Tag Archives: example

Accismus

Posted on May 6, 2021 | Comments Off on Accismus

Accismus (ak-iz’-mus): A feigned refusal of that which is earnestly desired.

No! No! No! Please don’t give me another piece of your delicious chocolate-salami cake. I can’t stand being in Genoa and Bavaria at once—I want to wear lederhosen and sing opera!

Well, hmmm. I am losing my resolve.

Ok, Kraftwerk-Dante, cut me another slice. I love the gustatory clash.

Someday soon, you’ll have to come to my home and try my mushroom mousse and puréed tadpole; a recipe I obtained from a homeless person who lived by a pond. He had no electric appliances and made the dish entirely by hand with a small rock.

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

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Acoloutha

Posted on May 4, 2021 | Comments Off on Acoloutha

Acoloutha: The substitution of reciprocal words; that is, replacing one word with another whose meaning is close enough to the former that the former could, in its turn, be a substitute for the latter. This term is best understood in relationship to its opposite, anacoloutha.

Barbara cut her lawn. Edward mowed his lawn. Jimmy dressed his lawn. Carl cut off his finger with his hedge clippers. The ambulance ran him to the hospital. His wife Barb drove to the hospital, following the ambulance far behind with Carl’s finger in a little red and white lunch cooler. She was sure that the finger could be sewn back on. When she got to the hospital they told her that they already had Carl’s finger and had reattached it, and that Carl had to stay over night for observation. As she headed back home alone with the mystery finger in the chest beside her on the seat, she wondered if there were other body parts buried near the hedge. When she got home, she got the shovel out of the garage and took a closer look at the finger. Why didn’t she notice before? The nail of he severed finger was well-manicured. Carl’s nails had never been well manicured.

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

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Adage

Posted on May 2, 2021 | Comments Off on Adage

Adage (ad’-age): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings, or traditional expressions of conventional wisdom.

He was chronically constipated, but he had a saying he quoted every morning as he sat on the toilet: “Slow and steady wins the race.” Sometimes he would read a book, catch up on his email, or sing a patriotic song.

Although it took a relatively long time, he always managed to go without laxatives or enemas. As he wiped, he often thought of Tolstoy’s musing on time: “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” He had those warriors on his side, and every morning they fought alongside him and helped propel him to victory over his sluggish bowels.

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

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Adnominatio

Posted on April 30, 2021 | Comments Off on Adnominatio

Adnominatio (ad-no-mi-na’-ti-o): 1. A synonym for paronomasia [punning]. 2. A synonym for polyptoton. 3. Assigning to a proper name its literal or homophonic meaning.

1. Making all that jam was a jarring experience! I’m tired and my fingers are stained.

2. He tried to teach what can’t be taught: how to be happy—how to deal with happenstance and make good things happen.

3. Belle, you’re such a ding-dong.

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

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Adynaton

Posted on April 29, 2021 | Comments Off on Adynaton

Adynaton (a-dyn’-a-ton): A declaration of impossibility, usually in terms of an exaggerated comparison. Sometimes, the expression of the impossibility of expression.

I can’t tell you how far away from the truth that is! It’s like the truth is right there in the front row, here in New York, and what he’s just said is in a dumpster in LA. Big gap. Huge gap! It’s impossible that this soon-to-be indicted liar will ever tell the truth. Do not believe a single word he says except “goodbye” when he absconds with all your hopes. Better you say “goodbye” before he does! Don’t vote for him. Don’t pay any attention to him. Don’t be fooled by his pathological bluster.

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

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Affirmatio

Posted on April 27, 2021 | Comments Off on Affirmatio

Affirmatio (af’-fir-ma’-ti-o): A general figure of emphasis that describes when one states something as though it had been in dispute or in answer to a question, though it has not been.

Rep. Luno: How many Israeli fire-breathing flying saucers did it take to ignite California’s rash of wildfires? I have been asked this question by scientists and professional speculators from across our beautiful country. Of special interest is the answer given by The American Institute for Rumoring and Mistrust (AIRM). They are devoted to constituting an alternative reality to replace the government’s truth monopoly.

AIRM’s answer to the Big Question: “In our learned , well-considered and totally astute opinion, the widespread fires were caused by the combustion of flammable materials, possibly caused by Israeli flying saucers, BIC lighters wielded by federal agents, and federal prison convicts working on chain gangs in the woods. Combined, these are formidable adversaries and, given their sponsorship, should further erode our faith in our government. It’s wish to burn down America is vile and something needs to be done to thwart it.”

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

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Allegory

Posted on April 25, 2021 | Comments Off on Allegory

Allegory (al’-le-go-ry): A sustained metaphor continued through whole sentences or even through a whole discourse.

“It was stolen! It was stolen!“ cried the Great Pretender. His papier-mâché hat was gone. The hat had “Bring Me Another Diet Coke” painted across the front with a photo of Walt Disney pasted on the front too, for the Great Pretender had modeled ‘his’ nation after Disneyland, naming its cabinet officials, colleagues, and enemies after Disney characters. For example, there was his loyal Attorney General Mr. Smee, his Secretary of defense Goofy, and his favorite colleague Snow White.

The Great Pretender treated everyone like cartoon characters, as if they weren’t real, as if they were stuffed toys scattered on the floor that he could kick around whenever he felt like it.

“I smell smoke! I smell smoke!” The Great Pretender cried, panic stricken. Out the window, his papier-mâché hat was in flames. As the fire rose higher, smoke began to come out his ears, his eyes glazed over and he fell to the floor, dead.

When the news spread of his demise, there was hooting and cheering throughout the land. People sang “Ding dong the dick is dead, the wicked dick is dead!” At that point “Good Old Joe” was anointed Leader of Land. The Great Pretender was buried in a landfill in The Tropical Place, and all was well. The children were released from their cages, taxes were raised on the obscenely rich, and Mitch the Impaler died of Thwarter’s Disease.

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

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Alliteration

Posted on April 22, 2021 | Comments Off on Alliteration

Alliteration (al-lit’-er-a’-tion): Repetition of the same letter or sound within nearby words. Most often, repeated initial consonants. Taken to an extreme alliteration becomes the stylistic vice of paroemion where nearly every word in a sentence begins with the same consonant.

It was 1966 (I think). Viet Nam was happening, I had just graduated from high school, and I joined the Army. I wanted the educational benefits for college that enlistment afforded, and to be a paratrooper too—totally trusting it would be as good as the recruiter said it would be. What the recruiter didn’t tell me was that I had enlisted for three years guaranteeing only that I’d be a paratrooper. I didn’t know I was supposed to be guaranteed a job specialty (MOS) as one of the benefits of enlisting—draftees were put where the Army wanted them to be. Given my naivety, I was the equivalent of a draftee: the Army would assign me an MOS and I would train for it at an Army post somewhere in the US.

When I completed my basic training, I was assigned to Military Police training at Ft. Gordon, GA. I learned how to direct traffic, catch criminals, drive with no lights at night, beat bad guys with a baton (ha ha, just kidding).

There’s a lot more to my Army story, BUT I did get the educational benefits and they saved my life. I am forever grateful for that.

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

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Ampliatio

Posted on April 19, 2021 | Comments Off on Ampliatio

Ampliatio (am’-pli-a’-ti-o): Using the name of something or someone before it has obtained that name or after the reason for that name has ceased. A form of epitheton.

(1) Hey Killer!

I can see it in your eyes and the way you lash out at anybody who criticizes you—like the guy who called you out for trying to push him out of line at the vaccine clinic. You fondled your knife and looked like you were going to stab him in the back.

I don’t know where your uncontrollable anger comes from, but I know where it’s going take you. Before you kill somebody, you should get some help or I’ll be calling you Killer when I come to visit you in prison, and the name will fit.

Oh my God! Put down the gun! I was kidding. You are . . .

(2) How’s it goin’ Wild Man?

Those were the days—acid, grass, up all night, sleep all day! What’s up these days? I know they call you Father—the starched collar is a dead giveaway. Your pupils aren’t dilated either! Now, you just take a big slug of wine on Sundays, a far cry from the nightly bottle of Old Grandad we used to steal from the liquor store and share under the bridge down by the river. Ha ha!

I’m looking for a benefactor to invest some money in my start-up website, “Boppin’ Mamas.” Given our past, I think you’re a perfect candidate for a little front money. Get my drift Father Wild Man? We don’t want our past to be today’s front page news! Do we?

Oh Jesus, no! Ow! Stop for God’s sake! Put down the Chalice! Can’t you see? I’m bleeding all over—no, no, I was just kid. . .

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

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Anacoeosis

Posted on April 18, 2021 | Comments Off on Anacoeosis

Anacoenosis (an’-a-ko-en-os’-is): Asking the opinion or judgment of the judges or audience, usually implying their common interest with the speaker in the matter [and illustrating their communally-held ideals of truth, justice, goodness and beauty, for better and for worse].

I have been worried. I have been full of confidence. There are countless other opposing feelings that we move between. We share the volatility of life’s pressures. Haven’t you awakened happy in morning’s sunshine rays only to find yourself angry and sad at the end of the day sitting on a bar stool ordering another shot and a beer? You know what it’s like to be skulking around the house angry at your partner for maxing the credit card and feeling the anger melt when you see your child’s toy bunny lying on its side on floor—the bunny your partner bought 8 years ago for your daughter’s first Easter—the bunny she still loves.

The examples I’ve cited may not exactly fit your lives, but the point they make probably does. Aren’t our lives filled with a strange instability? Isn’t our trajectory through life a wavy line—zig zags, peaks and valleys, highs and lows?

Instead of looking for a joyous straight line through life, accept the peaks and valleys because they are inevitable—they give meaning to life. Ironically, if you insist on living on the high side in some sort of manic trance, your insistence has already been thwarted by the opposition of life’s flow.

And you may embrace the negativity at the bottom of the hill holding tight with opiates, or resentment, or the mysteries of mental illness. You may act as if negativity were your lover, unable to let go by any means: rejecting appropriate medication, psychological counseling, listening to the people who love you, or by staying busy.

Desiring to stay on the mountain top or ‘stuck’ in the valley, you are doing battle with life’s sustaining flow: CHANGE. There is no sustainable ‘middle.’ There is the omnipresence of movement—mental, physical—it does not matter. Change beckons. Change demands. Change changes for better and for worse.

How many of you have heard the saying: “Life has its ups and downs”? Like most cliches, it’s true. There is no Never Never Land. Hoping and coping we move toward the inevitable.

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

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Anacoloutha

Posted on April 17, 2021 | Comments Off on Anacoloutha

Anacoloutha (an-a-co’-lu-tha): Substituting one word with another whose meaning is very close to the original, but in a non-reciprocal fashion; that is, one could not use the first, original word as a substitute for the second. This is the opposite of acoloutha.

His tongue is Italian. Who didn’t know? If you ever met him you knew. He was made in Genoa from head to toe. He is proud of his origins and his professorship at the university, but it was his tongue that got him into trouble and cost him his job.

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

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Anacoluthon

Posted on April 16, 2021 | Comments Off on Anacoluthon

Anacoluthon (an-a-co-lu’-thon): A grammatical interruption or lack of implied sequence within a sentence. That is, beginning a sentence in a way that implies a certain logical resolution, but concluding it differently than the grammar leads one to expect. Anacoluthon can be either a grammatical fault or a stylistic virtue, depending on its use. In either case, it is an interruption or a verbal lack of symmetry. Anacoluthon is characteristic of spoken language or interior thought, and thus suggests those domains when it occurs in writing.

The time is right, the day is long, my socks are too big. Where is my hope—the car won’t start—but the time is still right. Right for nothing, or maybe, reading the car’s owner’s manual which is in German, a language I don’t understand, like religion, or May Day, or lighting a fire, or roasting a chicken. Buck buck ba-dawk-it, not cock-a-doodle poodle! Don’t worry, I’m ok. Just trying to be funny and failing.

Anyway, as I was previously headed to Newark, my foot fell asleep.

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

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Anadiplosis

Posted on April 15, 2021 | Comments Off on Anadiplosis

Anadiplosis (an’-a-di-plo’-sis): The repetition of the last word (or phrase) from the previous line, clause, or sentence at the beginning of the next. Often combined with climax.

Why are there people who refuse to wear masks in this time of pandemic? What motivates these maskless people? People form their opinions about these kinds of things from what they see, hear, and read and perhaps a life-long commitment to resisting or subverting dictates, failing to realize that disobedience implies obedience to whatever dictates their disobedience. One cannot evade obedience.

I am willing to guess that the anti-maskers live their lives in the “anti” lane avowing rationales for their untoward behavior that are couched in higher-order values that, in their views, carry more weight than the values operative in the “mandates” they are resisting. One would think that saving lives and curtailing the pandemic by wearing masks would be the paramount value operative in debates over government mask-wearing mandates, but that’s not the case. The arguments have come down to the government’s right to make and enforce the mask mandates—not the public health aims of the mandates as rationales for their acceptance.

Acceptance of mandates is irksome, but that shouldn’t empower people to reject them as such. The COVID 19 crisis isn’t fabricated—nearly 3 million people have died. I guess if they want to kill a few more people (possibly including themselves) in the name of liberty, go maskless, and while they’re at it, don’t get vaccinated and be remembered as narcissistic sociopaths, not as a champions of liberty.

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

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Anamnesis

Posted on April 14, 2021 | Comments Off on Anamnesis

Anamnesis (an’-am-nee’-sis): Calling to memory past matters. More specifically, citing a past author [apparently] from memory. Anamnesis helps to establish ethos [credibility], since it conveys the idea that the speaker is knowledgeable of the received wisdom from the past.

Takashi Miike, the Japanese film director, tells us he is “attracted to bad people because they are very human.”

As I continue my quest to understand why people are attracted to Donald Trump, maybe Miike has the answer, maybe not. There’s no doubt that Trump is bad, but I’m sort of at a loss as to see how this makes him “very human” and how being very human, in turn, makes him attractive.

Maybe it’s like “Rebel Without a Cause” or “Leader of the Pack” or Billy the Kid or “White Heat.” It’s the shifting sands of good and evil, and the room evil’s project opens for love’s avowal—love of a certain kind—for what may be bad—loving OxyContin, loving cigars, loving driving fast: there is an endless array of “loves” that are about the gut’s “guilty pleasures” and it’s waiving of the consideration of the full range of consequences in pursuing pleasures, or consuming what is pleasurable.

“Bad” Trump brings pleasures and their affections to life in people who’ve opted into an orgiastic ethic that builds a wall between the present and the future, dwelling on the “taste” of Trump as if he were an ice cream sandwich, a chocolate bar, or a cold beer on a hot summer day, not a moral man with a moral purpose. He is unwilling or unable to pursue the Christian call to affect “faith, hope, and charity.” His faith is a bizarre tangle of selfishness. His hopes are bad hopes: blocking immigrants, ignoring environmental concerns, chipping away at Transgender rights, etc. His charity is directed toward pardoning bad people and promoting other bad people, like Roger Stone or Kelly Conway.

Oh well. If you want to understand Trump’s attractiveness, think of him as an ice cream sandwich, a cannoli, a martini, a fast car, or a giant creme brûlée. He is a guilty pleasure partaken by people whose tongues trump their brains in the battle for their wills.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Gorgias has inserted the bracketed words [apparently] and [credibility].

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Antanagoge

Posted on April 8, 2021 | Comments Off on Antanagoge

Antanagoge (an’-ta-na’-go-gee): Putting a positive spin on something that is nevertheless acknowledged to be negative or difficult.

So you got 10 years in prison, Dad. All that free time! Wow! Just think of all the friends you’ll make, and the books you’ll have the time read. You’ll finally be able to finish the Tom Swift set that Grandpa gave you for Christmas back in the 60s. Oh! You get to live there for free too! I’m jealous Dad. Maybe I’ll try a little fraud!

And sorry, I’m no good at writing letters, so don’t expect to hear from me, and my unbelievably busy schedule won’t permit me me to visit—after all, I’m Don Junior, one of the smartest in-demand young winners in the world.

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

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Antenantiosis

Posted on April 7, 2021 | Comments Off on Antenantiosis

Antenantiosis (an’-ten-an’-ti-os’-is): See litotes. (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]).

We all know it wasn’t an insurrection. It was, as a matter of fact, just a raucous display of our patriotic fervor. What’s wrong with that? And please, my fellow militia members, I shouldn’t be praised for the minor role I played in making it happen. Buying bear spray in bulk just took a credit card and my pickup truck. The bullhorns were donated by the Russian embassy, and using flag poles as clubs was just a random thought in my motel room the night before. I’m sure glad I could share it with you: it was you who utilized it, cracking a few skulls trying to “Stop the Steal.”

I will fade back into the shadows now, a small part of a big deal, but not a big deal myself. May our one true Christian God bless us and keep us pissed off until we meet again.

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

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Antisagoge

Posted on March 31, 2021 | Comments Off on Antisagoge

Antisagoge (an-tis-a-go’-gee): 1. Making a concession before making one’s point (=paromologia); 2. Using a hypothetical situation or a precept to illustrate antithetical alternative consequences, typically promises of reward and punishment.

Ok, ok. So I might have overestimated the popularity of my cardboard bicycle, but its point is not about popularity, it’s about making a difference—changing peoples’ view of cardboard. It’s not just for cards any more, with my miracle quick-hardening cardboard construction syrup, we can build a brave new brown paper world—a corrugated utopia with shelter for all, and bicycles too. Just think: Pit mines, plastic pollutants entangling innocent fish, noisy metallic four-wheeled death-crates spewing petrol and carbon-based gasses into the air, castles made of steel and sand—castles costing millions, and millions, and millions, all replaced by clean, cozy, durable cardboard.

Imagine: Welcome to your cardboard mansion. Everything made of light-weight treated cardboard. You’ll even have a cardboard microwave and a cardboard TV, and a cardboard family too (if you want one).

Think about it. Talk about it. Make the change. Join Cardboard Nation. Our slogan: “It’s corrugated for your safety, your future, and your peace of mind.” Our first demonstration project is being erected at Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World.” You know, “fairy tales can come true it can happen to you, if you’re young at heart.” So, don your oxygen tube, and grab your walker! The future is wide open.

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

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Antithesis

Posted on March 28, 2021 | Comments Off on Antithesis

Antithesis (an-tith’-e-sis): Juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas (often, although not always, in parallel structure).

We tell falsehoods. We tell truths. True and false, like right and wrong, set the boundaries of our being—of who are, who we were and who we will become.

We sit here on this beautiful spring day—in the cool breeze, under the spell of clouds, the blue sky, and the scent of flowers as we grope like moles driven from their burrows by a hard unrelenting rain. We grope for stability—the stability truth affords. But we also grope for the openness of change and thrill of the unknowable where imagination, fiction, and falsehood have free play.

But somewhere between what’s true, what’s imagined, and what’s false is what we believe—what seems probable and seems plausible: the site of opinion: of faith, charity, chances, and wagers.

For example, the neat oppositions between true and false, right and wrong, and all the binaries we consume in our endless search for the end of our search to know and to conquer, places our trust in the sexes’ extremes. Man vs. Woman. At the site of “versus” between the extremes there is a startling array of variations in the markers traditionally used to map biological sex. There is no perfect manifestation of the categories of Man and Woman.

Nevertheless, the drive for categorization is endless. It provides us with vexing anomalies: man, woman, other. It has political implications, surgical implications, and legal implications. I guess we need think in degrees, where the different degrees are not hierarchically arrayed, and the extremes never achieve 100%.

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

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Apagoresis

Posted on March 26, 2021 | Comments Off on Apagoresis

Apagoresis (a-pa-gor’-e-sis): A statement designed to inhibit someone from doing something. Often uses exaggeration [or hyperbole] to persuade. It may combine an exaggeration with a cause/effect or antecedent/consequence relationship. The consequences or effects of such a phrase are usually exaggerated to be more convincing.

A: If you keep touching yourself like that, your hand will start to smell like Satan’s butt, you will become a stutterer, and your privates will turn green and melt off. After that, you will die.

It’s not too late!

To begin your renewal, you can wear these touch-proof underpants. They are made of Kevlar and can stop a bullet. For purposes of bathing, and peeing and pooping, one of our church brethren will handcuff you, aim your penis for you, and hose you off. If he sees you somehow touching yourself, he is authorized to give you a shot of “electro-ball therapy.” It is what it sounds like, only it’s worse.

Well, what do you say?

B: If you are for real, I’m calling the police. You and your “congregation” are a bunch of sadistic weirdos.

A: Smell your hand.

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

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Aphorismus

Posted on March 24, 2021 | Comments Off on Aphorismus

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

Love? What? You “love” ice cream? Ice cream is a sweetened liquid that you eat with a spoon. Save your love for your family and friends. The affection you have for ice cream is misplaced: love is a two-way street, a mutual affection. I don’t think you can love a thing, no matter how yummy it is.

Use that word carefully. Alongside hate, love may be the most important, and misused, word in the English language. It isn’t healthy to call your desire for, and enjoyment of material objects and processes, love.

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

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Aschematiston

Posted on March 8, 2021 | Comments Off on Aschematiston

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

1. This is a mess. You spilled your milk and dumped your Spaghettios on the floor. I’m going to pretend I never saw this, but you should consider heading back to Kentucky and working as a school crossing guard or something like that. What do you think, Mitch?

2. The sky is a sponge squeezing it’s juice on the peanut butter earth: like a forked wing flying around in circles spitting invisible lice into the air, it rains down a blood-sucking shower of Truth.

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

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Auxesis

Posted on February 27, 2021 | Comments Off on Auxesis

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

(1) We are born. We crawl. We walk. We run. We never get there. Life is like a dull knife—more likely to fatally cut you than a well-sharpened piece of steel, as you push its chipped edge forward and try to carve out your desired future, it slips out of time and guts you.

(2) My credit card is like a license plate affixed to a red limo going 125 MPH toward the gates of Heaven. It vibrates with luxury, fine dining, and gold. It is my partner, my joy, my dream come true, until the end of the month when I cut it up and steal a new one.

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

Print and Kindle versions of The Daily Trope are available from Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes.

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Cacozelia

Posted on February 21, 2021 | Comments Off on Cacozelia

Cacozelia (ka-ko-zeel’-i-a): 1. A stylistic affectation of diction, such as throwing in foreign words to appear learned. 2. Bad taste in words or selection of metaphor, either to make the facts appear worse or to disgust the auditors.

I felt the parameters of my television crumble when my streaming box went slo-mo into a pantheon of stretched words and images. It was like floating on a sea of hardening cement with a stingray protruding from my crusted trousers. My soul filibustered my body’s ganglia. My eyes started watering and I snapped back only to find my goldfish Karma 27 crushed on the floor, eyeballs protruding like black and grey glass balls

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

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Effictio

Posted on April 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

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

Note: This figure was used in forensic rhetoric (legal argumentation) for purposes of clearly identifying an alleged criminal. It has often been adapted to poetical uses.

His dyed blond hair is frozen by hairspray into a combination of a rolling wave and a Dairy Queen. His face and tiny hands are covered with bronzing cream making them look like a too-thick cadaver paint job performed by an angry mortician. His eyes are dull blue like spun aluminum moon hubcaps from the sixties. His mouth looks like a banana, peeled, cut sideways, and dyed with Red Dye 40. His teeth look like stunted piano keys superglued to his gums. His neck has a turkey wattle that swings in the wind. In calm weather it looks like labia. His loosely fitting white golf shirt can’t hide his robust boobs with little man-sized nipples pointing the way to the next faux pas. His watermelon belly is suggestive of an early pregnancy. He has an ass the size of North Carolina. It sticks out at right angles to his back. It actually provides a shelf that nobody dares to set anything on except envelopes filled with cash. His penis has been characterized as a “little mushroom” however there is some controversy over whether it looks more like a little toadstool. Having never seen it myself, I can’t say one way or the other, but I think “mushroom” is probably more accurate, given the source. In any event, “little” is the operative term. Legs and feet are what you would expect: legs like flabby gyros ready for the rotating spit; feet a bone spur museum curated by a crooked doctor from New York: try to find the bone spurs.

All-in-all this man’s appearance is a parody of Charles Atlas, the famous 1960s body builder whose image plagues old men with his tanned bodily perfection; old men who never made the mark.

Who is this man who still longs for the Charles Atlas look–who unsuccessfully uses hair and skin dye to approximate his boyhood hope? Who is unable to do anything below his neck to camouflage his failure? He is the President of the United States, Donald Trump.

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

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu) Buy a print version of The Daily Trope! The print version is titled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is also a Kindle edition available for $5.99.

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Enallage

Posted on April 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

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

We try harder than we’d like to admit. Overdone? Over-stressed? Broken like a little toy plastic car crushed by a careless foot on the way to the kitchen. The kitchen: oriented toward satisfying the stomach. Peanut butter. Olives. Canned tuna. Beer. Potato chips. Endless condiments. Cheese. Fake sour cream. Pasta, pasta, pasta. Rice. All there in the Kitchen. A community of food drunk, chewed and swallowed: disappearing in the darkness of the oral cavity, slurped, and torn and ground, by practical teeth that can bite and chew.

What do I care. What. Do I care? I have a knife that slices and dices. I have sliced but I’ve never diced. Why do I crawl to you? Why do I talk to you? Why do I sacrifice myself to you? We mark time by the shit you put me through. Your belly is soft, my thoughts are cruel. It’s the knife that talks to me–that moves my hand.

It’s the hydroxychloroquine. They warned me it could make me psychotic. I didn’t listen. I wanted an easy way around the pandemic. It’s all your fucking fault with your hand washing and your mask. See this? It will cure you of everything once and for all. Shut up: you look like a hula girl, like an egg, like a beautiful flower. You are so red, like a strawberry, like ketchup, like a piece of yarn woven into the cross on a Crusader’s tunic.

I am lost. I am tired. Don’t follow me to bed.

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. There is also a Kindle edition available for $5.99.

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