Tag Archives: figures of speech

Asyndeton

Posted on February 7, 2025 | Leave a comment

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

“Time! Time! Time!” Mr. Hubert would yell that off his front porch. He lived alone in a small home and was retired from the NFL where he coached the Buffalo Bills for twenty-five years. He was the most decorated coach in NFL history earning the Tommy Lasorda Medal Of Honor twice for “only cheating a few times during an entire season.” Mr. Hubert told us his time thing was about calling time out during football games. He said he was protecting the United States of America by declaring time out. Our enemies such as Japan and Russia were required by the United Nations to come to a full stop when he yelled “Time! Time! Time!”

Mr. Hubert was nuts. What he had actually done for his whole working life was bag groceries at Shop Rite and work part-time as a boiler watcher—watching a dial for four hours every night, making sure it didn’t go into the red. He had a chronic stiff neck from watching the boiler and always wore a neck brace. When he retired, Shop Rite threw him a party in the baked goods section of the supermarket. He was allowed to choose a bag of oatmeal cookies, a chocolate cake, a crumb cake, or a box of jelly donuts as his going away present. He chose the jelly donuts.

After 20 years with Shop Rite, he felt a box of jelly donuts was a little stingy. He complained loudly and the manager told him to take five cans of mustard sardines, a carrot, and two cans of garbanzo beans. Also, he could keep his Shop Rite apron. Mr. Hubert was overcome with what he called “gratitude.”

He drove directly to Dick’s Sporting Goods and bought a Glock and five boxes of ammo. Things were taking a turn for the worse. Tomorrow was THE day. Shop Rite would pay dearly. The next day he arrived at Shop Rite just as it was opening. He had the loaded Glock hidden in the waistband of his pants. When he got to the produce section, he pulled out the Glock and started firing. He took out 11 watermelons, 9 cantaloupe, 11 honeydew, and at least 30 apples—mainly Honey Crisp. When he was done, he dropped the Glock and went outside with his hands up yelling “Time. Time. Time. I am not a crazy weirdo maniac lunar module danger man. I am Mr. Hubert.”

Since he didn’t kill anybody, the police gave him back his Glock and told him to help clean up the mess he had made. Mr. Hubert agreed to do as they said. He finished up around 7.00. As he was leaving, the manager caught up with him and offered Mr. Hubert a box of blueberry muffins. Mr. Hubert took the box and took out a muffin and smeared it on his face. He said: “That’s what I think of your muffins.” He walked home with muffin on his face. People yelled taunts out their car windows, calling him Muffin Man and things like that. When he got home, he pulled his Glock and shot the front door’s doorknob until the door opened. He went inside and sat down at his kitchen table and ate a half-bag of oatmeal cookies. He washed the cookies down with two glasses of whole milk. Then, he opened his shot up front door and yelled “Time! Time! Time!” out to the street. Then, he unloaded his Glock and went to bed.

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

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

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

Auxesis

Posted on February 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

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

His brain was bigger than Plymouth Rock. Intuitions became thoughts, thoughts became discourses, discourses became actions. Slow, medium, fast: he was like a box fan on a sweltering August night turned up all the way.

I was always jealous of Bill—I knew what he has is nature’s gift, not nurture’s labor. We grew up together. I was always behind him. I thought I was smart, but I knew I wasn’t a genius, but I thought maybe I could be. I wanted to be a genius. I wanted to think big thoughts, say intelligent things and prove myself as a problem solver in everyday life and beyond.

One day, I asked Bill what his secret was. As expected, he told me he didn’t have a secret, he “was born this way.” And I was born my way: average, normal, a pencil in the pack.

I was obsessed with becoming a genius. I read how-to books and practiced exercises like memorizing dictionary definitions, rubbing up against library books in the philosophy section, sleeping with a calculator under my pillow, drinking one gallon of coffee every day. Nothing worked. I still couldn’t understand Wittgenstein or Mark Twain. But, I did understand Frankenstein. I did understand brain transplantation. You sawed off the top of somebody’s head and pulled out their brain—in this case Bill’s brain. I would get a confederate to saw off the top of my head, pull out my brain, and plug in Bill’s brain like a big, floppy, meaty SIM card. It would be messy, yet simple. I would be a new Bill, but I would keep my nickname: Slug.

I found my confederate lounging on a piece of dirty cardboard outside Smitty’s Liquors. He told me his name was “Sham,” but I was sure his name was Sam, and it was the cheap muscatel that made him say “Sham.” I brought him home, sobered him up, and told him my plan.

He told me I was crazy. He asked me where I got the plan. I told him it was probably the coffee. He said that Bill and I would die in such a misadventure and he would end up standing there telling the police where the dead bodies came from. At that point, I realized I was terminally average (probably below average) and had no chance of being a genius. I grabbed a piece of cardboard from my garage and headed back to the liquor store with Sam. I bought us both bottles of cheap muscatel. We cracked them open and toasted the warmth of the sun. I’ve been lounging here in front of Smitty’s Liquors ever since.

Every once-in-awhile Bill walks by. He doesn’t recognize me. I just shrug my shoulders and take a swig.

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

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

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

Bdelygmia

Posted on February 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

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

I hated people who spoke English with a Canadian accent. There is an insidious motive behind it. We all know regional accents are learned and signify solidarity with agendas requiring unity.

My name is Bill Jeffers and I spent my adult life as a CIA agent stationed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The station was located in the basement of a Tim Horton’s near the University of Toronto, a hotbed of Pro-Canadian activism. For example, most students drank a shot of maple syrup daily and would dress as Mounties on the weekend when they went ice-skating, mostly with their intramural hockey teams with names like “The North Americans,” “The Invaders,” and “Canada First.”

Part of our mission was to recruit native speakers of Canadian to learn to affect an American accent and model it along the border, and slowly Americanize the border residents’ speech, and eventually, teach them to ridicule the Canadian accent and build a movement assuring American hegemony along a 3000-mile language corridor, if you will, between the US and Canada, dominated by the American accent. It would be Canadian in name only.

In order for me to operate and infiltrate effectively, I had to affect a Canadian accent. It was difficult at first to give up my American accent—so much that I loved and all that was decent in the world—is expressed by that accent in all its manifestations from “you all” to “U-Haul.” I was becoming Canadian.

I started eating poutine, nanaimo bars, Montreal smoked meat, peameal bacon, and many more Canadian foods. I felt these dishes moving through my bloodstream, “Canadianizing” me as I digested. My craving for poutine washed down by two or three Molsons was driving me me into the arms of the Canadians. My colleagues back at the station didn’t suspect a thing. I struggled to talk American when I was there. I reached a point where talking American was just too difficult, since I went full Canadian. My colleagues didn’t mind, seeing the accent as a part of the job.

My Canadian accent was like an infection that had killed my American identity—I hated it, but it was part of my job to be Canadian and gain Canadians’ trust as I introduced them to my American-speaking operatives so they could infiltrate their communities and Americanize them.

When looked in the mirror I hated the Canadian I saw. But once you’ve become Canadian, as I found out, there’s no going back. I knew my mission would fail. The Canadian ethos was like a beaver trap crushing my soul, squeezing the New York out of me.

Then, I met a Canadian woman named Tess. We got very close. Then, one night after too many Black Velvet sours, I told her my secret. She laughed and told me I was as Canadian as they come. “Have you ever considered working for the Canadian government?” She asked. “What would I do?” I asked. She told me she didn’t know, but we could talk to “somebody” tomorrow. the woman I loved was a Canadian agent. She worked for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I loved her. I could not be redeemed.

I resigned from CIA. I went to work south of the border for the Canadian government “Canadianizing” Americans. My base of operations is Buffalo, NY. There are many easy marks there—I start with a bottle of Molson and go from there. After two or three Molsons, they turn: they start saying “aboot” instead of about. We go out to my car and I teach them the Canadian national anthem and give them 100 Canadian dollars. After ten or twelve sessions they turn completely Canadian.

As a traitor, I still hate my Canadian accent, but at the same time, I don’t hate Tess. We’re having poutine again for dinner tonight. Her love assuages my self loathing. How aboot that Yank?

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

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

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

Bomphiologia

Posted on February 4, 2025 | Leave a comment

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

I am the most famous person. People don’t notice it. That’s why I am so famous. My name is Barny Anon, like Al-Anon. Strangely, my brother’s name is Al. He’s been teased all his life. That’s why I’ve become so famous. My motto is “You don’t have to be famous to be famous.” I am behind the scene famous—an unsung hero.

I went to a seer and found out all about my many incarnations. I was there when Rome burned. I saved Nero’s fiddle and then stepped on it by mistake and destroyed it. It was destined for the British Museum, but ironically, disappeared along with my heroic attempt to save it.

Then, there was the Trojan Horse. We rolled through the gates of Troy on bumpy wooden wheels. The Trojans thought we were a gift. The horse was filled with killer soldiers. We were going to spill out of a trap door in the horse’s belly, and kick some ass. But, the trapdoor got jammed.

Part of my morning regimen, in addition to shaving with a sharpened clamshell, was to work about a quarter-pound of boar grease pomade into my hair. Nobody else did such a thing because the smell was pretty strong and you had to have a chinstrap affixed to your helmet to keep it from sliding off your head. I added a handful of cloves to the boar grease every morning, rolled it into a ball, and patted it flat to rub into my hair. My concubine loved it and would sometimes rub my hair around inside a frying pot to add flavor to our food. But anyway, I saved the Trojan Horse plan from failure.

I took off my helmet, got on my hands a knees, and rubbed my hair on the trapdoor’s iron hinges. The trapdoor came loose, flew open, and we slaughtered the Trojans. Did you ever read about this in history books? No, you haven’t. Once again I operated in the shadows. I was unsung.

One more anecdote:

We were headed to Japan. World War II was roaring. We were flying in the Ebola Gay on a mission to drop an Atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It was believed that dropping the Big One would elicit Japan’s surrender and end the war. Everybody wanted that—the war had dragged on too long and cost too many lives.

My job on the plane was to make sure the head was stocked with soap toilet paper, stand by a stock of lens cloths for the bombardier’s bomb sights, monitor the thermostat, and crack jokes to keep pilot morale high. Like: “Where does a mountain climber keep his plane? In a cliff hanger.” Ha, ha.

We hit some heavy turbulence as we approached Hiroshima. The A-bomb fell off the bomb rack. It started rolling around and could’ve gone off in the airplane. I jumped on it like it was a horse. I yelled “Yippee kai yi yay little doggie!” I rode it until the turbulence went away, I helped the bombardier load the A-Bomb in the bomb bay. The rest is history. Again, my contribution to this important historical event goes unmentioned. Once again, I go unsung, and this is how I want it.

I am writing this to make sure my wish to be famous, without being famous, is honored. Please honor my wish. If you want to know more about me and my feats, take out an add in the New York Times classified pages and I will answer you.

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

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

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Brachylogia

Posted on February 3, 2025 | Leave a comment

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

“Pile, car, laying.” It was his last gasp. They were his final words as he lay there bleeding under his lawnmower. We had been hunting Mr. Scarzone for 2 years. He had stolen Prince Charles’ beloved polo mallet. Charles believed it brought him luck on the Royal Field of glory. Scarzone was adept at evading capture. He had hidden the stolen polo mallet and vowed he never reveal where it was hidden. When he was on the run, he would email cryptic messages to taunt us about its whereabouts. They were all adventures in misdirection, but we had to follow them for the sake of the Prince, who had become, more than usual, an intolerable whining twit—a boundless rotter.

Two weeks before he committed rotary mower suicide, as Director of the “Mallet Recovery Task Force,” I received another email from him. It said simply “High Marks.” After hours of deliberation, we were sure that the “High” was the “High” in “High Gate Cemetery,” where all the famous miscreants are buried. “Marks” referred to “Karl Marx” who is one of the famous miscreants buried there. We jumped in our police cars and with sirens blaring we headed for High Gate.

Nothing was disturbed around Marx’s grave. We searched the woods adjoining the grave, believing the mallet would be disguised as a small tree. It wasn’t. We had been misled again. I was infuriated, but there was nothing I could do.

In the meantime, the Prince purchased a new polo mallet that he believed was bringing him good luck. He found a woman who was “miles better” than his current “hag of a wife” and his watercolors had improved. So, the task force was to be disbanded the following week.

Even though we were disbanded long ago—eight years ago to be exact—I’ve been trying to decipher Scarezone’s last words. I have failed. I have given up. The polo mallet is forever lost.

I was getting ready to retire and was going to have a car boot sale and get rid of the junk that had been accumulating in my garage for the past twenty years. I had bundles of “Police Gazette” magazine piled up five feet high. I was thinking about how stupid it was to save them. Then, I saw something that looked like a broomstick in the two-inch space between a couple of stacks of “Gazettes.” I pushed them back, and you guessed it: it was the missing polo mallet. Goddamn it! Mr. Scarzone had hidden the polo mallet in my garage. Bastard! I sawed it up into one-foot pieces, and burned it in my back yard.

Fu*k everybody.

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

A 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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Cacozelia

Posted on February 2, 2025 | Leave a comment

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 didn’t have a chance. My pomme de terre had fallen on the floor. It hit the floor muzukashī! I was on the verge of tears as I dropped my dishrag to cover it. “Verletzt” is not strong enough a word to describe its current state, although German usually captures effectively the effect of volence, like the German word “mord.”

I was next. Chef Parfaitti was making his way toward me. He looked at my stoemp on the preparation table and then looked at my dishrag on the floor with my patata’s bump beneath it. “What is that my little carrot top?”he asked like he was on the verge of kräkningar! He was fingering the butcher knife in his belt. Last week he cut off Tiffani Chuckwort’s ear. It was a mess. But, we were going to chef school where that sort of discipline is encouraged, Belarus.

We were going to a foreign chef school because no American school would admit us. We were like medical students forced to study abroad because of their lack of promise as doctors. Even my father’s billions couldn’t get me in an American culinary college. It was beaucoup decepcionante!

Now, I was about to be maimed for dropping a potato on the floor and trying to hide it.

“Pick it up you microwaved meal brain, you ‘Ready Mix’ muffin!” He yelled so everybody looked. When I bent over to pick it up, he squeezed my ass and started laughing like it was the funniest ever, anywhere.

This was too much, even for me. I turned on my cordless meat slicer and went after him. He was obese, so he couldn’t get anywhere very fast. My friend Dino tripped him and he fell flat on his face. I yelled “wooden mixing spoons!” Everybody grabbed their spoons and jumped on him and started beating him until he was dead. His face looked like rhubarb compote. I sliced off his ear and everybody cheered when I handed it to Tiffani.

The police showed up and bagged him up and dragged him out the door. Nobody said anything. Nobody asked any questions. Nobody did anything. Nobody cared.

The next day we had a new Head Chef. His name was Lucas Pinelli. He was wearing a Kevlar vest and had two Tasers holstered on his belt. Seemed mild-mannered and kind. “Time get back to learning,” he said. He pulled a pastry bag out of his pocket and squeezed a blob of pink frosting into his mouth. He looked down and said softly, “I’m an addict.”

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

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

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

Catachresis

Posted on February 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

Catachresis (kat-a-kree’-sis): The use of a word in a context that differs from its proper application. This figure is generally considered a vice; however, Quintilian defends its use as a way by which one adapts existing terms to applications where a proper term does not exist.

Every time I hear “AI,” I think of the Carmen Miranda song: “AI, AI, I love you very much, AI, AI, I, think I do.” I see a woman dancing with a basket of fruit on her head somewhere in South America, most likely, Argentina. But this is my problem, not yours. I don’t know what AI is. “Artificial Intelligence” seems like an oxymoron to me, like “jumbo shrimp” or “alone together.”

My bony brain is turned to lava by the hot heavens of technology. In other words, I don’t understand. I recover from my fruitless musings by eating the banana resting in a bowl on my kitchen’s granite- topped island—disjoined from the kitchen counters, adrift in the center of the kitchen with pendant lights above casting their beams on the banana in the bowl below—yellow, with a few brown spots, at its peak as an edible.

AI, AI, I love you very much!

As far as I know, “Rod Johnson” was the first AI-driven animatronic being. He was introduced in the early 1950s to supplement the teaching of health-related topics in 9th grade classes across America, until the “League of Decent Citizens” lobbied to have him removed and burned. There is only one known Ron Johnson remaining. He is housed in the “Museum for the History of Visual Aids” in Iceland, adjacent to the famous Penis Museum in Reykjavik.

Rod’s mechanism: since he was deployed in the 1950s, there is only a heterosexual version of Rod. You plug him in. You slide the switch on the back of his neck to the “On” position. Rod’s eyes open wide. Choose one of the soft-core XXX pictures from the pile stacked in front of him. Hold the picture in front of Rod’s eyes. Then, pop goes the weasel, and there is a tent in Rod’s pants. Rod was supposed to be used in Health Class Units devoted to the male erection, its causes, and effects.

Things went wrong. Even though the pictures were locked in the principal’s office at the end of the day, it was rumored that teachers were staying after school and “doing things” that made the Rod Doll pop up. It was never proven, but nevertheless, the Rod Johnson dolls were confiscated and burned. Many people thought it was jealousy about the reliability of Rod’s pop-up function that led to his demise. Many men felt threatened by his 100% average.

But here we are today. A Japanese company is working on a life size Rod Johnson animatronic companion. It comes with three different size penises, a variable-speed humper function, and a heated variable-speed twirling tongue. Currently, they are back-ordered to 2031.

AI, AI, I love you very much!

So, without knowing what it is that I’m talking about, I’ve rambled way off point and probably angered and disgusted some of you. But, on balance disgust peeks from my soul’s basement, from the dank inner sphere of its deteriorating French dam cracked by anger as it floods—floods, floods, floods. That’s what I think.

Keep reading.

Rod! Bring me a robot brownie so I may eat the future for dessert. No?

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

A 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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Catacosmesis

Posted on January 31, 2025 | Leave a comment

Catacosmesis (kat-a-kos-mees’-is): Ordering words from greatest to least in dignity, or in correct order of time.

I was laying on the ground outside the library. I had been tossed out by the two goon “shush” monitors. I had been talking very quietly to my hand puppet Lance as we collaborated on our research project. Lance was an experienced hand puppet and that put him in good position to be a co-creator, fumbling through the past with me—literally my right-hand man. Lance’s head was a likeness of George Washington, and his body was made from a small post-revolutionary American flag.

We were reading and discussing a rare book that couldn’t leave the library. It was part of a collection worth a fortune. The “Oggle Osborne” collection consisted of books about the nineteenth century. That was the ordering principle of the collection, not subject matter or fiction vs. non-fiction: just the nineteenth century—all books.

Lance and I were interested in the concept of “squeezing.” Lance’s status as as a hand-puppet perfectly positioned him to follow the trail. My teenage bouts with acne had prompted my interest in squeezing as well as my obesity which made “squeezing” a daily occurance in my life.

We were reading “Liverpool Train” set on the overcrowded 19th-century train between London and Liverpool—there were aristocrats, tradesmen, laborers and human scum packed into the train. Some of the cars carried only men. Woman had their own cars too. According to the author, this segregation was a residue of Victorian moral and social values and was seen as the best way to “squeeze in” passengers. There was abundant evidence that in the previous century mixed sex “squeezed in” passengers would turn the train into a coal-powered orgy, especially in tunnels, in the dark.

This is what Lance I were talking about when we got the boot from the library. We had both seen the Japanese movies about sex on public transportation being caused by being squeezed in, standing up. But this doesn’t happen in US movies, so, we concluded there must be a cultural component. That’s where conversation ended.

I stood up and pulled Lance off my hand and stuffed him in my backpack. It was a tight fit, but I squeezed him in. When I got home, I put my backpack on my living room sofa. I noticed some movement—the top of my backpack was rhythmically moving up and down and I heard teeny-tiny moaning sounds. I unzipped backpack and there was Lance and my other hand puppet Molly in flagrante delicto on my balled- up sweatshirt. Lance turned his head toward me and blushed shamefully and Molly leered at me. As fast as I could, I zipped up my backpack and went into the kitchen and drank a half-glass of vodka.

I never discussed this incident with Lance. I had trouble washing the stain off Molly’s dress.

The two of them had been squeezed in. What else could they do?

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

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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Cataphasis

Posted on January 30, 2025 | 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.

“I know the infrastructure is a mess. Bridges collapsing. Potholes the size of moon craters. Airport runways a mess—all commercial flights diverted to Canada. Road signs illegible causing far too many Americans to get lost. But these are all speed bumps along the way to prosperity.

All of these problems are seen as problems because citizens and businesses want to go somewhere—ride a highway, cross a bridge, move their bodies conveniently from point “A” to point “B” without getting killed or ending up at point “Z,” wherever that is—maybe Timbuktu, ha ha.

There’s a way around all this. It will save the government billions and return our country to normalcy—make us whole again. It is all about drones and Zoom. Zoom to order. Drones to deliver. There are so many social dimensions to Zoom, that “visiting” grandma in Florida will be a thing of the past. You will visit grandma in your living room, on your plasma TV screen. What could be cheaper and more convenient?

Most people will be able to work entirely from home. But there are many people who work in manufacturing and other hands-on jobs requiring their presence. They will be transported to and from work in Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) driven by Army reservists. Just think, no more car payments! A free ride to and from work. Your children will be home schooled, so you don’t need to drop them off and pick them up, or wait for the school bus in the morning and the afternoon.

Romantic relationships will blossom on Zoom. Lovers will be married on Zoom and transported to their dwelling places via APC, where they will live happily ever after. Children will be born at home with a Zoom midwife overseeing the process. How supportive of family values!

For their own safety, people will be urged by laws not to leave their homes. All citizens will wear ankle monitors and remain inside, with the exception of workers whose jobs require them to be on site. They will be permitted to remove their ankle monitors to commute in the APCs. Unauthorized walking or jogging on a sidewalk can result in a 30-day jail sentence for the first offense.

I know this plan has a lot of missing components and “What ifs?” But, as they say “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” It took years of neglect to land us where we are today, but the technology we have at our disposal can fix things in a couple of days—at a low, low cost to taxpayers—and we can divert those savings to the purchase of the bombs and the missiles that keep us free. So, forget about the problems. Think about the solutions and put your minds at ease.

POSTSCRIPT

President Gaetz’s speech was received with thunderous applause. People were speaking in tongues, convulsing, doing energetic jigs and falling on the floor. It was a chaotic display of support marking the power of Gaetz’s rule. Trump’s head was in a jar beside him. Even though it had been soaking in a pickling solution for eight years, it seemingly nodded its approval of Goetz’s instantly famous “Home Sweet Home” speech. It was the “I Have a Dream” of the Hard-on Party—the first, most influential, and biggest political party to emerge after women were prohibited from politics in 2029.

After living like hamsters in cages, with no freedom, and no hope, the people of America were ready for revolution. One year after Goetz’s speech a patriot army commanded by Yogi Berra’s great-great grandson invaded the rotted USA from Greenland. Assisted by Mexico and Canada, they easily defeated the Americans and were received with open arms by the people.

Wearing his New York Yankees’ camo military uniform, Yogi III quoted his great-great grandfather:

“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.”

The quote keynoted the efforts to restore America, starting with Yankee Stadium which had fallen into horrendous disrepair. Love was everywhere. It was like a perpetual Valentine’s Day.

Former President Barron Trump was imprisoned for treason and Mike Pence’s reputation was restored, along with the thousands of people who were fired when Barron’s father struck the first blow for dictatorship that resulted in America’s decline and near destruction.

A copy of the Constitution was found in cardboard box under Barron’s bed. It was restored as the law of the land and America became whole again. Trump’s pickled head was run through a wood chipper.

Bridges were repaired. Roads were replaced. Malls were reopened, and America became America again.

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

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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Cataplexis

Posted on January 29, 2025 | Leave a comment

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

I had gone to one of those gypsy fortunetellers. Her “studio” is next to the Ace Hardware Store on one side and Doozy Duds Laundromat on the other. It had drapes printed with gold-colored stars and crescent moons hanging in the window. On the glass it said “Madame Asphalt: Your Road to the Future.” I had walked past it 100s of times on my way to somewhere else, usually the Subway Sandwich place down the street or the bar where I hung out to get out of the house—to escape the eye of Millie my wife and her nearly endless diatribe about what a dickhead I am. It’s not like I don’t deserve it. I am a dickhead.

I had donated our daughter’s dolls to the Salvation Army. She is 19 and a first-year student at New Jersey State College at Hoboken. She is majoring in Logistics, which as far as I can see is about putting things where they belong. She suffers from OCD, so her major perfectly suits her. The problem is, she still plays with her childhood dolls.

When she was home for Christmas, she spent more time with her dolls than with us. She told us she needed to catch up. What about us? Didn’t she need to catch up with mom and dad too? After she went back to Hoboken, blinded by anger, I bagged up and dumped her dolls on the Salvation Army’s loading dock where a sign said “Leave Your Donations Here.”

I came to my senses the next day and went back to retrieve the dolls. They were nowhere to be found. The lady behind the counter said they were probably being sorted in Warehouse Bay 11, which was restricted. I was refused entry no matter how much I begged. I offered a bribe to the guard posted at he entrance and I was “escorted” by the arm to the parking lot.

I had recently heard of the concept of Karma after obtaining my credit rating, which was excellent. But my concern was what is captured in Karma’s cause and effect principle: what you do now will affect your future. If what you do now is bad, it will come back to bite you in the ass in the future. I was concerned that what I had done to my daughter would come back and get me with bad Karma. That’s why I went to Madame Asphalt to see what was coming at me in the future.

I told her my story as she laid out the cards. When she finished she started sobbing and told me I was about to lose my daughter’s love. I started crying too. She stopped for a second and called out “Chucky.” A giant rat appeared—it was Chucky Cheese! She said “No! No! I want Chucky the haunted doll.” Poof! There he was. He told us not to get frightened, he had been “neutered” in Italy by the puppet surgeon Geppetto. Now, he no longer murdered people or burned their houses down. He was here to help dolls of all kinds. However, he was permitted burglarize dwellings and business sites and shoplift.

He told me to meet him in front of Salvation Army at 11:00 p.m. that night. I was there for about five minutes, and he showed up. He waved his hand at the entrance doors. They opened. We went inside and found Warehouse Bay 11. He waved his hand again and in we went. He handed me a plastic garbage bag and instructed me to get down on one knee and hold it open. Once I did that, he yelled “Dolls! Get in the bag!” My daughter’s dolls came running from out of the pile of donated goods and jumped in the bag.

I was saved! Chucky’s supernatural powers had helped me get there. I thanked Chucky and started to leave . He said, “Wait a minute. There’s a catch. You have to let me marry your daughter.” He told me he was a lot older than he looked and he could wait until she graduated from college.

What could I do?

Well, two things happened when she came home for spring break, 1. She decided she was too old to play with dolls any more and donated them all to the Salvation Army, 2. She went out on a date with Chucky.

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

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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Charientismus

Posted on January 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

Charientismus (kar-i-en-tia’-mus): Mollifying harsh words by answering them with a smooth and appeasing mock.

She: Can you please stop acting like a total idiot when we’re hanging out with my friends?

He: I’m just trying to fit in. Ha, ha. Just kidding. But, let’s face it there’s something about your friends that’s a little off,

She: I know. None of us ever got over our high school crush on Travis. He dated us. He went steady with us. He dId other things with us. He broke up with us, and, when he graduated, he went to live with our English teacher Ms. Tushski. They live in town and he’s tried unsuccessfully to rekindle romance with all of us. He’s an egotistical maniac who’s stuck in his glory days as a high school stud.

He: This is what I mean—the idiotic endless recounting of the “Travis Story”—a story that’ll never have a happy ending. Just because I try to change the subject, I’m an idiot.

She: But what can I do? He’s not going anywhere and I see that Ms. Tushski is pregnant. No doubt, the child is his.

Me: Maybe this will work: You get to know him as a friend. We can invite him and Ms. Tushski over to dinner and get to know them socially. We can have your special quiche and a couple glasses of wine. They can bring dessert.

TWO DAYS LATER

She: There’s the doorbell. I’ll get it, Hi Travis, welcome to our home.

Travis: You remember Ms. Tushski. We’re married and have baby on the way. We can’t stay too late. I have to get home to soak my hemorrhoids by nine o’clock.

He: That’s too bad Travis, but we understand.

Travis: Yeah if I don’t soak ‘em by nine, they itch like crazy—I smear on cortisone and shove a suppository up there, but if I don’t soak, they don’t work, and I’ll be draggin’ my butt around on the living room carpet.

She: Oh, well. We all get older. Is there anything else?

Travis: Nah, just some bowel control issues. I’ve got it covered with Depends—the same brand Trump uses.

She: Oh. That must be a bother—especially if you need a change when you’re out and about.

He: Well. Ms. Tushski, when’s the baby due?

Ms. Tushski: I don’t know. I love the suspense. It’s like a good story. Do you remember “Buck Rogers and the Martian Pyromaniac?” That’s the feeling I get every time I look down at my bloated belly.

POSTSCRIPT

They finished dinner.

In silence, they ate the strawberry jello that Ms. Tushski and Travis had brought After the jello,, the two of them left in a cab.

He and She looked at each other. Simultaneously, they both said “Poor Ms. Tushski” and laughed.

That was the end of that.

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

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

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

Chiasmus

Posted on January 27, 2025 | 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).

Yesterday, I sent an email to you expecting a reply, But today, no, no answer, just a blue screen with a cursor’s arrow resting in the upper left-hand corner. But then, a message lit my screen telling me I have a new email—maybe a reply! A new communication blinking on my desktop. Then, I realize that I must open my email app to see and retrieve my messages. Oh silly me, as foolish as a circus clown.

Her reply is “Leave me alone or I’m calling the police.” I thought that was rather harsh. After all, I had sent her ten messages. When she didn’t answer, I worried. Maybe she was tied up and couldn’t access her keyboard. Maybe she was critically ill, on the floor unable crawl to her computer. Maybe she was locked in her bathroom. Or, God forbid, maybe she was dead lying in a pool of blood on her kitchen floor. All of these scenarios were troubling. Then I realized! She hadn’t sent the email! It was her assailant trying to throw me off. So, I sent another email saying I wasn’t going to send another email, that I was leaving town for a week. But, how to make my ruse work?

Anyway, I couldn’t imagine why she rebuffed me—she had to be in dire trouble. I had spotted her at Starbucks. She was talking to some guy. She lit my fire. She had given her business card to the guy and he left it on the table when they left. I snatched it up. Her name was Jane Doe. I thought that was weird, but life is weird. Nevertheless, it forced me to have an image of her lying naked, dead on a slab in a morgue. The card had her address, phone number, and email address. I was too shy to call her, so I emailed her. I told her I had used magical powers to find her, powers I had been granted during my sojourn on Planet Blue, where everything was blue. I told her that my affection for had made me want to teach her a couple of magic tricks—I would show her how to turn into an Audi and turn cold water into warm Ovaltine. How could she resist my boundless generosity? She’d have to be crazy turn me down. Or not to realize I was just kidding. I could hear her laughing all the way down in my basement apartment. I could be a comedian..

But, even then, I was crazy and I wouldn’t turn her down. Love was in the air. When I opened my window, I could smell it. It smelled like pepperoni pizza.

I was going to take a chance. There is a dimly lit alley near where I live. We could meet there without bright lights that would break the mood. One more email. Just one! “Jane, meet me in the dark alley across the street from the church on Bow Avenue. Please.” I expected the police to pound on my door. They didn’t!

I put on a splash of Brut, my black leather jacket and gloves. Just in case, I pulled my balaclava out of my sock drawer and stuffed it in my back pocket.

I walked to the alleyway. She was standing there smoking a cigarette. She said, you remind me of my loony second cousin Red. I loved him. She smiled at me and started into the alleyway. I was overcome with excitement. I pooped my pants—it was a full load.

She took a whiff and ran into the alleyway. I was right behind her, sort of limping/hopping along, my load swinging in my underpants. She stopped and turned and said “I know what you did, follow me.” So, I followed her. She lived across the street from the end of the alleyway. She told me to leave my pants on the stoop and come inside. She pointed down the hall and said “The bathroom’s on the right. Take a shower.” I told her she was the most wonderful person I ever met, ignoring my poopy pants and welcoming me into her home. When I got out of the shower, I heard a washing machine running. She was washing my poopy pants!

There was a bathrobe hanging from the bathroom door, so I put it on and stepped out into the hallway. There she was with a machete in one hand and my balaclava in the other. “What the hell is?“ she asked, shaking my balaclava in my face. I told her it was supposed to go down to 10 below tonight, and I thought I might need it. At that, she calmed down a little bit, but the machete still looked pretty threatening. She put it down and came toward me laughing affectionately. “Open the robe,” she said in a soft voice. I knelt down and picked up the machete and cut her head off.

I put my pants in the dryer and checked the refrigerator for a snack. I opened a container of yogurt and laughed diabolically. I was getting good at that.

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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Chronographia

Posted on January 26, 2025 | Leave a comment

Chronographia (chro-no-graph’-i-a): Vivid representation of a certain historical or recurring time (such as a season) to create an illusion of reality. A kind of enargia:[the] generic name for a group of figures aiming at vivid, lively description.

It was a typical winter day. It was five below zero and the wind was blowing 47 MPH—the wind sounded like “Don’t Fear the Reaper” performed by Alvin and the Chipmunks on helium. I looked out my back window and wasn’t surprised to see my neighbor’s four-year old go sliding by on the snow’s surface, like a human sled. His father Jim was chasing him struggling through three feet of snow. I kept watching and saw the little boy get tangled up and stopped by the hedgerow along my property line. Jim got to his kid before he froze to death stuffing him into his over-sized down parka. He saw me in the window and waved and smiled as he trekked past, the ice glistening on his beard.

Jim and his family had moved here from a place that was pretty-much summer all the time. They didn’t know the ways of the Great North and hadn’t done research before they moved here. He had worked as a Tallyman at a 200-acre banana plantation. In August it was 110 degrees in in the plantations’ banana groves. Usually, about 4 workers would die from heat stroke each week. As Tallyman, he was responsible for weighing pickers’ banana bunches as they finished their 15 hour day’s work as “daylight came and they wanted to go home.” Acutely aware of the need to tally rapidly, he started estimating, rather than actually tallying the bananas. His boss caught on to what he was doing and he was fired.

He was forced to leave the land of parrots, coconuts, and alligators, where snow was unknown and you would run over the occasional anaconda on the way to work. He liked wearing shorts year-round and breathing clear air conditioned air. He had learned how to surf and could shoot selfie videos while riding a wave. He had two orange trees in his yard. The season was stuck on summer—on sun, and heat and the occasional hurricane or tornado. As far as Jim was concerned, it was paradise.

Now he was headed north—way up north. He had gotten a job at a Walleye packing plant, called “Eye, eye, eye.” His job was to fold the boxes that the Walleyes were frozen in and shipped. It was summer when he arrived, so he didn’t see any difference from where he came from. He was puzzled by the lack of alligators and giant cockroaches.

Then, summer turned to fall. He was resentful, but he got used to wearing long pants and hoodies. Then, bam! It was winter. Around December 2nd he had a mild heart attack shoveling snow. Then it snowed three feet and he was trapped with his family in their little home. That’s when I saw him chasing his wind-borne little boy across the snow.

I had a “Nordic Blaster” snow blower and worked six hours liberating his family from the snow. He opened his garage door from inside and had a banana in each hand, holding them like pistols pointing at me. He asked “Who the hell are you? How did you get here?” I reminded him I was his next door neighbor and he put the bananas down on the hood of his car. He invited me in for a drink.

I went inside and it was about 80 degrees. His wife and the toddler were wearing bathing suits. There was sand spread on the floor and three beach lounge chairs facing the TV. We had Piña Coladas while he whined about moving up here. I got mad and told him to go back where he came from and went back home.

I called him the next day to apologize. His phone message said “I’ve gone back to where I came from. Please leave me a message.” I hung up.

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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Climax

Posted on January 25, 2025 | Leave a comment

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

“1, 2, 3, Reality!” A rabbit was supposed to come out of my hat, but instead, it was a bill from the Japanese company whose snack service I had been subscribed to by my daughter for my 78th birthday. I received a box of Japanese snacks each month. It was hard to decide which one to eat. The wrappers were undecipherable with lots of stylized Japanese writing, and pictures of Pokémon-like creatures smiling and dancing. There could also be a picture of an item on the wrapper that hinted at what the snack was inside—but it was never enough to use it as a guide to make a choice. So, I just dove in!

When I opened the first snack it looked like pieces of string on a flat piece of cardboard. There was a mound of sugar on the string as well as what looked like red BBs. The wrapper had a message printed inside in Japanese, ending with three exclamation points. I should’ve taken heed: three exclamation points surely meant something, but foolish me ignored their potential as a warning. I took a bite. Nothing happened. The candy was delicious, but the BB sprinkles were a bit too crunchy for me.

My daughter called me down for dinner. After eating the candy, I wasn’t too hungry, but I went down anyway. We were having meatloaf—my favorite. When I walked into the dining room there was panic. My daughter picked up a knife while my grandson and granddaughter ran into the living room screaming. My drunken son-in-law said “What’s the fush, I mean, fuss?” And proceeded to take a bite of his meatloaf and another gulp of wine.

My daughter said “Don’t you see? He has turned into a mini-Godzilla—a Japanese fire-breathing monster. He’s 78 and he’ll be terrorizing major cities. He will probably be killed by drones. Father, what should we do?” I looked in the mirror on the wall at the end of the table. It was the same old me. I was confused beyond belief. In all my years on planet earth, with the exception of Woodstock, this was the weirdest experience I had ever had. Then, the doorbell rang. I answered the door and there were two Japanese men dressed in black standing on the porch. One of them was holding a box. Held it out to me and said “This is your snacks. Take!” I was just about to tell him what had happened when he asked “Where first shipment of snacks now?” I took them both up to my bedroom and pointed to the open box on my bed. One of them put on a mask and rubber gloves and picked up the box and dropped it in a silver-colored bag the other one was holding. There was a muffled explosion and flash of light. They bowed and then left through the front door, they threw the smoking bag in the trunk of their Toyota and took off, burning rubber, yelling “Sayonara,” and waving their arms out the rolled- down windows as they fish-tailed away.

I no longer looked like a mini-Godzilla to my daughter and grandchildren. Our meatloaf had gotten cold, but it still tasted good. My son-in-law was passed out on the couch. I was looking forward to digging into my new box of snacks. Things could only get better.

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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Coenotes

Posted on January 24, 2025 | 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 master of my destiny!” I yelled this at my medicine cabinet mirror every morning at 7:00 am, either before work, or taking up my position on the sofa on Saturdays and Sundays. And then, I yelled as loudly as I could “My future is bright!”

“I am the master of my destiny” is purported to have magical aspects, translated from an Icelandic Rune found in the stomach of a Minke whale being prepared for “Moby Dick on a Stick” in Reykjavik. It was purportedly a popular saying among Vikings. I had been doing what I was told all my life—from my mother admonishing me to use a fork instead of my hands to eat, to being on time for appointments, to refraining from murdering people, no matter how much I hated them. I was a follower. A dupe. A pushover. A wimp. But now, my future is bright!

I AM the MASTER of my destiny. I stopped using toilet paper. At first this was difficult, but now I just stand up and pull up my pants, confidently striding out of the bathroom. I am a law unto myself. There is no limit to what I can choose to do or not do. Now, I push people out of my way on the sidewalk. Now, I fart with gusto on elevators, or in other enclosed places. Now, I call people “shithead” whenever I feel like it. Last week I called my son shithead twice a day. He is a toddler, but I’m sure he got the point. Then, I flipped over my desk at work and yelled “This place sucks!” I was escorted from the building, but I had made MY point. I am autonomous. Let’s face it: my future is bright!

POSTSCRIPT

“I am the master of my destiny” turned out to be the wrong credo to guide me! It might have worked for Vikings, but it didn’t work for me. Unfortunately, my “master hood” has not worked out very well. My wife left me with our son and has filed for divorce. I lost my job over the desk flipping incident. My abstinence from toilet paper has cost me all of my friends. They don’t want to hang out with a guy who smells like shit. But worst of all, my wife told me she would consider foregoing the divorce if I checked into “Rising Purpose.” It is a “refuge for lost souls who have gone bug nuts, providing custom-tailored therapy to meet their needs, and render them less looney.” Their credo does not say it, but drugs are a part of the therapy. My therapy is “Yes Therapy,” where I say “yes” to everything a Rising Purpose confederate says. I am rewarded with a candy kiss for “suspending” what they call my “Nasty No-No.” I take three pills a day from an unmarked red bottle. They make me compliant and what the doctors call “Yessed Up.” I graduated from “Rising Purpose” with honors and continue “Yes Therapy” over Zoom. I’m still taking my medication and get “Yessed Up” every day. I got my job back. My wife and I are happy together again. Our son is more less normal, and I’ve started using toilet paper again. My future is bright!

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 January 23, 2025 | 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 happy. I am lovin,’ I am Pappy.“ This was Daddy’s favorite saying. He’d sit on a log in front of our two-room shack singing his favorite songs, tipping his little brown jug, and smokin’ hand rolleds out of his special homemade brand of tobacco he called “Whacky Backy.” Daddy didn’t work. He told us God had released him of that responsibility and given him four healthy sons all in one burst outta Ma. We all had jobs, such as they were.

I commuted down to the flat lands seven days a week to muck Mr. Windbark’s horse stalls and brush his horses too. He had 25 thoroughbreds, so I had to get to work at 5:00 am, and work until 10:00 pm every day. I had biceps the size of cinderblocks, and I could imitate all the birds I would hear outside the stalls while I was workin’. Mt favorite was the cardinal.

One day, Mr. Windbark’s brother-in-law was visiting him. He was checking out the horses down at the barn when he heard my bird calls. He invited me up to Mr. Windbark’s mansion. He told me to listen to what he played on the piano, and then, whistle it back at him. He played some French song called “Clear the Loon.” I whistled it back and a couple of Mr. Wingback’s female guests swooned. Even though I smelled like horse shit, a number of them embraced me, kissed my neck, and handed me notes. I’m illiterate, but I think they were invitations of some kind. Mr. Windback’s daughter looked me in the eyes and said “I am yours. I will never leave you.” I was dumbfounded.

Mr. Wingback’s brother-in-law had a traveling vaudeville show. They toured the Northeast and featured entertainers of all kinds—from snake charmers to contortionists. He offered me a job whistling in his show and I took it. I was to be a featured act in “The Wing-Zing Traveling Vaudeville Show.” I was to go on after “Madame Cruncher” who was fed spoonfuls of gravel while she quacked like a duck.

When I told Daddy, all he did was tell me to send him half of my payscheck every month. Ma gave me a pair of mittens, and my three brothers pooled their resources and bought me a used vintage suitcase—the kind with no wheels.

I was billed as “Whistler’s Brother.” I would begin my act with bird calls, followed by a repertoire of well-known songs like “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” The audience favorite was always “Stairway to Heaven.” Then, I would take requests from the audience. A favorite request was Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” Then, I’d finish the show with The Village People’s “YMCA.” I’d do a little dance with my fists in the air. The audience always went wild.

I became a wealthy man. Mr. Windback’s daughter was true to her word. We love our life together, especially now, since our first child is due in two months. Unfortunately, Daddy died. His liver exploded when he was competing in a hog calling contest over in Booker’s Hollow. Ma said he should’ve just stayed on his log and not become involved with “them hog callin’ people.”

I gave Ma money to build an addition on our shack and make it into a bed and breakfast. It’s on the main track between Hellbore’s Ridge and Hunchback Mountain, so, Ma is pretty busy. The B&B is called “Whistlers.”

My brothers work in the B&B but spend most of their time sitting on what they affectionately call “Daddy’s Log.” We buried Daddy behind the shack, in the middle of his “Whacky Backy” patch. His headstone is a big flat piece of river rock from Stinky Creek. We had it engraved and his epitaph reads: “I am happy. I am lovin,’ I am Daddy.” Even though he used to say “I am Pappy,” we figured “I am Daddy” is more of a tribute to him. I whistled “Leader of the Pack” at his funeral, while my brothers made motorcycle sounds. It was his favorite song.

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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Commoratio

Posted on January 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

Commoratio (kom-mor-a’-ti-o): Dwelling on or returning to one’s strongest argument. Latin equivalent for epimone.

I told you so. Now that our brother Nigel and his whole family have been deported back to the UK, maybe you’ll believe me. They made no attempt to conceal their Brittyness. For example, when they complained that the grocery store didn’t carry “Spotted Dick.” They caused near-riot at the butcher’s counter. They were called cannibals and perverts. The butcher called them “pasty-faced limeys,” a dead giveaway to the accuracy of his assumptions regarding their nationality.

Nigel, talking to the guy sitting next to him on the subway said “You look like a hard-working bloke” and almost got the shit beaten out of him. The guy, a typical New Yorker, responded: “Are you talkin’ to me? What the fu*k is a bloke? Call me that again, and I’ll kick your ass. So shut the fu*k up!” Another subway adventure happened when your son Dudley asked the woman sitting next to him to if she wanted to “budge up.” We know it means “move over” but she thought differently. She thought it had some kind of sexual connotation. She hit him twice in the face and moved her seat.

Aside from the foods, and idioms, the worst giveaway is your accent. I’ve bought you a subscription to “Talking American.” I used it, and now I sound like I’m from Kansas. It’s web-based so you can access it with any of your internet enabled devices. Here’s how it works: you mimic the speaker on the site for three hours a day until your accent is gone and you’re able to go undetected as an illegal immigrant. You should prolly change your first name too. I switched from Alastair to Pete. Mom might roll over in her grave, but we’ve got to do what we can do to stay in the USA.

But remember, it’s your accent more than anything that’s going to get you nailed and deported.

It’s all in the voice—in your accent. Start using “Talking American” today!

POSTSCRIPT

His brother grabbed the “Talking. American” box and exclaimed, “I’m chuffed now!” Then, he scooped up a giant spoonful of Trifle and shoved it in his mouth.

He was deported two days later, while his brother’s American accent left him undetected to continue pursuing his criminal activities as an undocumented alien— feeding homeless people at his neighborhood shelter, and reading books to elderly people.

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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Comparatio

Posted on January 21, 2025 | 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.

How many times have you been compared to a pig? A dirty dog? A cow? A manatee? A landfill? A piece of meat? A toad? A hippo? A snake? A pile of shit? A rat? A worm? An asshole? A scumbag? A skunk?

How many times have you used these comparisons due to anger, being hurt, or being drunk, or all of the above? Do you remember calling your mother a scumbag? No? We both know it was because you were drunk. You are all a bunch of irresponsible drunks. You call people names. You get in trouble and may get punched in the face, pushed down a flight of stairs, or you may get shot.

In short, you are what we call “nasty drunks.” There’s nothing wrong with getting drunk, but there is something wrong with being a nasty drunk. Coping with your miserable life is enhanced by an alcohol-induced sense of well-being, no matter what the circumstances—from living in a mansion on a hill, to sleeping on a cardboard bed on a cracked sidewalk. But nastiness has no place anywhere.

You have come to “Last Chance LLC” because you have no other place to turn. For those of you who have insurance, you’re covered. For those of you with limited resources, you’ll be donating two pints of blood per day and be a test subject for our experimental tattoo removal equipment. You will receive a complementary tattoo each week that will provide a site for our equipment’s weekly testing.

THE PROGRAM

The Program lasts eight weeks. In pursuit of the Program you will be provided enough vodka to get you drunk by 7:00 pm every evening. Then, you will join a nastiness workshop. Participants will be seated in a row. Ms. Crane will parade past you, pausing in front of you and farting loudly in your direction, and saying something nasty to you. You must frame a rejoinder that does not escalate things, and enables you and Ms. Crane to vigorously shake hands before she moves on to the next participant.

At the end of the Program, you will be awarded a lapel pin and a framed “Certificate of Civility” that states: “The person named on this certificate has undergone a rigorous program of training purging them of nastiness, enabling them to maintain an appropriate level of decorum while drunk. They are qualified to attend social events where alcohol is served, and to frequent bars, pubs, and taverns, and get drunk.”

As you move ahead into your nasty-free life, disorderly conduct may be a thing of the past. You’ll stumble through life with the buzz you need to cope with it all, without fearing fistfights, being shot, or the alienation of friends and people you love. You will be a nice, and possibly entertaining, drunk

Our credo is: “Get drunk, be nice.” When you graduate, we hope our credo becomes your credo.

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

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

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

Comprobatio

Posted on January 20, 2025 | Leave a comment

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

“We’ve endured a lot and accomplished a lot here on Cellblock Five. Mickey: Your shivs make my world go around. I’ll never forget seein’ Kelly laid out on the concrete floor, wounded, pumping blood like an oil well, trying to say something before he went to the great beyond. And Sam, Jeez Sam: Your cell-made raisin ‘wine’ sent us all over the top last New Year’s Eve when we beat the shit out of three guards and sent them to the hospital. You are the vintner of vintners and I commend you. And Ox Eye Teddy, every time you sing ‘Memory” from ‘Cats,’ we all sit in our cells and cry like babies—murderers, thieves, burglars, embezzlers, and arsonists—criminals of all kinds, heaving with sorrow, emotionally taken to the edge of repentance from the song you so movingly sing.

All of you have something to offer that makes us a strong integral whole, strengthened by our common motive and desire to excel, to be all we can be. And it is Ox Eye’s singing that brought to me, Machine Gun Gerry, the idea that we should do something together so our ‘Memory’ holds fewer regrets, that our past misdeeds may be overshadowed by what we may accomplish today, for families, friends, and the state of Iowa.

We will make earrings, and sell them on Etsy.”

These are the opening paragraphs of my new book “Pardon Me.” I am a Business Professor at Golden Chance University in Mojave City, California. We specialize in making greedy and unethical young men and women into greedy and unethical entrepreneurs specializing in exploiting desperate people to achieve their ends: wealth and power.

My book is a fictional account of a group of imprisoned felons, who, through a rigorous program of threats of physical harm, coupled with blackmail supported by a well-considered archive of photographs undeniably documenting a variety of the Warden’s misdeeds, mostly of a sexual nature, we are able to start a profitable business. With a Warden reticent to being arrested and humiliated, and beat-up by his wife, it was smooth sailing all the way.

The prisoners’ utilization of threats and blackmail illustrates the variety of sources that capital may spring from, and that it needn’t be money that initiates the creation of a viable business, such as the prisoners’ earring business.

One character in the book, Weelon Cruk, is a self- absorbed loose canon who nearly ruins the plan with his grandstanding. We show our readers how he is “quietly” put away in the prison laundry. I use this to show my students the importance of consensus and how people who think for themselves need to be terminated.

It’s no surprise that I have recently been appointed Head of the Small Business Administration by our beloved President. “Pardon Me” Will point the way toward the reaffirmation values that will “Make America Great Again.” As our country prepares to take a giant step backwards I am proud to be the wind beneath its wings, traveling the yellow brick road back to the future. Here I come!

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

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

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

Conduplicatio

Posted on January 19, 2025 | 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.

“Dive! Dive! Dive!” I was yelling in my head. I was standing on the diving board, knees shaking, terrified by the distance to the water below. It was a two-foot jump—the water was perfectly calm below. If I laid on the diving board it I could reach the water with my fingertips. When we installed the pool, we purposely had the diving board installed unusually low, in the hope its proximity to the water would help me get over my problem. The liquid is forgiving unlike the dirt that grew grass under my bedroom window.

When I was nine I had tied a towel around my neck and “flew” out my bedroom window in the name of “Truth, justice, and the American way.” I landed on my chest and broke most of my ribs. I spent five months in a hospital recuperating from the fall. I received no counseling. I just lay in bed thinking impure thoughts—thoughts about triple scoops of ice cream, endless candy kisses, French fries smothered in gallons of bright red ketchup, and more.

When I got out, all healed, I had trouble stepping off curbs. My mother had to push me. Getting out of cars was the same, only my mother had to pull me out. Anything I did that took me abruptly down terrified me. Both my mother and my father had to pull me screaming from bed in the morning and off the couch after watching TV at night. Eventually, I learned to do everything sitting on the floor and cross the street at curbless handicapped crosswalks. When I was old enough to drive, I had ramps installed that opened out of the sides of my car when I turned off the ignition. In fact, I had ramps installed everywhere I had to go up or down.

Now, here I was for the hundredth time trying to overcome my phobia by jumping off the diving board. Suddenly there was an earthquake. The pool water was sloshing around and the diving board was bouncing up and down. It pitched me into the water. As I was flying toward the water, I felt exhilarated. I felt like an Osprey or an Eagle. When I hit the water, the earthquake stopped. The water flattened out as I surfaced and looked around. The spell was broken. My phobia was cured!

I climbed out of the pool, walked to the diving board, and jumped again—the Eagle. I hit my head on the bottom of the pool. The pool’s water had been lowered by the quake’s sloshing effect. I was hauled out of the pool and revived by my sister.

I had the pool filled in by bulldozers. I resigned myself to my flattened existence. I live in a one-story ranch-style house—sitting, eating, and sleeping on the floor; avoiding curbs, and installing ramps.

My girlfriend Akiko has been a godsend helping me decorate.

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

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

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

Congeries

Posted on January 18, 2025 | Leave a comment

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

“Help, murder, police!” This is what my kid yells whenever I try to give him advice. I think it’s a quote from one of Shakespeare’s plays—maybe “Merchant of Venice.” His mother hears him and comes running yelling “What are you doing to my precious baby boy?” “Giving him advice.” I calmly say. She yells, “Stop tormenting him with your sanctimonious bullshit.” I say, “It’s not bullshit—I was telling him he shouldn’t wear his dress shoes to play in the snow—they’ll get ruined and they’re expensive to replace.”

My wife makes it up the stairs. She’s standing in the doorway of our son’s bedroom. She’s wearing her pink terrycloth bathrobe—it looks like a belted bath towel. It has a spot of egg yolk on the collar and a coffee stain further down. She has a mug of coffee in one of hand and a cigarette in the other. She takes a drag off the cigarette and exhales the smoke as she talks: “Look, Arnie, does he look like he needs your crazy-ass advice? So what if he gets in trouble or ruins a pair of friggin’ shoes he never wears? I’m his mother, and I decide what’s good for him.” I looked at her and said: “Like the time you told him to go ahead and make his own fireworks? Now he only has four fingers on his left hand.” She said what she always said she I brought it up: “Arnie, he’s right-handed, who cares?”

Our son Gomer (she had named him) was on his way to hell. Ruining his dress shoes was another step along the way. He knew his mother would override any advice I gave him—just for the sake of having her way. That’s when I decided to take him somewhere his mother couldn’t get into and fill his head with my advice, which I had written down in a diary to give him. It was titled “Don’t Listen to Your Mother.” I took him to the men’s room at a nearby Thruway rest stop. I started giving him advice, secure in the belief his mother wouldn’t enter the men’s room—especially since we had left her at home. He looked at the diary and yelled “Help, murder, police!” I was held in police custody until I could prove I was his father and had no intention of murdering him.

We drove home in silence.

When we got home, it dawned on me! If I gave our son bad advice, my wife would intervene and give him good advice just to spite me. it worked like a charm until one day when my wife was visiting her mother, the first time she’d been out of house in six years. I told Gomer to use his new toothbrush to brush his teeth and if he didn’t like it to “shove it up his ass.” He yelled “help, murder, police,” but his mother wasn’t there to countermand my bad advice. I had really screwed up. I had to drive him to the emergency room to have the toothbrush removed from his ass.

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

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

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

Consonance

Posted on January 17, 2025 | 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.

I smiled at the dead cat, food for vultures and crows lying by the side of the road. I’m a road kill scraper and I thought I was permitted to smile at what could’ve been some little kid’s dead pet. I was smiling at the cycle of life, the inevitability of death, and the consumption of its remains to nurture the living.

Then, I saw my reflection in a puddle. A frustrated nerd with no friends, a shitty little apartment, a nagging wife, and the disgusting job of scraping up roadkills for “Karma Arc Jerky,” a company that recycled roadkills and made them into jerky with exotic names like “Floral Flats,” “ Rembrandt’s Chewy,” and “Repurposed Raccoon,” the only jerky stick with a name that approximated the truth. Despite where it came from, Karma Arc Jerky tasted damn good. I had to have one per day or I’d go off the rails, swearing at my coworkers or calling my wife names at breakfast—names like “Stinky Dog,” and “Hitler.”

But today, I reached end of it all. I was going to take the flattened cat to the pet cemetery, have it cremated, and scatter its ashes in the Hudson River, like I did with my dad’s. I would try to think of something nice to say in the cat’s memory. In the meantime, I will quit my job.

A few days later, I said “I actually like cats” and threw the cat’s ashes into the river. It wasn’t very eloquent, but it did the job.

It was on day four after I quit my job and went jerky-free that I realized I was addicted. I found fault with everybody and called them names. I kept calling my wife “Hitler.” I called the guy sitting next to me on the subway “Beetle Breath” and he beat me in the face with his rolled-up newspaper. The worst was the woman. She shot me twice in the leg when I called her “Madam Barn Smell.” It took the police weeks to track her down.

When I checked into the hospital, I told the doctors what had been going on and they immediately diagnosed me with jerky withdrawal—specifically Karma Arc Jerky. They told me Karma Arc was under investigation by the FDA for using tainted road kill in their jerky, and “seasoning” it with “Triple Hemperino,” a highly addictive roadside weed that grows only in British Columbia. While I withdrew, they put me on a regimen of watching videos of live bunnies, squirrels, raccoons, cats, and opossums. The videos were designed to induce affection for the animals and repulsion at the thought of eating their flattened remains.

I started to calm down naturally. My new job at the car wash helped immensely—I felt like the hot water and suds were washing my woes away. When a car came through with the rust proofing option, I felt like I was being protected too. I started calling my wife Ringo and felt good about my fellow human beings. I even visited the woman in prison who shot me and we made amends. We write to each other now. Ringo doesn’t like it, but she understands.

We’re renewing our wedding vows and we’re going to British Columbia for our second honeymoon!

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

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

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

Correctio

Posted on January 16, 2025 | 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.

It was a warm spring day. Winter had finally gone away. Sockatrees and Manatees were lounging by the Passaic River, relaxing under the Jackson Street Bridge, a cool and shady spot frequented by homeless people and prostitutes. Two crows were picking over a dead sewer rat, taking turns hoisting it up and shaking it around. The sandy bank was littered with used condoms, empty beer and vodka bottles, and rusting shopping carts from the nearby A&P. The cars rumbling over the bridge gave the place an air importance, like the Garden State Parkway or Route 22.

Sockatrees: Tell me Manatees, now that you’ve graduated from high school after staying back twice along the way, what do you plan to do with your life? Will you go into the Army? Work at Taco Bell? Pray, tell me, what’s next on your agenda?

Manatees: I‘m going to rob the Summit branch of ACCESS Savings and Loan. I bought a handgun from Joey’s Dad. I got one of those balaclavas at the ski shop, and I’m going take a car for a test drive from “Golden Wheels Used Cars.” It’s gonna be my getaway car—after I’m done I’ll light it on fire down here by the river—ooh—on the other hand, maybe I’ll take to “Earl Scheib’s” and have it painted for $99.00. I don’t know—maybe it would be best just to return it in the middle of the night—yeah, that’s what I’ll do, bring it back to “Golden Wheels.”

Sockatrees: Have you purchased a gym bag to put all your ill-gotten gains in?

Manatees: Wow! I forgot that one. Thanks Sockatrees!

Sockatrees: Don’t thank me. Why in the name of all that’s true, good, and beautiful do you want to rob a savings and loan?

Manatees: What’re you drunk? What a stupid question! I’ll be rich! I’ll be able to boss people around. I’ll get lots of girls. All my desires will be gratified. My life will be good.

Sockatrees: Good!? You are a fool Manatees. The “Good” is not to be found in the satisfaction of your desires. It is to be found in the pursuit of Justice, obedience to the Law, and the rehabilitation of your soul so you remember the far away planet you come from where everything is True: where everything is unchanging, and your soul was in sweet harmony with it. You will remember how you looked down at Earth, saw it’s shifting swirling colors, leaned too far, and fell down to it and landed in a body demanding its satisfaction with donuts, and sex, warm baths, and candy, and greed. Save your soul! Refrain from robbing the savings and loan! Stealing is unjust.

Manatees: Huh?

Manatees robbed the savings and loan. He made a clean getaway and returned the car to “Golden Wheels.” He found a college with open admissions, and used some of the money he robbed to pay his tuition. He graduated with honors. Eventually, he became a brain surgeon, saving the lives of hundreds of people, including infants and children. He donated a significant portion of his wealth to a foundation devoted to paying needy high school graduates’ college tuition.

Sockatrees was on his deathbed. He had been given three days to live. He struggled with the immorality of keeping Manaees’ secret all his life. He ratted out Manatees and died the next day. The statute of limitations on armed robbery was 55 years.

Manatees was arrested, and went to trial. He was found guilty. Given his wealth, Manatees was able to bribe the judge, who vacated his sentence of 20 years. Although he was a convicted felon, his work as a brain surgeon continued. The good he did as a brain surgeon and philanthropist far outweighed his criminal past. Everybody loved him.

The judge was pleased with his new Bentley and used his connections to help get Manatees nominated for President.

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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Deesis

Posted on January 15, 2025 | 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.”

She: I swear to God if you put it in there, I’m going to pull it out and put it where it belongs—I might even light in on fire along the way. Were you raised in a zoo with a bunch of free-range Baboons?

He: It’s a book. This is a bookcase. I’m putting the book into the bookcase. What the hell is the problem?

She: Is that a work of fiction?

He: No. it’s “Make Your Bed,” a self-help book I was was going to. . .

She: Shut up micro-brain. Shut up the fu*k up! See that label on the shelf where you put the book? What does it say?

He: Fiction?

She: That’s right Mr. Troll. Is “Make Your Bed” fiction?

He: No?

She: That’s right numb nuts. I swear, if you ever put a work of non-fiction on the fiction shelf again, I’ll have you killed. Well, maybe not killed, but seriously injured. Well, maybe not seriously injured, but hurt in some way.

The whole purpose of bookshelves is to keep books organized into categories so you can find them when you want them, so you can read them instead spending all your time looking for them. My mother was a librarian and instilled the ideals of librarianship in me at a young age. Look around you Bozo Boy, everything in this house has a place and everything’s in its place. If you’re going to be my man, take heed.

POSTSCRIPT

He went crazy and flipped over the living room sofa, threw crumpled-up paper towels all around the kitchen floor, and mixed up the silverware drawer—putting knives and forks together and mixing soup spoons with desert spoons. To top it off, he unmade her bed.

She: Damn you! Barbarian! Visigoth! Hobokenite!

He: I’m a slob. I’ve always been a slob. I’ll never stop being a slob. I hate you and all your fu*king rules. Find yourself a man of clay that you can mold, or a puppet whose strings you can pull. Goodbye bitch!

She: Fu*k you and your mother too.

POST-POSTSCRIPT

She was diagnosed with compulsive-obsessive disorder and institutionalized. She had tried, at gunpoint, to “organize” her neighbors to stand in a line.

He, on the other hand, became an international sensation with his blog “Mr. Slobbo’s Neighborhood.”

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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Dehortatio

Posted on January 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

Dehortatio (de-hor-ta’-ti-o): Dissuasion.

Her: Don’t do that. I don’t like it.

Him: What? I was smiling. How could you not like a smile?

Her: It reminds me of my creepy Uncle Andy. He would smile like that right before he scratched his ass. He would keep smiling and looking at me. He did this little dance squirming around on his index finger. Then, he’d pull out his ever-present tube of cortisone and duck into the bathroom. When he came out of the bathroom, the creepy smile was gone—he was restored.

Uncle Andy has hemorrhoids—they cause chronic itching. It’s not Uncle Andy’s fault, but he should load up his butt with cortisone before he goes out. His ass itching is too weird for me to discuss with him.

I found out about the hemorrhoids by accident. There was a copy of the AARP magazine on his toilet opened to an article titled “Are You Itching for Them to Go Away: Coping With Hemorrhoids in Your Golden Years.” The title had been circled with a magic marker with “ME!” written alongside it in huge letters.

So, please, don’t smile at me. I don’t want to be reminded of Uncle Andy’s plight. I’ll never be able to get used to his/butt scratch dance. It gives me the creeps.

Him: OK, no more smiling. I ‘ll give you a thumbs up instead.

Her: Thumbs up? That’s not funny.

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

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

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

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