when my legally purchased and registered .45 auto handgun discharged and blew a hole in the corner mailbox, damaging US government property. When I regained my composure and realized what I had done I was ashamed. I started crying and the gun went off five more times—every time I sobbed my body heaved making me pull the trigger. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid the mail in the mailbox would be damaged or destroyed due to the hole my bullets had blown in it by accident. So, I retrieved the mail through the hole, stuffed the contents of the mailbox into my bathrobe’s pockets and my underpants, and started running toward home, where I was going to call the Department of Homeland Security. That’s when I was arrested. I did what I did to save the mail. Everything else was an accident. Check my arrest record! I’ve never been arrested for anything like this before. The closest was when I was accused of stealing an ATM, but that was an accident too. I had the wrong address and picked it up by accident. It was 3.00 am and I couldn’t see in the dark. I mistook it for the lawn tractor I was supposed to pick up.

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

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

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Distributio

Posted on June 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

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

We’re a family! We are not a collection of individuals, but we are a living breathing lump of pulsing flesh genetically related with matching DNA. You’ve each taken a role or two to keep this a family: a father, a mother (Mom), a daughter, and a son. As father, I am in charge of everything. For example, I fill the car’s gas tank, I work at Big Larry’s Lullaby Landfill tossing metal items into a pile and throwing glass containers in the grinder. I mow the lawn and take care of home maintenance—plumbing, electricity, paint, and the garden. Eddy, you’re in charge of picking up all the crap that gets strewn around the house each week, feeding the cat and your 12 hamsters, and training them to do interesting things at birthday parties and other social events. Also, you run the dice game in the basement, keeping it honest and making sure we get our cut for the house. I’ve seen the Police Chief a number of times down on his knees rolling the bones with one hand a holding a wad of cash with the other. You’re doing a great job, Eddy! Cathy, you’re in charge of picking out programs to watch on TV. I’ve started calling you “Streaming Cathy.” You really know how pick them. The documentary we watched about the family who secretly lives in the basement of a Russian psychiatric hospital was incredible. I didn’t understand why they did it, but in the end it turned out they were crazy. You also do a great job of making us exercise on Saturdays. I never knew that there was something called Trumpercise until you showed us. We stand behind our personal lecterns vigorously waving our arms and saying whatever comes into our heads. I love yelling “Cinnamon buns are communist” and “Build the wall.” You also do a good job of taking care of your brother. He still can’t tie his own shoes, but I know you’re working on it. Now that he can tell time, we can count on him showing up when he’s supposed to. No more being two days late for dinner. And Mom—the list of things you do stretches to the moon: laundry, cooking, washing dishes, vacuuming, making beds, cleaning Verbal’s litter box, tucking me in and singing me a lullaby every night, doing it once a month, and making our kids feel confident by complimenting them all the time, no matter what they do. The way you mop the kitchen floor binds me to you forever. The smell of the suds, the squeak of the mop, the way you wiggle and grunt, and squeeze out the dirty water makes me feel like a kid again, before we were married and we were on the night crew cleaning offices all over the city.

We are a family. Like the veins on a leaf, we are all attached to the same stem. Someday you kids will leave, but me and Mom will carry on, visiting frequently, staying for weeks at a time and interfering with your lives.

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

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

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Ecphonesis

Posted on May 31, 2022 | Leave a comment

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

I can’t believe it! I ate the whole thing! What was it anyway? What!? Candy coated lies? I guess anything with a candy coating is worth swallowing. I would love some candy-coated chrysalises. Just think—crunchy sweet on the outside with a vitamin-packed gooey caterpillar center. Maybe a Monarch or a Yellow Swallowtail. Wow!

Sugar can take you anywhere. I put it on everything! Yeah! I put it on steak, Brussels sprouts, and my wife. I take my wife into the bathroom. She gets in the tub and I spray her down for two minutes with the hand-held shower head. Then I sprinkle her front. Then, she rolls over and I sprinkle her back. What would you do with a sugar-coated wife? I promised her I would never tell a soul. So far, I haven’t said a word to anyone about our candy-coated adventures. Suffice it to say “they’re sweet.”

Someday I will write a memoir. The tentative title is “The Sugared Life: A Few of My Favorite Things.” It will include recipes for sugar coating my 10 favorite edibles and lickables. Mmmm.

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

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Ellipsis

Posted on May 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

Ellipsis (el-lip’-sis): Omission of a word or short phrase easily understood in context.

Where am I going? Where have I been? Goodbye American pie. I’ve been to the levy on the other side of Blueberry Hill where I learned how to use a bayonet to kill. It was a thrill. I was only nineteen. I came from a poor family. The Army was my salvation. The Army gave me each day my daily bread, but they would not forgive my trespasses or those who trespassed against me. The trespassers were the enemy. We tried our best to kill them with rifles, mortars, artillery, bombs, and, in my case, booby traps—an exploding edition of Mao’s Little Red Book was so effective. The Commies couldn’t resist, almost by impulse, picking it up. Beee-lam. What a mess. Luckily the Geneva Convention didn’t require post-mutilation clean up. It wasn’t hard to confirm their death. I just left what was left for the rats and maggots. When they blew up, we called it “This magic moment.” If I was working with a crew, when the explosion went off, the singing would commence from the bushes, everybody trying to outdo each other with hokey voices and exaggerated gestures. It was hilarious. As a nineteen-year-old, this was my first job. It wasn’t Burger King, it was blowing up VC and NVA. It was war, and that’s what you do in wars: you kill other human beings.

Two months after I got home, I was at Woodstock—the music festival. I did not talk to anybody ever about what I had done. I considered myself a murderer. I drank heavily, smoked a lot of pot and took a lot of acid. I think my brain became tie-dyed. I was “up on Cripple Creek, down by the river, over the rainbow, on the dark side of the moon.”

Then, I ran into a friend from high school who was a Vet. He told me about this thing called a “community college” where I could collect veteran’s benefits just for going to classes. I did it and loved it. That was just the start. Eventually, I earned a PhD in Chemistry and opened a meth lab in Idaho. I made millions, never got caught, and live quietly in San Francisco with my wife and my dog Bee-lam the eighth.

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

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Enallage

Posted on May 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

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

You are doing so many things at once. How many things can you do at once? You’re like a spider weaving ten webs at once, or a person driving two cars, or a mother with 12 children. What? Why? Is your goal to fracture your consciousness so you can take a medical leave from Bill’s Brown Bag Bar & Grill? On top of everything else, shoving “medications” into bags and delivering them all over town must be taxing. The woman you met who claimed to be your mother must’ve driven you nuts, especially when you knew she was my mother! She’s been taking Bill’s medication for that past ten years. Luckily my dad left her with millions, or she’d be living in her underwear under a freeway overpass with the rest of the loons. She was a good mother before she got hooked on the stuff. Things came crashing down when dad gave her a hit and left home, all in one stroke. Mom lost it. She stopped washing our clothes. The other kids called me and my little sister “Stinky” and “Stinkier.” She stopped cooking. We had a can of unheated Dinty Moore beef stew every night. Also, mother insisted we finish off a bottle of wine with her every night. I went to elementary school half loaded every day. My teacher thought I had a speech impediment because I slurred my words. It was rough, but we broke out, even though Mother stuck with Bill’s medication. We talked her into giving us half of her fortune. Then, we hired a laundry service and went out to eat all the time. I applied to college and was admitted to UC Santa Barbara were I majored in Marine Biology—that’s part of the reason I own a chain of sushi restaurants, the other is my ownership of a wasabi factory in San Diego. Anyway, you need to focus. Find a single string and pull it like the chord on your Venetian blinds. A lot can happen with one pull. You can work in my wasabi factory. You can peel Japanese horseradish—you’ll have the clearest nostrils in California!

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

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Enantiosis

Posted on May 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

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

The beginning is the end, the end is the beginning. I started my relationship with Shelly, but it’s started ending when it began. I am not a vegetarian. I am not a kick boxer, I am not a Republican gun nut. Shelly is all three of those things. After a month, I had to sneak out for meat. I hated kickboxing: to fight is not right, and total hell, I hated shooting at empty beer cans every day. But, good lord, sleeping together cancelled all the bad stuff out. Then I thought, why should that one thing form the foundation of our relationship when everything else is crap? That’s when the beginning was the end, start was stop, right was wrong, in was out: there was no middle ground, there were just perspectives. For example, guns are good from one perspective and bad from another—it doesn’t mean that either of the competing perspectives is right. That’s where it gets complicated—the conflicted concepts of the ‘good’ grounding opposed judgments of the same thing as good or bad float on the ether of opinion.

I broke up with Shelly. It was bad and good: we were through: bad and good. I have new girlfriend, Janine. She likes meat. She likes to kick dance, and is in favor of gun control. She only likes sex twice a week, but that’s never going to be a deal breaker. Anyway, I think we are in love and I didn’t need to sacrifice my self to get there. I just needed to sacrifice Shelly. It was messy, but it set me free. It was the right thing to do.

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

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Enigma

Posted on May 26, 2022 | Leave a comment

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

There is a windmill, or should I say, a wind turbine, spinning in my mind. It is generating electric thoughts, like Edison had when he summoned his assistant Watson to light his cigar in his laboratory. Yes, the cigar had import, basking in the significance of the moment, like an open door or a pile of loose change, mostly dimes and quarters, or a glowing summons to an unimaginable future, imagined right there in Menlo Park, New Jersey. The cigar was cheap, but Edison’s thoughts were worth a fortune.

I want to know how the wind gets in my head to make the windmill spin. Maybe I should say there’s a hamster in my mind running on his wheel, spinning off crazy ideas that are soaked up by my consciousness, providing grounds for illegal and inappropriate actions. Oh wait—there is a rainbow bridging my brain! It affords me a promise, hope and an optimistic turn toward the rest of my life. Like George LaVkovff says, there are “metaphors we live by” (and die by). Does your life stink?

That’s a metaphor. Change the metaphor and your life will change. I consider myself to be a turtle with a rainbow above my head. Think of a turtle’s characteristics. They’re mine too. Put a rainbow above them. They’re mine too. Being a rainbow-crowned turtle provides me an orientation toward life! But what am I really? I’m an life insurance actuary with a boring hopeless life. I am not a turtle—they have more fun than I do. I am an anchovy stuck in the darkness of my can with ten or twelve other anchovies. We’re waiting for the lid to be ripped off. There’s a lot of anxiety in the can, plus we smell bad.

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

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Ennoia

Posted on May 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

Ennoia (en-no’-i-a): A kind of purposeful holding back of information that nevertheless hints at what is meant. A kind of circuitous speaking.

Once upon a time there was a man who had married young. He had gotten married when he was twenty. Now, he and his wife are seventy. This man often dreamed of breaking free and finding a younger woman to spend his life with: maybe somebody fifty or sixty. At some point, he decided that being bored is not a good reason to terminate a marriage. If he could cheat on his wife with luscious younger ladies flush with their Social Security checks, he thought all of his marital concerns could be solved: sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll were the remedy. Viagra, pot, and Pink Floyd would set him free.

He caught crabs from the first woman he had sex with outside of marriage. Those little crawly insects picnicking on his crotch made him itch and made him wonder—made him wonder if he was actually moving backward. The last time he had caught crabs he was in the Army in Vietnam. He caught the crabs from a whore who primarily serviced ARVN (Vietnamese) soldiers. Just like now, he was given a little can of DDT to sprinkle on what he called his “crotch crickets.” But, as he sat there feeling them crawl around on his scrotum, giving him little itchy pin-prick nips, he came to a conclusion. Cheating on his wife was bad—bad for him and bad for her. He had crabs and she had been betrayed and she didn’t know it. Right then and there he vowed to clean up his act. No more running around. No more looking for women on “SpicyGrandmas.com.” No more bar-hopping. No more being stupid. It had taken a lot to get to this conclusion. That’s why he was super annoyed when he found out his wife had taken up square dancing.

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

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Enthymeme

Posted on May 23, 2022 | Leave a comment

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

It’s raining, you better wear a raincoat or take an umbrella. Before you go, you better turn the heat down on the roast. While you’re out, can you get me a bottle of Pirate’s Butt? We’re supposed to eat dinner by six, please try to be there. Ok, see you later. I’ll be here practicing my clapping. I’m tired of everybody looking at me during the applause at the end of a performance. I really don’t know why slapping the palm of my hand while I hold it stationary warrants my fellow audience members’ disdain. I could see how, if I slapped my knee or forehead, or pounded my chest, I would garner glares or have people look at me with wrinkled up noses like I smell bad.

So there I sat, slapping my palm. I needed to do something more than practice!

The next day, I went to see Dr. Rondo, a highly respected applausiologist who recently moved here from Attica. My session was amazing. First, he told me to stop clapping until I am cured. He told me people would think I was some kind of critic who didn’t like the performance. That strategy worked so well that I have quit clapping altogether. Now, people ask me why I held back on clapping for a given performance. I alway use the same adjectives and phrases: dull, bumbling, unremarkable, without merit, bad lighting, and many more.

My reputation spread, and now, I’m the drama critic at our local newspaper the Tuckertown Canary. We used to be a coal mining town, that’s where the canary came from. Since I’ve been at the Canary, I’ve never given a positive review. In order to try to take on the positive side of criticism, I’m going back to Dr. Rondo to try to get my clapping fixed. My daughter’s senior play is coming soon. She’s the star. I can’t let her down. I need to develop the perfect clap: a clap that will project love and caring, enthusiasm and acceptance.

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

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Epanorthosis

Posted on May 22, 2022 | Leave a comment

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

Every time I try to put things right, they go wrong—no, no, no, they go catastrophic. I go to the vet with my cat Barny. I decided to carry him to calm him & boom—he jumps out of my arms and runs away across the parking lot, jumps through the window of a waiting car and rides away. I was just trying to help him and things went way wrong. That was a year ago. I got a new cat and named him Barny 2. He is all black like the old Barny, but has a different demeanor. He likes clawing my ankles, yowling late at night, and knocking his food around the kitchen floor, like some kind of weird multi-puck hockey game.

I wanted everything to be right on the cat front. It never will be, but well, maybe it will be. Maybe I can work with Barny 2 to bring him around—to make him a model cat. There’s a place called “Bad Cat College” near where I live. My friend Etta had her cat cured there of its tendency grab ahold of her windpipe when she was sleeping. The cat, Blurto, was cured by substituting kitty treats for Etta’s windpipe. The cat gained a lot of weight, but Etta can sleep knowing her windpipe will be intact in the morning. I would like to stem Barny 2’s desire to eat my legs.

Sadly, Barny 2 disappeared 3 days ago. Maybe he’s gone for good. Right now I’m writing a short story called the “Incorrigible Cat.” The story ends with a woman and her cat fighting it out in the basement. The women hits the cat with its litter box and slams it up against the wall. The cat is unfazed and leaps on the woman’s head and tears one of her eyes out of its socket. The woman, bleeding from scratches and her eye socket, rips the cat off her head and strangles it with one hand, while she punches it in the face with her other hand.

This is like Dirty Harry meets Leo the Lion. Ha Ha. You might have guessed, that I’m actually done with cats. I think they are suitable for masochists, but not me. With luck, Barny 2 will never come home.

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

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