Tag Archives: rhetoric

Enigma

Posted on March 11, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

“The river is wide and deep. The current is strong. We must swim from shore to shore. We will be exhausted. We may drown.” My friend Joseph always spoke in riddles—like parables in hyperbole.

His father wrote horoscopes for a living and Joseph had been influenced by him. In the example above, we were on the way to the Mall. It was a couple of miles away and there was a steep hill we had to climb, and we would cut across a busy highway that had a narrow drainage ditch running alongside it. Joseph had exaggerated what was in store for us on our hike. Especially the prospect of death.

None of Joseph’s dire warnings ever came true. if anything, they came off as benign versions of themselves. Like getting your foot wet in the a drainage ditch by the highway, instead of drowning.

We were going grocery shopping with his mom the next day, in the hope of scoring some candy or a box of “Little Debbie’s” honeybuns. Joseph said: “Lo, tomorrow we shall be transported to the heart of abundance. Rows and rows of foods and spices and products that clean surfaces await our famished soiled hands. We will fill our shining steel wagons to overflowing, including buns of honey, and pay the towering price through the beeping flow of numbers pulsing on a green screen.”

I sat and listened to him out of respect for our friendship. I almost told him to shut up, but I knew it would break his heart. I was the only person who listened to his ranting. That is, with the exception of our English teacher Ms. Commaski who encouraged him. She would say things like “Ooh Joseph, you make my hair stand on end—look here behind my ear!” She was quite crazy.

She would do things like make us write about our toenails or what it would be like to kill somebody. I actually had a favorite assignment: Write a letter to Satan. Mine turned out to be 25 pages long and I got an A+.

Anyway, at Ms. Commaski’s behest, Joseph went to college majoring in Religious Studies. When he graduated he became a soothsayer, using his literary skills to fabricate credible-sounding futures. He operates out of a tent he pitches every day in the park. He calls himself “Karma-Cadabra,” I help him set up the tent every day and sit in the back corner wearing a gold-colored turban and nodding my head while Joseph mystically pontificates.

I stay until noon and then go to my office where I offer my services as a therapist. Today, I’m meeting with a woman who believes she actually left her heart in San Fransisco. I have a fake autographed photo of Tony Bennett that I am planning on selling to her.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Ennoia

Posted on March 10, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

“Three blind lice.” I thought that was so funny substituting “blind lice” for “blind mice.” But making people laugh didn’t help me with my secret. I couldn’t just blurt out my secret, so I’d hint at it. I would say things like “A foot is bigger than inch.” Or, “That’s a real sneaker.” Or, “This little piggy goes nowhere.”

Why can’t I just come out and tell people I have a prosethic foot?

My foot was eaten by a rotary lawnmower when I was 10. My father was a landscaper and I helped him in the summer. He made us hurry so we could get more lawns done and make more money. We’d start at 7:00 am with people yelling at us because of the noise and we’d finish at around 8:00 pm exhausted.

I’ll never forget. It was 7:55pm, I had just looked at my Timex, and I was mowing up a steep hill when I lost my grip on the mower. It fell backwards over my foot and turned it into something that looked like a smoothie. I was in terrible pain. A ambulance took me to the hospital. I could hear my father ask “How much is this gonna’ cost?” as they loaded me into the ambulance and we headed for the hospital.

I had very extensive surgery. The prosthetic foot is amazing—I can walk, I can jump—I can do it all with my prosethic foot. I have no complaints and I am grateful.

All my father wanted to know after the surgery was when I could go back to work. He was told it would be 1 year at the earliest. He called me into the living room, took a long drag on his cigarette and said “You’re fired” as he blew out the smoke.

Since I couldn’t work for Dad’s “Mighty Mower” any more, I went to college. I couldn’t tell anybody about my foot. If I did, inevitably they’d want to know how it happened. I was too embarrassed to tell—but at the same time, I wanted to tell people about my foot so I could have honest relationships with them. That’s when I think I started giving foot hints or laying out hypothetical foot scenarios: “Imagine if you found out I have a prosthetic foot. Would we still be friends?” Or “Most men have two. I only have one.”

Betty answered this with “Balls?” I said, “No. Feet.” I was out. My secret was known. “I have a prosthetic foot” I said. She was a Nursing Studies major. She asked if she could see my foot. I took off my shoe and sock and there it was. She touched it and said it was beautiful—a work of art.

At that moment my foot trepidations melted away. I was beginning to feel proud of my foot. I started wearing shorts and Birkenstocks. Betty and I became a “thing” and got married when we graduated. We have a little boy named Arch. Sometimes Arch and I play catch with my foot. I’ve come a long, long way. All it took was love.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Enthymeme

Posted on March 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

“How many times do I have to tell you? If you go around like that, people will be offended. You’ll never get a job. You’ll die cold and lonely on a sheet of cardboard in a back alley clutching a styrofoam cup with a few pennys in it. It’s like not taking an umbrella when it is raining, just because you don’t want to. You get wet. You catch a cold. You die. Now, get back in the bathroom and wipe your ass like I taught you when you were four years old.”

My mother wouldn’t leave alone. She bossed me around like I worked for her in a third-world sweatshop making sneakers. I was 31 years old and she treated me like I was 10 years old—like I still needed motherly advice—her little boy. The ass wiping thing is a case in point.

While I may be careless in cleaning it off, I don’t think I’m much worse than the average person. Sure, I have some pretty thick skid marks on my underpants, but its not like anybody can see them, except my mother when she washes my underpants and scrubs hard to get out the marks. I’m appreciative of that, but it provides her grist for her complaining mill. Everything she does for me results in a litany of complaints.

Every morning she tidies up my room and makes my bed. She stuffs my rubber lover Hilary under my bed and complains about it. She asks every day “Why don’t you get a real girl?” I tell her to ask my therapist. I knew, due patient confidentiality, that she would not tell my mother anything.

I have a rubber lover because I’m too shy to meet real women. My mother did that to me—stoking insecurities. But, when she talked about my rubber lover, she sounded jealous. It was so creepy that I almost got rid of Hilary. But, I decided I needed her as a shield against my mother’s totally inappropriate interest. I realized that she wanted me to stay “her little boy” forever and not develop relationships with “other women” whether flesh or rubber.

Finally, out of some kind of perverted respect for my mother, I stabbed Hilary several times and let her air slowly bleed out. It was sad and exhilarating at the same time. I regret it.

That’s when I decided to kill my mother—it was the only way to shut her up. I wanted to silence her oppressive scolding and soul-wrenching criticism of nearly everything I said or did. So, I pushed her down the basement stairs. She was carrying a basket full of laundry so it looked like she had slipped. The coroner’s investigation determined her death was accidental.

The day after the finding, I ordered a new rubber lover from the internet and I started feeling better about my ass smell. I take a shower before I go to bed with Melania, my new rubber lover. She’s from Eastern Europe and is very submissive. I heard about a liberal minister who will marry rubber and flesh. I am meeting with him next week. I’ve also hired one of my mother’s friends to wash my underpants.

Life is good.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epanodos

Posted on March 8, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

My fellow Armenians. Ha ha. That’s a joke “my fellow Americans.” As “fellows,” we are connected in a way that is more vague, ambiguous and general than “brothers” or “my friends.”

We are fellows. We are connected, Google tells us we are “peers with a common interest.” That’s pretty good. Google adds meaning to our lives via wi-fi and LTE. Sometimes it posts vivid graphics and video clips.

“Fellow” is illustrated by a nighttime Nazi rally and by one of Trump’s daytime rallies. it is the “common interest” of the audience members that matters. The common interest of the Nazi audience is easy to ascertain—hatred of a common enemy and membership in the master race—two roads to war and the killing it entails.

I saw a Hitler impersonator read one of Trump’s speeches at a campaign rally attended by Trump acolytes and fans. It was translated into German and read in Hitler’s tone. It sounded just like Hitler. So much so, that Stephen Miller gave it the Nazi salute, Pam Bondi swooned, Hegseth did a little jig like Hitler in the old film clip, and Ivanka and her husband ran out the door looking over their shoulders, panic stricken.

So anyway, “fellowship” denotes a common interest, but it does not denote what the interest is. As “Fellow Americans” in the 21st century, I think it has less to do with a common interest and moral compass than the geographic border that contains us and the citizenship that certifies us as “Americans.” Nevertheless, there are so-called “American values” afloat everywhere that conflict with each other everywhere.

“Fellow Americans” has lost its power as a morally binding national trope. Now, it may be taken up by conflicted groups to illustrate their difference from each other as “fellow Americans” forming a basis for their alienation from each other, vying for the designation “True Americans.”

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epizeuxis

Posted on March 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

“Milkweed! Milkweed! Milkweed! Milkweed! No mow! No go! Milkweed! Milkweed! Milkweed!”

We were protesting and protesting hard! We were throwing rocks and stomping our feet. “Beltway Boomers” were poised to mow a field of milkweed. As far as we were concerned it was a crime—a crime against the Monarch Butterflies who came here every year to eat milkweed leaves, mate, and lay their eggs underneath the leaves.

Hundreds of Monarchs descended on the field every year. It was a beautiful sight—the fluttering orange wings dancing above the field, but now they were to be destroyed by “Beltway Boomers” for the sake of a “flat and tidy field.” After they mowed the field, they planned on soaking it with herbicide—totally destroying it and replacing the dead Milkweed with gravel and flowering shrubs.

The “Monarch Club” viewed “Beltway Boomers” as a criminal enterprise. Their business model was oriented toward eliminating endangered species from properties before the properties could be declared refuges. Then, they could develop the properties without fear of legal injunctions from environmentalists.

The Monarchs started arriving. The mower operators were struck by their beauty and refused to mow the Milkweed. “Beltway Boomers” went ahead and hired helicopters to spray the field with herbicide. Like the mowers, the helicopter pilots were struck by the butterflies and refused to spray. Subsequently, “Beltway Boomers” decided to soak the field with gasoline and torch it.

Boomers’ CEO, Stan Statan, showed up to “help.” He was carrying 5-gallon can of gasoline to the field, to be the first to saturate it. After all, he was the boss. He set down the can. The field’s geology littered it with flint. When CEO Statan set down the can, it’s steel bottom threw out a spark. The can exploded and set CEO Statan on fire. He looked like a big candle wearing an expensive suit. He burned to a crisp and the fire quickly burned itself out with little damage to the field.

Needless to say, the plans for the field were cancelled and it was made into a Monarch refuge. Ironically, it was named the “Stan Statan Monarch Butterfly Refuge.”

The “Monarch Club” is now protesting the mowing of all milkweed fields in the state of New Jersey. They are making some headway in the legislature on a bill that prohibits milkweed mowing everywhere.

The “Monarch Club” success has spawned a number of other anti-mowing environmentally-grounded initiatives. “Kill the Klover Kutters” (KKK) is the most radical. It includes residential properties and advocates planting land mines in lawns’ clover patches. Their theme song is a bawdy tune titled “Roll Me Over in the Clover.” One of their mines blew up a dog doing its “business” on its neighbor’s clover patch. This is being referred to as “collateral damage” by “Kill the Klover Kutters.” They sent their “thoughts and prayers” for the loss of their clover to the owners of the lawn, ignoring the loss of the dog.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epicrisis

Posted on March 6, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epicrisis (e-pi-cri’-sis): When a speaker quotes a certain passage and makes comment upon it.

“When the moon becomes a crusty chicken reflected in the arson-fire of life, it is time to get the fu*k out of there. You have lost your marbles and they have lost you. You are nothing. You are the void. You used to love her, but you hate her now.” Pellagra Millapapa.

Millapapa is one of the most obscure philosophers in the canon of Western thought. This is due partially to the fact that he never published a book. Rather, he would tear up small paper squares and dictate to his mistress Esmeralda who would write down what he said for “the posterior’s sake.” He would stuff his writings in toilet dispensers in public restrooms in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. His works would frequently jam the dispensers and he was wanted for vandalism.

The quotation above was found on a paper towel—Millapapa’s longest extant writing. It catalogues his struggle with mental illness and his difficult transformation from a lover to a hater. The “crusty chicken” is clearly a metonymy for his penis and his nearly life long struggles with various strains of what he called “the clap” a trope with the dual meaning of applause and gonorrhea, building a bridge between them and illustrating the complexities of human caring.

When we think of Millapapa, we must think of a man with no compass, no GPS, wandering the hills and dales of life, failing at every turn in the road, yet foolishly driving on. His writings, as they say, “stink.” The only reason we know anything about him at all is from his mistress Esmerellda’s well-publicized trial for murdering Millapapa. She claimed he made her life meaningless with his “constant bullshit. She stabbed him to death when they were planting his writings in toilet paper dispensers on the New Jersey Turnpike. She stabbed him 147 times and was going to stab herself to death too, but she slipped on Millapapa’s blood and knocked herself unconscious. She was revived by a paramedic and taken to jail.

Millapapa’s and Esmerellda’s story is tragic. It is a cliche with no redeeming qualities. It is like most of our lives, without the murder, which gives it a marginal dimension of interest. Ironically, his writings are worth 100s of dollars. Their value has led to the vandalization of numerous public toilet toilet paper dispensers in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epilogus

Posted on March 5, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

Santa was coming to town. He knows if I’ve been bad or good. “Good” was the medium of exchange for desirable high-end gifts. I had expectations. They were low.

You’ve probably figured it out: I was going to get the same shit for Christmas as I did every year. I had the crap piled in my bedroom closet. I had 9 pairs of socks, all of them with weird Nordic snowflake patterns. I had two calculators with giant buttons. One of the calculators was modeled after Tweety Bird, the cartoon character. It was the perfect gift for Son of Nerd—the Prince of Nerdville, home of the nerds pounding on their calculators and twisting their Rubic’s Cubes all day long, picking their noses, and polishing their mood rings.

The worst were the books with stupid titles like Republic, Tom Sawyer, and Clockwork Orange—the stupidest title of all. I immediately threw the books in my closet along with the other crap. I couldn’t picture myself sitting in a chair staring at a book. What a waste of time when I could be playing with fireworks at the playground, or digging for treasure down by the Passaic River where my Uncle Buzz told me pirates buried their treasure on the way back to New Jersey from plundering New York.

What I really wanted was a pellet gun and a “Saucy Susan Doll.” My reason for wanting a pellet gun almost goes without saying! I wanted to shoot things! The neighborhood squirrels loomed large on my hit list. I had a plan for baiting them with peanuts outside my bedroom window. After squirrels, it was streetlights. It was like shooting out stars—I could kill the Big Dipper! Ha ha!

I had discovered Saucy Susan in my big brother’s dresser. I wouldd look through his stuff every month or so—looking for things I could incriminate him with. Since pot had been legalized, there wasn’t anything much I could look for. I would just leave it to chance. It was by chance that Saucy Susan appeared. I pulled too hard on a drawer and it came out of the dresser. Behind where it had been, there was a rolled up flesh-colored vinyl object. When I pulled it out, it unrolled. It was a deflated naked woman! I found her nozzle and blew her up. I was stunned by what I saw.

I rolled her back up and put her back in her hiding place. I asked my brother about her. Initially he was mad because I’d been ransacking his room again. Then, he opened up and told me all about his relationship with Saucy Susan. It was lurid and weird—just what I wanted at that point in my life.

That evening the family went to Willow Tree Mall to meet with Santa and tell him what we wanted for Christmas. I told Santa I wanted a pellet gun and a Saucy Susan doll. After I was done talking to Santa, he called my parents over and they had a talk. Two days later, I met Dr. Rancho for the first time. She is my therapist and she looks a lot like Saucy Susan! She told me her weirdly shaped mouth was the result of a car accident.

Through it all, I didn’t rat out my big brother. He’s the weird one.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epimone

Posted on March 4, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

“Give me the apple! Hand over the apple! Give me the goddamn fu*king apple. Adam was going crazy for the shiny red apple that Eve was sensually rubbing up and down her slender firmly-shaped leg. she was what is called a “vixen” taunting Adam with her suggestive behavior. They were naked . . .”

My Sunday School teacher—Mr. Grauler—told it like it was—no watered-down version of the Garden of Eden. He swore. He painted an accurate portrait of the events that led Adam and Eve to get dressed and quit fooling around naked. We were only kids but we got it, much to the delight of Rev. Jones our pastor.

He had a scary gleam in his eye. The elderly church members lined up once a month to give him their Social Security checks after the Sunday service. We had hardly anything, yet Ma handed over her check. She was 70:and had a job cleaning and polishing bed pans at the county hospital. I asked her once why she gave her Social Security check to Rev. Jones. She told me that every check she gives him brings her one mile closer to heaven—12 miles per year. I did the math. Figuring she would die when she was eighty, and she was seventy now. So, she was going to die in 10 years, and she would earn 12 miles toward Heaven per year, she would be 120 miles closer to heaven.

After doing all the figuring, I realized I didn’t know how far away Heaven is. I looked in the Bible. I determined Heaven is “up” but I couldn’t find out how far up. People “ascended” to Heaven, but the Bible didn’t say how far they had to go. It didn’t seem that Ma’s 120 miles would get her to Heaven. At that point, I figured Rev. Jones was ripping her off.

I asked Rev. Jones his he was a fraud. His two minders, who always travelled with him, both reached into their suit coats. Rev. Jones said to me in a kind voivce “Adding miles is a metaphor for showing your commitment to the Lord.” I didn’t know what a metaphor was, so I asked Rev. Jones. He told me it was a non-literal construction of speech—a substitution of the usual word, that makes the speech more vivid and meaningful. In the case of “miles” they are being substituted for “commitment.”

I think I got it. But I think that that Ma and a lot of others took “miles” literally enough so it formed an incentive to fork over their Social Security checks each month.

One Sunday I went to Sunday School and nobody was there. The chairs were folded up and leaning against the wall. The stick-on cellophane “stained glass” had been removed from the windows. The candles were gone too.

We learned that Rev. Jones had fled to Belize after he had been accused of defrauding 100s of people with his “Miles to Heaven” scam. My mother was heartbroken. I vowed to hunt Rev. Jones down and bring him to justice.

I found him living in a luxury condo in Belize City. I confronted him with a baseball bat. He held up his hands and asked me if I wanted a job.

Now, I skipper a trawler off of Belize. We all know, Jesus was a fisher of men. I’m a fisher of Wahoo, MahiMahi, Tuna, etc. I have forgiven Rev. Jim his But, trespasses—to err is human. To forgive is divine. on the other hand, I’m waiting for an opportunity to drown him when he comes out fishing with me. I think that makes me a hypocrite.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epiplexis

Posted on March 3, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

Why do things have to change? Why does everything slip away? Why must there always be an end?

I had run over my Boss after work as I was leaving the parking lot. He was on his way to his car. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up before I swerved my SUV and ran him down, backed up, and ran over him again. I kept doing that until I was sure he was dead. Nobody saw me and I drove home without incident.

I told my wife what I had done and she said “Good job honey” and made me a gin and tonic. She made one for herself too. She told me not to worry my “handsome little head” about it.

I worked at a doorbell factory. I installed the musical ringers. We had twenty different tunes that customers could choose from. They were stylized versions of classical rock ‘n roll songs. My favorite was “Purple People Eater.” It was energetic and got you off the couch to answer the door. “Saturday Night Fever” was my second favorite. It put a dance in your step on the way to the door. My least favorite was the theme song from “Davy Crockett” which had briefly made the Top Ten some time in the 50s—I didn’t like how it praised little Davy for killing a bear “when he was only three.” It was total bullshit.

Everybody hated the Boss at the doorbell factory. He had a bowel problem and wore a diaper. He would poop with a smile on his face when you were meeting with him in his office, making it stink and making it hard to concentrate. He‘d ask “What’s the matter with you son?” and laugh, sounding like a barking squirrel. In addition, he was a sexist. He had five lawsuits pending when I killed him. He also continuously put the moves on my wife. That’s what pushed me over the edge. He invited her to his condo by herself to watch TV. I went along with her anyway. He answered the door naked and told me to “go wait” in my car. I refused. He pulled my wife inside and said “Have it your way loser” and slammed the door in my face.

I waited in the car and my wife came out about five minutes later. Her dress was torn and she told me she didn’t want to talk about it, but he was an animal. I asked her what kind of animal, and she said “probably an ape or a wolf.” That did it.

After I killed him, I took my car to the car wash to get rid of the blood. The attendant said “It looks like blood on your left fender.” I told him I had run over a deer. I didn’t notice, but the Boss’s glasses were stuck behind the front bumper. I rode around like that for a couple of months until I had my car inspected. The inspection guy found the glasses and held them up, and asked me where they had come from. I told him I had been looking for them. He gave me the glasses and I put them on. They severely blurred my vision and I ran into a tree as I left the inspection station.

I called AAA and they towed my car to “Billy Bent” a Mafia run auto-body shop. They told me they found some human hair under the chrome strip on the fender. If I was willing to make a monthly payment of $500 they would make it go away “forever.” I agreed.

I have been promoted to Boss. Everything is going well. Who says “Crime doesn’t pay?” Sure, Billy Bent keeps upping my monthly payment and I don’t sleep very well, but that doesn’t matter. I’m the Boss! What’s to complain about? Nothing.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epistrophe

Posted on March 2, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

My face looked silly. My clothes looked silly. My hair looked silly. No doubt, I was silly. I fit the dictionary definition: “lighthearted lack of seriousness.” Being silly was a serious problem. Ha ha!

It was my mother’s funeral. I decided to skip around her coffin singing “Knick Knack Paddy Wack” and jingling the little bells on my hot pants cuffs. My brother-in-law Duke didn’t think I was funny. He said, “Arnold, you are a total asshole” and punched me in the face a couple of times. As they were wheeling me to the ambulance I waved like the Queen Mother used to do and yelled “Rule Britannia!” Nobody laughed.

Nobody came to the hospital with me. My nose was broken in three places and Duke had knocked out one of my front teeth. Now that I was missing a front tooth, I talked like a hillbilly: “Can aah have uh shot a moonshaan?” I asked the nurse. I thought it was funny. She said, “Oh you poor silly man.” I pulled the sheet up from my feet, exposing my privates and saying “Peek-a-boo!” She threw my bedpan in my face and said “Peek-a-boo this you silly pervert!” My silliness was going nowhere. I had my surgery and when home.

The next day, I had to have my tooth fixed. I went to the dentist and said “I need to see the Tooth Fairy.” I was just kidding, but the receptionist asked me if I had an appointment. I told her “No” and she told me to take a seat. After a few minutes, she said “Ok silly, you can go in now. Go through that door over there.”

I thought it was a joke, but I went through the door anyway. It was a bar. I recognized the Tooth Fairy immediately. She was sitting on a stool next to Thumbelina. Then, I saw Puss ‘n Boots sipping a martini at a table with a Troll. Tinkerbell was arguing with The Boy With the Moon on His Forehead. I went up to the bar and did my missing tooth hillbilly routine for the Tooth Fairy. She looked at me like I was crazy and tapped my gum gap with her wand, said “silly” and “poof!” my tooth was restored. I thanked her, and started to leave, but I couldn’t move.

I woke up in a dentist chair. I felt my gums and my tooth was back in place! The dentist said “That anesthetic hit you pretty hard. Are you ok?” I had come back to my senses. I felt like doing something silly. I was at a loss so I just jingled my hot pants and slowly stood up. On my way to my Uber, I went up to the receptionist and gave her a quarter and told her I had found it under the dental chair’s headrest pillow. It was true. I jingled my hot pants bells and headed out the door. I was ready for another silly day doing silly things.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epitasis

Posted on March 1, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

My balls wouldn’t stop itching. I took showers. I sprayed on Lotrimin, I changed my underpants three times a day. I went to a dermatologist. He gave me some blue cream that smelled like rutabagas. It didn’t do anything but stink up my crotch. Nothing worked. My balls wouldn’t stop itching.

I did some research on a Chinese commercial website called “Send Money Credit Card.” I found a “device” that was supposed to “stop the balls itching.” It was guaranteed to “cure itchy balls in people and dogs.” It looked like some kind of clamp with wires sticking out of it and two electrodes. I figured there was one electrode for each ball. The catalogue copy read: “Having the balls that itch? No more now! Clamp balls. Plug in wall! Balls smoke a little. Itch gone! Put balls in ice pack. All done. $295.00.”

I bought one of the devices. I was truly desperate. It was called the “No Scratch Balls Clamper.” it arrived one week later. I took it out of the package. The instructions were difficult to follow. I took off my pants, sat on the edge of my bed and tried to clamp it on my balls. There was a little silver hook that plugged into one of three slots. I found the right slot and the clamp was on. I unplugged the clock radio by my bed and plugged in the Clamper.

My balls were being electrocuted!

I couldn’t turn off the Clamper and couldn’t get it unplugged. My balls felt like they were on fire. Suddenly, I got a text message. I picked my phone up off the night stand. The message said: “hello electric ball! I monitor you from China. I have you credit card number and will charge $1,000 to let go your balls by remote. Don’t complain or your balls stuck electric forever.”

I was being extorted for $1, 000 to set my balls free! I felt like I was dying, so I agreed. I texted back “take money.” Almost immediately, the clamp popped open and I was freed. When the clamp first came off, my balls were swollen to the size of croquet balls. They quickly returned to normal and started itching again. I wanted to cry. I checked my credit card balance. It had been charged $1,000 for “get free.” I sat there scratching my balls and wondering what to do next.

Anyway, my daughter recommended I go to an herbalist for my balls. It was embarrassing to talk to her about it, but my daughter always gave good advice. The herbalist’s name was Ms. Carrot. I thought that was weird, but who am I the judge? She gave me capsules. I take one per day. The itch is cured. My balls swing free. Now, I’m itchin’ to have some kind of relationship with Ms. Carrot!

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epitheton

Posted on February 28, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epitheton (e-pith’-e-ton): Attributing to a person or thing a quality or description-sometimes by the simple addition of a descriptive adjective; sometimes through a descriptive or metaphorical apposition. (Note: If the description is given in place of the name, instead of in addition to it, it becomes antonomasia or periphrasis.)

Billy was the bane of my existence—a combination of pain in the ass and my sister’s boyfriend. He was five feet tall with size 14 boots, no neck, a Fu Man Chu mustache, perfectly round bald spot on his head and a tattoo of Sponge Bob on his neck. He was 19 years old and was destined to be a loser in life. He was taking my sister with him.

My sister was no beauty, but she deserved better than him. She was 6’8” and had a mole on her cheek the size of a peanut butter jar lid. She was born with one breast, three fingers on her right hand, and her ears were the size of pennies. She had a tattoo of Sponge Bob on her neck, just like her boyfriend. They had gotten them together when they were high on meth.

Billy was obsessed with sex. When he was visiting, he would ask my sister every ten minutes when they were going to “do it.” He said this in front of me and my mother too during dinner. My mother would say “Now, now, eat your peas first Billy.” He would gobble up his peas and my sister would yell “Clear the dining room table” as Billy stood up and started unfastening his pants. Their behavior was hard to deal with.

I decided to lay down some rules. I told Billy he had to quit coming to my house just to have sex with my sister, no matter how compliant she was. I told him he needed to take a shower before he visited. I told him he smelled like King Kong’s asshole.

His response was disconcerting. He said “Fu*k you Führer. I’ll bang your mother too if want to. Also, I smell just fine—you got a problem with rotting meat? If anything, I smell like Godzilla’s asshole, not King Kong’s.” He pulled some rat poison out of a box and dumped it into the raspberry kool-aid we were drinking on the porch.p. He drank it down and threw his empty glass out into the yard. He leaned toward me and said in a menacing voice “I’m immortal. Don’t fu*k with me.”

I was stunned. I was stuck with this guy. So I tried to make peace. When he came to our door, I’d welcome him in and ask if he wanted fu*ck my sister. He’d say “Yes my friend. Where is she?” I’d tell him where she was and he’d go off to fu*k her.

We got to be quite good friends. He told me he had awakened in a Salvation Army Family store stark naked 10 years ago. He crawled around on the floor pulling clothing off the racks and getting dressed, and finding a pair of size 14 boots. He couldn’t pay for anything so he ran out the entrance doors. He went back 10 minutes later and got a job as a sorter and stole a lot of “things” that he sold at the flea market on Sundays.

Although he looked 19, he was actually 65. He discovered he was immortal during a low point in his life. He looked at himself in the mirror for the first time in years. He tried to kill himself in a number of ways—from shooting himself, to a plastic bag over his head, to drowning, to standing in front of a train. He failed.

He said, after all he’d been through, in his “own way” he loved my sister. Eventually, they got married.

Billy robbed a few banks in New York and they stole enough money to start their own business. They sell sea shells in their store “We Shell” near the beach in South Miami Beach, Florida. They have a little daughter, my niece Conchy, named after their best-selling shell. She is off the charts ugly, but she has a kind and loving demeanor. However, her beautiful character doesn’t make up for her world-class ugliness. Nevertheless, her life trajectory is like a saint’s tale. She is currently seeing a “boy” who has all his body parts and aspires to be a foot-dragging monster in horror movies.

POSTSCRIPT

I’ve been told this story is heart-warming and moving. When I hear this, I flinch. This story makes my blood run cold and the only “moving” I get is out my ass. It has been hell dealing with these people all these years. Conchy is pregnant. God help us.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epitrope

Posted on February 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epitrope (e-pi’-tro-pe): A figure in which one turns things over to one’s hearers, either pathetically, ironically, or in such a way as to suggest a proof of something without having to state it. Epitrope often takes the form of granting permission (hence its Latin name, permissio), submitting something for consideration, or simply referring to the abilities of the audience to supply the meaning that the speaker passes over (hence Puttenham’s term, figure of reference). Epitrope can be either biting in its irony, or flattering in its deference.

“I know you know what I’m talking about. You don’t need to hear it from me. It is in the air—it’s everywhere. It’s in the garage. It’s under the bed. It’s everywhere. It’s palpable. You can cut it with a knife.”

When I said “You can cut it with a knife,” she pulled the butcher knife out of its wooden holder on the kitchen counter and came at me with it slashing the air. She tripped on Woofer’s pinkie ball and fell on the knife. She had stabbed herself in the stomach and she was bleeding pretty badly and making moaning sounds. I thought she was dying.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. I knew it was my girlfriend Stephanie. We had planned to stand side-by-side and tell my wife we were in love and I was leaving her. I had gotten started early with the revelation when my wife had pulled out the knife on me. Stephanie was late like she always was, otherwise she would’ve been there when my wife came at me and fell on the knife.

The pool of blood had grown on the floor. My wife had stopped moaning, so I figured she really needed help. Stephanie’s a dental assistant so I asked what she thought. She told my wife to “open wide,” and my wife didn’t respond. We determined she was dead.

We called an ambulance. While we waited for the ambulance, we bought plane tickets to Costa Rica on Orbtz and booked a hotel too. I had enough frequent flier miles to book us first class tickets. We were good to go.

Clearly, my wife’s death was an accident, except for letting her bleed to death on the kitchen floor. But what am I, a doctor? We headed for the airport—no reason to hang around. Costa Rica has no extradition treaty with the U.S., so, if worse came to worse, we could stay in Costa Rica as fugitives.

Worse cam to worse. The coroner determined that I was criminally negligent, waiting as long as I did to call an ambulance.

Then, my wife’s brother Bobby showed up at our hotel in Costa Rica. He told me he wanted me to come back to New York and face Justice. Stephanie developed an instant crush on him. That didn’t bode well. She had committed no crime. She hated Costa Rica. She wanted to leave and, by the way she was acting, she was trying to make my wife’s brother into her ticket home. He didn’t fall for it.

He was staying in the same hotel as us and would stop by every morning to ask if I was ready to face Justice in New York. Then, one morning he showed up with a gun and told me “Pack your shit, you’re going to New York.” I complied. He put me in zip ties. Stephanie was still asleep when we left.

Every chance I got on the way to the airport and at the airport, I yelled “I’m being kidnapped!” People just looked at me like I was some of zoo exhibit. When we got on the airplane, I yelled that I was being kidnapped and held up my zip-tied wrists. The stewardess slapped me in the face and told me to shut up or I would be ejected in the sky over Mexico.

The police were waiting at JFK. I was arrested and tried and found not guilty. Now, I have an Etsy shop on the internet selling German cutlery. I named the shop “Slice of Life.” Stephanie has become a successful pole dancer in Quito. She has sent me a couple of video clips. They’re pretty good, but I can see Bobby in the background.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epizeugma

Posted on February 26, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epizeugma (ep-i-zoog’-ma): Placing the verb that holds together the entire sentence (made up of multiple parts that depend upon that verb) either at the very beginning or the very ending of that sentence.

I was going fishing, running amok, and shopping.

I headed to Lake Whammy where I kept my boat “Jackweed.” 50 people had signed a petition to make me change the name of my boat. What a bunch of assholes. Somebody had actually scraped “weed” off my boat’s stern, leaving “Jack,” what they considered a more “sanitary” name.

Anyway, I was going to catch some Walleyes. I would pan fry them and wash them down with five or six beers. I caught 4 Walleyes. When I got home, I pulled out my frying pan, floured up the fish and dropped them in the bubbling oil. I lined up 5 beers on the kitchen island and quickly chugged 2. I yelled “Life is good” at my dog Bozo. He wagged his tail and went back to sleep. I finished off the beers. Feeling no pain, I jumped in my car and headed to the Town and County, City, Village, State, and Planet Mall.

If I got pulled over and took a breathalyzer test, I would go to jail. On the way to the mall, I hit a parked car, backed up and kept going. I ran over a cat and knocked down an empty bus stop shelter. I had trouble parking in the mall parking lot. I parked too close to the car next to me and smashed it with my door when I squeezed out of my car.

I stumbled to the mall entrance, falling down once along the way, and peeing in my pants. After all the beer, I was beyond caring. I was headed for “Steeler’s Jewelers.” They had sold me a counterfeit Rolex. I had pad $55,000 for what I thought was a solid gold Oyster. I had found out it was a fake when I wore it in the shower and it stopped. As a fake, it was worth $25.00 at most. I was packing a .45 that I had had since I was a Boy Scout in New Jersey. I had never killed anything with it, but there’s a first time for everything.

I had Mr. Steeler and his employees up against a wall. They were squirming and begging. At first, I was only going to shoot Mr. Steeler, but now that I was standing there with a loaded gun, it seemed like a good idea to shoot them all.

Then, the police showed up. Frank, the head of the SWAT Team, asked me what was going on. He was my brother-in-law. I told him about the watch. He said, “That’s terrible. I don’t blame you one bit for what you’re doing here. You can handle the fraud in court. Now give me the gun and go do something else with your life.”

I heeded what he said, and although I was still a little drunk, I decided to go shopping like I had planned . After all, I was at the Mall. I decided to go to DSW (Discount Shoe Warehouse). I had wanted a pair of hob-nailed lumberjack boots ever since my daughter had gotten a pair. It is really weird, but she was wearing them when she stomped a mouse to death in her apartment. She left it on the floor for a couple weeks until it dried out and then she got a picture frame for it. She hung stomped mouse in the kitchen to “scare off” other mice. So far, it has worked.

I wear a size 12. They didn’t have the boots in my size. But, they had boots with built-in leg braces for disabled people. They were so cool—shiny surgical steel latticed braces and black elk-skin wing tip boots. I had to have them. They were $600. I didn’t have that kind of money, so I stole them. As I ran out of DSW, threatening alarms went off: a screaming ear-splitting siren and a voice repeating “Put them back or you may be shot.” I kept running, made it to my car, squeezed in, backed up, and peeled out. I got home and hid in my basement for 2 days.

Somehow, I got away with the theft. That is, until my sister and her SWAT Team husband came over for dinner. I was wearing my brace boots. Her husband Frank noticed right away. He said, “Nice boots you got there.”

Now, I’m serving 3 months in the county jail for felony shoplifting. Frank was just doing his job.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Epizeuxis

Posted on February 25, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit and more bullshit.” I was elated. I had gotten a “standing bullshit” from my fellow “Bullshit Club” members. We met once a week and we’re prohibited from telling the truth more than 5 times per meeting. Otherwise, everything had to be bullshit—obvious bullshit, not lies we tried to get away with. Things like “I have four penises.”

We just took turns dropping bullshit bombs. We believed our club activities made our lives outside the club more tolerable. In the club we crafted UPPER CASE BULLSHIT, which made our everyday bullshit more effective by seeming to exhibit a degree of veracity that pushed it into the truth zone. It was good exercise. Plus, my fellow club members were great friends, even though all we did was bullshit each other. Here’s a sample of my bullshit from last week:

When I lived in Utah, I had four wives: one that cooked and took care of the kitchen, one that did the laundry, one that cleaned house, and one that rode my hooter once a week. I gave them all nicknames as a symbol of endearment: “Cookie” for cooking. “Soapy” for doing the laundry. “Dusty” for cleaning house. “Hooterbumper” for riding my hooter once a week.

I was tempted to change Hooterbumper’s nickname after a few incidents out in public. Sometimes, when I introduced her to people, they would noticeably flinch, like they knew her name had a sexual connotation. This was especially the case with my male friends. The crazier ones would respond with things like: “Yeah pleased to meet you too. My nickname is ‘Boxopener.’ I used to work in a grocery store.” Or, one time I introduced her to a female friend and she slapped me in the face and yelled “Shame on you!”

After about a year, I couldn’t take the responses to Hooterbumper’s name any more. I vowed to change her nickname to something less suggestive. After weeks of brainstorming, I just shortened her nickname to “Bumper.” It was ambiguous—it could refer to a car bumper, a bumper crop, bumper plates, and a variety of other “bumper” variations.

Problem solved!

Now, the other wives wanted new nicknames too! to keep the peace I capitulated. I changed Cookie’s name to “Fry.” I changed Soapy’s nickname to “Agitate.” I changed Dusty’s nickname to “Moppy.” And, of course, Hooterbumper became “Bumper.” Peace reigned and public introductions smoothed out.

POSTSCRIPT

Well, this is a classic bullshit story. None of it is true. Many bullshit stories convey a moral. In this case it has to do with bowing to peer pressure. Did changing his wives’ nicknames really change anything but the nicknames? We think they did. We should nickname him “Nick” in recognition of the excellence of his project.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Erotema

Posted on February 24, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

“Why would I want to walk backwards around the block? Why? Why? Why? To prove my love for you? To show my mother I can do it? She’s not here! She’s never here! I think she’s dead, but I’m not sure. I’m sure my sister’s dead. I poisoned her jello and threw her out the window. Why? Because she was always there. Pestering me. Teasing me. Pushing me over the edge. I’m glad she’s dead.”

I heard at least one version of this speech every week. I’m a cop and I call these speeches “Curbside Confessions.” Usually they’re given by a person in pajamas or a bathrobe standing on the sidewalk outside their house or apartment.. I usually just tell them to put their hands up and I cuff them and call an ambulance to come and pick them up and take them to the state mental hospital where they’re medicated, interrogated but never exonerated. Ha ha!

I have compiled an anthology of “Curbside Confessions” that I intend to publish as an E-book on Amazon. In the case of armed speakers, the speech is the last thing they said if they wouldn’t heed my admonition to “drop it.” If they held onto their gun, I let them finish their speech and then I shot them, always fatally, because I thought it would give their speech a more pronounced element of pathos. In the book, I would note their passing with an asterisk and “Fatally shot at the scene.”

One of my favorite curbside confessions was by a woman wearing a pointed party hat and holding a piece of birthday cake in one hand and a revolver in the other. She started by singing.

“Happy birthday to me I have chronic pain in my knee and I’m loaded on opioids. Happy birthday to me. The pills are light beige, and I take ten a day. Get out of my way or I’ll blow you away.”

She continued:

“Bang bang you’re dead, shot in the head Uncle William. Two in the chest, mom you’re the best! Have a great trip to hell—Dad’s waiting for you! You bled on my cake, damn you! Vince was doin’ mom so I shot him in the crotch and sent him off to Eunuch Heaven. And finally, my stinkin’ husband Dicky! Dicky-dog, you humped my best friend and she liked it too much. I sent you with Vince to Eunuch Heaven. I am disappointed that the guy who wouldn’t give me a refund at TJ Max wasn’t at my birthday party. I would’ve loved blowing his brains out. Today, I’m 30.”

This was a really interesting curbside confession because in some places she addressed people who weren’t there and who were dead. She tried to shoot herself in the head when she finished her speech, but she had used up all her ammo. She, like the other nut cases, got a free ride to the state looney bin. I felt bad about having to take her piece of cake away from her. I confess, I ate it. It was Bavarian Chocolate. It was delicious.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Eucharistia

Posted on February 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

Eucharistia (eu-cha-ris’-ti-a): Giving thanks for a benefit received, sometimes adding one’s inability to repay.

“Thank-you for everything you’ve done to me—the broken nose, the cracked ribs, and I’m pretty sure, for a ruptured spleen too. The best part is, I don’t know why this is happening, so I’m not sure if I deserve it.” I was trying to lighten things up with a little sarcasm. It didn’t work. The big one asked me “So you want to know?” I asked him if that was a rhetorical question and he said “How’s this?” and pulled my hair until a clump of it came out in his fist. I laughed and said “Hair today, gone tomorrow.” He made me eat my hair.

The little one told the big one to cut it out. “If he looks too worse for wear, they might not fork over the ransom.” Ah ha! Now I knew: I had been kidnapped. They had been calling me Jerry, but my name is Ted. So now, I figured they had kidnapped the wrong person. They wanted Jerry, they got Ted. If they knew who I really was they never would’ve kidnapped me. I am a honey dipper—I pump out septic tanks for a living and usually smell faintly of shit. I was snatched on a Sunday when I was walking home from church. I was clean and quite dapper looking—suit pressed, shoes shined. My wife and 10 year old daughter are atheists, so they were home watching cartoons and missed out on the fun. The big guy grabbed me and locked me in the back of their van as the little guy drove us off. I was blindfolded so I had no idea where we were going.

The place they took me smelled like Chinese food and there were pots and pans rattling downstairs and people yelling in what I thought was Chinese. From that, I figured we were above a Chinese restaurant. I further surmised it was “The “Orchid Boat,” the only Chinese restaurant in our small North Jersey town.

Clearly, the kidnappers hadn’t contacted their victim’s family yet. If they had, I would be laid out on a landfill. I had to tell them they had the wrong victim before the right victim told them to take a flying fu*k. It was a huge risk, but I really didn’t have another option.

I said “Hey, I’m not Jerry, I’m Ted and I pump septic tanks for a living. Spare my life and I’ll buy us dinner at the ‘Orchid Boat’ downstairs.” The two kidnappers looked shocked. The little guy got on the phone and confirmed that I wasn’t Jerry. Jerry was a billionaire and very eligible for kidnapping. I was, at best, a twenty-five thousand-aire. Not worth the trouble of kidnapping.

The kidnappers didn’t take me up on my dinner offer, but they called an ambulance to take me to the hospital and, as the little guy said “Get you fixed up.” I appreciated that, and was grateful, and we waved goodbye to each other as the orderlies wheeled me away on the gurney to the waiting ambulance.

After I was well, I went to visit Jerry. I was uninvited. The guy at the door put a Glock up to my forehead and asked me what the fu*k I wanted. I told him my story. He said “Big fu*kin deal. Get the fu*k outta here num nuts. Jerry is dead. Two idiots ambushed him and blew him away when he was walking his dog last night. The cops think his wife Porny had something to do with it. Now, get lost.”

I was stunned. The “Two Guys” had let me go with an ambulance ride to the hospital. I was deeply grateful, and also curious how Jerry’s wife had gotten her name.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Euche

Posted on February 22, 2026 | Leave a comment

Euche (yoo’-kay): A vow to keep a promise.

I had vowed that “until death do us part.” It was one of the promises I had made on our wedding day. I wasn’t thinking clearly when I made it. I was half drunk and pretty-much in love. We had actually been engaged for six months as a sort of trial run. It seemed to work fine. We had a lot of sex and we both had jobs. We would argue from time to time but it was no big deal. We would argue about favorite songs and Tv shows. Meagan was a great cook. Along with the sex, I thought our marriage was perfect.

But then, Meagan started getting fat. She was on a quest to learn how to make, then eat, the most fattening foods from different cultures. One of her favorites was English trifle: A classic layered desert featuring sponge cake or ladyfingers soaked in sherry, cream, and custard.

Schweinshaxe was another favorite—a giant pork knuckle consumed with 5 or 6 dark beers and followed by a whole Black Forest cake, picked up and eaten like a ham sandwich.

I was losing my mind. She joined a social group called “Chompers.” They were all fat tubs and would get together at a different member’s home every week. Their meetings were “pot luck” dinners. Every participant brought a dish, and they’d eat them—no matter what they were. Meagan told me she had a delicious flattened frog dipped in chocolate the previous week. It nearly made me puke.

Since I had promised that “until death do us part,” I couldn’t divorce or just leave my wife. It seemed that “death” was the only way out—mine or hers. I had taken up with a skinny blond 20 year old. Being with her was like being on vacation. I had become a vegan and was becoming healthier and healthier every day, while Meagan got so fat she got stuck in her chair and the fire department had to extricate her.

I got a hand truck that I wheeled her around the house on, to the kitchen, the bathroom, the dining room and the bedroom. We had food delivered, usually a meal for nine people. I bought a car lift from a gas station, put a sheet of aluminum on top of it and had it installed next to the bed. It was the “Meagan Lift” to raise her into bed.

If I wasn’t careful it would go all the way to the ceiling. That’s when I got my “until death do us part” idea. I’d put Meagan on the lift, raise her up, and crush her on the ceiling. I could tell the police that the lift had malfunctioned—that I had a seizure when I was raising her up to the bed and couldn’t move the control handle.

I went ahead with my plan. I let the lift go and pressed Meagan against the ceiling. When she hit, she dripped body fluids, and blew out a whoosh of bad-smelling air. She was crushed on the ceiling. Dead. I called 911.

I said to the policeman that showed up, “Now that she’s dead, we can part, and honor our marriage vows.” Just then, my skinny blond 20 year old girlfriend walked through the bedroom door. She gave me a French kiss and squeezed my butt. I introduced her to the policeman. He told me to “accompany him downtown for questioning.”

Although I had no history of seizures, the police doctor said “There’s always a first time” and cleared me. The police said of my girlfriend “Jesus Christ what a piece of ass.” I was vindicated on that count too because my girlfriend was irresistible and the police thought I would be crazy not to hook up with her, murder or no murder.

I was freed.

My wife’s remains were cremated. I gave permission for her to be sawed in half to fit in the cremation chamber. I had planned on scattering her ashes in the bakery section of the grocery store, but I got caught, was fined $1,000, and locked up for one month. Now, I’m seeing a court-mandated psychologist. She is big and fat.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Eulogia

Posted on February 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

Eulogia (eu-lo’-gi-a): Pronouncing a blessing for the goodness in a person.

“You are my sunshine. You’re everything I ever wanted. Baby, I love your ways, every day. I knew once we started kissin’ I found love. Nothing compares 2U. Can you feel the love tonight?”

I did my research. I put everything in quotation marks so you couldn’t accuse me of plagiarizing my love. That’s what I get for loving a librarian. It’s our first anniversary. I’ve been hanging out for 20 minutes at the circulation desk. Almost a half-hour. I feel love overflowing like an unmonitored kitchen sink, spilling its warm liquid all over the floor.

Put your phone away. Keep your mouth shut. I’m here to give you a thrill.”

She had never seen him before.

He ran the bar code scanner across her forehead. He said “Don’t worry, I won’t let you be overdue. I’d never make you pay a fine. They’re useless as an incentive anyway. I’ve had ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ checked out for 10 years. The fines are up to $3,000 but I will never pay or return the book.” He went on to say that alimony was a kind of fine he’s forced to pay by the State of New York—he had gotten caught cheating on his wife with the middle school crossing guard’s wife. He paid the price.

The librarian looked at him with nothing but hostility in her eyes—how could anybody demean library fines like he had? Most people apologized and paid. The ones who didn’t apologize still paid, recognizing that justice was in play.—that it was fair to pay the fine.

The maniac at her circulation desk had denigrated library fines. She thought: “It was like denigrating my mother’s birthday. It was immoral. It was insane. It was criminal. I’ve got to do something.”

Somebody had just returned David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest.” It was sitting on the circulation desk. It was one of the longest books in American history. Consequently, it was one of the heaviest. Wielded as a weapon, it could do some real damage.

The maniac yelled at her to put her hand flat on the circulation desk. He had a hard cover copy of “Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship” and was going to slam its spine on her fingers and break them all. Before he could hit her fingers, she picked up “Infinite Jest” and hit him square in the face with it.

He cried out in pain and dropped “Tom Swift.” His nose was bleeding and he fell over backwards, fracturing his skull on the well-polished wooden floor. He was unconscious and twitching all over. The librarian picked up her phone and called 911 for the police and an ambulance.

When her story was told, she was vindicated of all wrong-doing despite the fact that the maniac had died of a brain hemorrhage and she could’ve been charged with manslaughter. It was found that his threat with “Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship” constituted assault and could’ve crippled the librarian for life. Clearly, she had acted in self-defense, and was quite brave too.

For her valor in protecting the justice of library fines she was awarded “The Melvil Dewey Decimal System Plaque.” It was named after Melvil Dewey the inventor of the decimal system. It is used to organize the shelving of library books in public schools.

Dewey brought oder to chaos. Before the advent of his system, it could take weeks to find a book, buried in a corner of a library somewhere. In order to manage the mess, there were twice as many librarians. The library Trustees all around the world complained about the cost. They hired Dewey, a third-rate mathematician, to solve the problem. Dewey was inspired by the library at Alexandria’s cataloguing system. It was extant in a singed fragment of the library’s remains that Dewey had discovered in an archive in Tokyo, Japan where a theme park was being constructed to replicate the library at Alexandria. Japan had just opened its doors to the West and there was a frenzy to replicate the West’s architecture and literature. They had just completed a replica of Howard Johnson’s that served 10 different flavors of ice cream. No sushi!

Dewy learned that the decimal point, along with letters and numbers, could organize “phenomena” into orderly sequences. Pasted on the spines of shelved books, the decimal-punctuated letters and numbers could organize whole libraries. He was nominated for the P.T. Barnum Award. He didn’t win it. Rather, Jo Jo the Dog Faced Boy won the award for his volunteer work with young widows.

Anyway, our librarian, Ms. Page, went on to become the Chief Librarian at the British Library where she keeps a copy of “Infinite Jest” on her desk.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Eustathia

Posted on February 20, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

I don’t know why she insisted I be faithful to her “forever.” I didn’t think I’d be around forever. I would die some day, and that would put the nix on “forever.” Accordingly, I thought it was really insincere to tell her I’d love her forever. I wanted to put our relationship on a firm and honest foundation. So, I told her I loved her more than anything, but I couldn’t promise to lover her forever.

She said, “Tony, you might as well have driven a stake in my heart. I’ll have to convert you.”

Then, I started to think: a stake in her heart, immortality, ragged dress like Stevie Nix, musty smell, sleeps all day. Maybe she was a Racoon hunter, out late at night with her hound dogs. Maybe her smell came from working in a cheese factory or a Burger King. Maybe her dress was something she picked up at the Salvation Army Family Store. I got my ragged pants there, so I could understand her tattered dress.

I was just guessing.

Then it hit me, and hit me hard! Stake in the heart! Forever=Immortality!

Holy shit. Mary was a goddamn vampire—a night stalking, blood sucking demon monster of the night. I was repulsed, but I couldn’t stop loving her. I was willing to go all the way and do whatever I had to do to become immortal, so we could love each other forever. I didn’t believe in vampires, but I believed in Mary. I was ready to step over the threshold into the world of the nightly blood-sucking assault of innocent people. I was ready to become purely evil for the love of Mary.

We were to meet in a crypt that night to consummate our love as Mary sucked my blood and made into a vampire like her. It was the crypt of Colonel Canon, a beloved Union Civil War Hero. He had won the battle of Cat Walk, a decisive turning point in the Civil War where thousands of Confederate soldiers had surrendered and ended up dying anyway as prisoners of war. Canon was credited with killing them all without firing a shot.

Canon’s casket was flat like a ping-pong table. Mary told me to lie on it and pull down my pants, and she would bite my neck to “get things going.”

I was confused. I asked her why I had to pull my pants down. She said “We’re going to have sex you silly boy.” I thought, “Wow! Getting laid! This is even better than I thought it would be!” “Silly boy” resonated with my self concept and added a degree of familiarity to my transformation ritual. I was ready to become a blood-sucking monster. But Suddenly, I noticed Mary’s vampire fangs were glowing in the dark. She pulled them out. They were made out of plastic! I recognized them. They sold them at Corbo’s Novelty Shop across the street from Shining Truth Junior High where I had gone to school.

Mary was a fake vampire. A deception. A lie.

In a way, I was relieved she was a fake. I really didn’t want to live in a dark basement, drink blood and never go out in the sun again. I was satisfied being mortal. You know, playing corn hole, going fishing, barbecuing, going to the mall, updating my FaceBook page, and now, screwing Mary.

So, I didn’t rebuke Mary for her vampire ruse. It was pretty exciting. I love Mary’s musty smell. she works all day, even on the weekends, so we can only see each other at night. I‘d think she was actually a real vampire if it wasn’t for the fake glow-in-the-dark teeth.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Eutrepismus

Posted on February 19, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

“One, two, three, four what the hell are we marching for?” We were the renegade Boy Scout Troop 148–we were known as the “Bad Scouts.” Our Scoutmaster “Dark Star Smith,” encouraged it. He was an adult, but he acted like a teenager—a juvenile delinquent. He had made our troop into a gang of marauding drunks. We’d light a campfire in the YMCA parking lot and drink beer.

After two or three beers, we’d go marauding. We’d key cars, steal lawnmowers, flip over lawn furniture, burn dirty words in peoples’ lawns, cut clothesline ropes, pee on gardens, and sometimes, kidnap pets—mainly dogs.

We kept whining that we were going to get caught and put in the juvenile detention center where we’d be beat up by the bullies who ran the place.

After we whined for a few weeks, Dark Star angrily said, “All right. All right. The Chief of Police is my father. We’ll never get arrested.” Then it happened.

One night, about 2 weeks later, we were accosted by 20 people wearing balaclavas while we were out marauding. They circled around us chanting “Cut it out. Cut it out.” They were holding the chief of police hostage. They said they were going to dress him up as a clown and drop him off at the mall if we didn’t capitulate.

Dark Star admitted everything to the posse. We were at the elementary school playground, where we were going to tip over the sliding board. We never got a chance. The posse took Dark Star and wove his body around the monkey bars. Crying in pain they exacted a promise from him to change his ways and to stop corrupting Boy Scouts with beer and night time marauding.

Our Boy Scout Toop got cleaned up. I won “Top Scout” at the “Frostbite Frezeree,” the annual winter Boy Scout Jamboree held in Tug Hill, New York where they get at least 11 feet of snow every winter. I got my award for digging a tunnel through the snow to the public restrooms across the parking lot from where we were camped.

On a really positive note, we have a new adult to buy us beer! He hurt his head in a motorcycle accident last summer and is very easy-going. We drink the beer at his house and he just sits there.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Exergasia

Posted on February 18, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

I was stuck in the passing lane. I was going to die. How come nobody would let me back in the travel lane? I had put on my blinker and everything. I even blew my horn, although I considered it impolite. The people in the travel lane paid no attention me—staring straight ahead and bobbing their heads, and lip synching to the music on their car radios. It was deeply troubling, vexing, anger inducing, worrying.

I was getting worried. “Freaking out” is a popular catchphrase for getting worried, but is a bit more intense. “Panic” puts the proverbial icing on the cake—it is a kind of insanity where your decision making skills go flying out the window—you close your eyes, scream, and wet your pants: the end is literally in sight: a bomb on your front porch. A fire in your living room. A heart attack at the Mall. Dinner with your in- laws—ha ha.

Why am I making jokes? I’m going to die. But, I’m starting to wonder if I’m wrong about that. I’ve been stuck in the passing lane for 800 miles. I’m still alive. I have a quarter-tank of gas and15 bags of “Funions” I picked up at Cliff’s when I gassed up. I also bought 10 “Boogie Woogie Jungle Bang” energy drinks.

Suddenly my car jerked violently forward. A guy wearing a Yankees hat was wiping my window with a towel. I was in a car wash! The man with the towel motioned me to put my window down. I did. He told me I had been stuck in the “Sparkle Wash Car Wash” for 12 hours. “We had a Rust preventer malfunction that shut the whole car wash down. I couldn’t get to your car to free you, and when I waved my towel at you, you just sat there staring straight ahead, like some kind of zombie—like you were having a seizure.

I couldn’t account for my “seizure.” I counted 10 empty “Boogie Woogie Jungle Bangs” open on the seat beside me, along with a pile of empty bags of “Funions.” I figured my death ride in the fast lane was some kind of hallucination caused by drinking all the “Boogie Woogie Jungle Bang.” I have no idea what made me drink it. Then, I remembered! I was on my way to a job interview. I had read in “Life Tricks” magazine that dynamism is the most important behavior to display in job interviews. The energy drink would do the trick. But, I never got a chance to display anything. I O.D.’d on energy drink and got stuck in the Sparkle Wash Car Wash in a zombie trance.

POSTSCRIPT

The car wash gave me a lifetime pass with free undercarriage rust inhibited for what they had put me through. It included unlimited use of the vacuum out in the parking lot.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Exouthenismos

Posted on February 17, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

You make my pants fall down whenever I look at you. It’s not my fault. You are a black magic woman. Your pet newts prove it—most of them are missing an eye. We both know what that means! Your pointy hat is a dead giveaway. You say it’s a birthday party hat that you wear all the time because you like to celebrate. Oh, also, you’re only 22 years old and you have gray hair. The broom is too much of a cliche for me to even mention!

I should’ve known when we first met, when you pulled a rabbit out from under your dress and held it up by the ears while it squealed in pain. You told me that’s how rabbits bark. We had chicken fried rabbit for dinner—now I’m starting to see what was going on there. You killed that rabbit with one swing of your hatchet that you were so proud of. Your mother had given it to you for getting an “A” in History.

I heard the rabbit screaming and the hatchet banging down, but thought nothing of it at the time. I wrote it off to cultural differences between us. But every time you had me over for dinner there was screaming and hatchet banging in the kitchen, where you wouldn’t let me go. We always had chicken-fried meat.

Then, one night I peeked into the kitchen. There was a pheasant duct taped to the cutting board, thrashing around. You whacked off its head and started cleaning it. It was delicious and I decided to tolerate the slaughtering as long as the results tasted good.

But then, you stepped over the line: a Guinea pig—a fat little furry Guinea pig. I know they’re eaten in Peru, but NOT in New York. They’re cute. They’re clean. They make a musical oinking sound. Trying to get me to eat a Guinea pig is what has brought us here. You must be Satan’s chef you horrible witch! Just because I’m sitting here on the kitchen floor wrapped in duct tape, it doesn’t mean I want to be eaten. Let me go Glenda!

POSTSCRIPT

Glenda turned him into a Guinea pig and shared him for dinner chicken fried with her new friend Wynn who worked behind the counter at CVS.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Expeditio

Posted on February 16, 2026 | Leave a comment

Expeditio (ex-pe-di’-ti-o): After enumerating all possibilities by which something could have occurred, the speaker eliminates all but one (=apophasis). Although the Ad Herennium author lists expeditio as a figure, it is more properly considered a method of argument [and pattern of organization] (sometimes known as the “Method of Residues” when employed in refutation), and “Elimination Order” when employed to organize a speech. [The reference to ‘method’ hearkens back to the Ramist connection between organizational patterns of discourses and organizational pattern of arguments]).

It could’ve been a bowl of tapioca pudding—little floating vanilla flavored eyeballs. It could’ve been the raw bacon draped over the bannister. It could’ve been the moonlight shining through the jar of “Buzzing Hive Jive Honey.” Or it could’ve been the flaming bowling ball rolling down your driveway making a whistling sound. Or it could’ve been the peeled layer of onion spinning hypnotically around and around in your toilet bowl, too buoyant to flush, spinning.

All of the hypotheses above can be eliminated and we’re left with nothing but a rejected set of insane questions to back nothing up. Nothing. Well, maybe something—there’s always something, even when there’s nothing.

So, exactly what is the “it” we’re talking about here? Cearly, the signs and tokens of “it” signified above in our probative hypotheses display complex knots of seemingly incoherent and unnecessary concealment—a sort of encoded labyrinth of logic hidden under the rocco embroidery of signification stitched at another time in another dimension by fingers we can only imagine, moving swiftly across the material surface.

What is this? Where are we? What, my friends, is “It”? I will tell you. “It” is the vale of aggressive mystification that spins truth around like a top, like a White House press conference.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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Exuscitatio

Posted on February 15, 2026 | Leave a comment

Exuscitatio (ex-us-ci-ta’-ti-o): Stirring others by one’s own vehement feeling (sometimes by means of a rhetorical question, and often for the sake of exciting anger).

“Who else has had enough of this bullshit? Larry, what about you? You’re a spineless lizard with no backbone! Carl? How long are you going to stand there pooping in your pants before you do something? What are you people? A pack of broken down geriatric weasels with poor eyesight, bunions, congested lungs, monumental constipation, and wild free-range dripping bladders?”

Bill was at it again. At least once a week he tried to foment revolution at “Frisky Pines Nursing Home.” For some reason, he believed that demeaning the residents of Frisky Pines would rally them to his cause. He was wrong—the bad things he said about everybody depressed them and made them want to go back to their rooms and cry or watch TV, especially at 4:00 when “Happy Betty” came on the tube.

Happy Betty would put a positive spin on the hell they were going through as they headed for death. She would say things like “Pooping yourself is like baking a chocolate cake in your PJs.” This would cheer up the pants poopers—especially when they were wiped, believing their “cake” was being iced by their nurse. She said their bunions were like “lilies on a hill” making their “footscapes” scenic. Constipation was like a savings account holding sizable deposits. She said their leaky bladders were like fire sprinklers in their underpants. Then she would tell them to laugh and “put out the fire” which was actually a urinary tract infection that peeing irritated! Even though it was painful, the residents loved it.

This is all quite insane, but Happy Betty’s show “Going, Going, Gone” was the number one show watched in nursing homes throughout the United States. In second place was “Put Out The Lights.” It was a docu-drama about “elderly people, suicide, and euthanasia.” They kept statistics on how many people “died” within 1 hour of viewing the show. They also tracked how many episodes it took to get them over the edge. The average was 4. Even though it was less popular, Put Out the Lights’ impact was more tangible. Two of its biggest sponsors were the International Association of Undertakers and the World Congress of Organ Harvesters

All of this is what angered Bill. He had been a part of at least 25-30 protest movements during sixties. From Aardvarks to Zygotes, he had seen it all. He had taken a lot of acid and seen a lot of things. He decided to burn down the nursing home to end the exploitation of the residents—the taking or their money, deluding them and prodding them to die. He lit a fire in his wastepaper basket and the fire alarm went off. He was laughing maniacally when the orderlies broke into his room.

He was taken away for “observation.” He was never seen again.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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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