Tag Archives: rhetoric

Aschematiston

Posted on November 2, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

1-2-3, reality. I woke up. I got up. I went number one and number two. I brushed my teeth. I took a shower. Put on my underpants. Put on my socks. Put on my pants. Put on my Bruce Springsteen T-shirt. Went downstairs for breakfast. got a glass of water from the kitchen sink. Swallowed my vitamin. Got out a bowl and poured my cereal into it. Opened the refrigerator door. There was no milk! Oh damn, shit, hell. I was panicking. My morning ritual was destroyed.

Chaos! Bedlam! The world was spinning backwards and I was falling off.

I calmed down a little and started to think. I could drive to Cliff’s and get a quart of milk. Problem solved! I couldn’t find my car keys. Hell, damn, shit. My routine was ruptured again. I poured the glass of water on my cereal and forced it down. I would have to walk to work. I couldn’t find my trainers!

“Have no fear,” I thought. “I can wear my flip flops.” I looked in the closet—there they were like two rubber life preservers. I removed my socks and donned them. “Work” was only a mile away. I walked as fast as I could so I could be on time and continue to hold my record for straight days without a single tardiness. It didn’t work. I was five minutes late.

The boss, Mr. Drummers, summoned me to his office. I was ready to be admonished for being late, but that was not to be. Mr. Drummers pointed at my feet and asked “Why are you wearing flip-flops?” I had forgotten that Mr. Drummers has to wear flip-flops for medical reasons because of the gross bunions and pustules on his feet. He was hypersensitive about his feet. “Are you making fun of me?” He asked. I swore I wasn’t making fun of him, that I had lost my trainers. He yelled, “Bullshit! I always thought you were a wise-ass. You’re fired! Clean out your desk and get the hell out of here!”.

I was devastated. I started looking for a job immediately. I saw an ad that was promising: “OCD therapy aides. Apply: Albatross Enterprises, 123456 Linear Ave., Ontrack, Fl. I applied and got an interview. Ontrack was the next town over. I had bought new trainers and had a new key made for my car. I was good to go.

I got there on time. The interviewer was a very neatly dressed woman. Most notably, she was wearing a stuffed albatross around her neck. She said, “We fu*k up OCD peoples’ lives by breaking into their homes and “disordering” everything while they’re at work or otherwise out of their houses. The constant disordering wears them down, and eventually, their OCD wanes and disappears, absent that, they’re remanded to a mental institution. Either way, they’re no longer a problem for our client, who is usually a husband or a wife. Do you see the value of our service? Can you do it?” “Of course!” I exclaimed.

I got the job. At this point in my life I thoroughly enjoy making chaos out of cosmos. My own “problem” helps me to spot likely sites of OCD’s manifestation.

My favorite disordering gambit is changing the order of things: reordering rows of shoes by front doors, switching spoons and knives in kitchen silverware drawers, moving around items hanging in closets on hangers, trading places of salt and pepper shakers, reordering books in bookcases, etc.

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Asphalia

Posted on November 1, 2026 | Leave a comment

Asphalia (as-fay’-li-a): Offering oneself as a guarantee, usually for another.

“You can’t go wrong with me on your team. I’ll work hard to make us winners. I guarantee it. How do I guarantee it. Cheating? Good hard work?” I asked.

“Cheating is my forte, Good hard work is a distant second.” I made the team, and I was made Captain.

Saturday came, it was game time. I put sedatives in the opposing team’s Gator Aid. By the end of the first quarter the entire team was asleep on the playing field. They forfeited the game, and we won. From then out, other teams wouldn’t drink anything when they were up against us. So, I had to resort to Plan B: bribery.

Our sponsors put up the cash, and we would play our hearts out to look like legitimate winners. The referees favored us in all close calls, guaranteeing us the win. but then, the day came when we came up against our nemesis: Holy Crèche University.

They were so good, there wouldn’t be any close calls. They were smart enough to forego liquids. There was one option left: bribe the team. But they were Holy Crèche—a religion-affiliated school. But we had an advantage: their enrollments were in the toilet and they were headed down the tubes. They needed a quick infusion of cash to last past the spring semester.

I met with the President and offered a substantial gift to the University if he would let the team know that losing the big game “would not be frowned upon.”

The big day came—the East Coast Championship Game. We were sure to win—it cost 1 million dollars, but our benefactors (wealthy alumni) could afford ten times as much. We partied on Mimosas before the game and were half-looped when we took to the field. We were sure to win. Holy Crèche did not hold back. They kicked our asses. We lost 42 to 0.

Holy Crèche’s President disappeared the next day, so did our coach, Mr. Rangton. Our new coach, Mr. Strangolia, put the onus on us. “No more cheating,” he said, “Leave that to me. You will practice hard and play hard.” I was demoted to cleat scraper, and the following year we won every game. I like to think that my scraping helped win the championship trophy.

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Assonance

Posted on October 31, 2026 | Leave a comment

Assonance (ass’-o-nance): Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words.

“It was very cold. The clods were frozen to the ground. Christmas was a week away. I was wondering why I even bothered to pray.”

These are the opening lines to the famous religious thriller “Making a Pact With Satan.” It is required reading in nearly every Sunday School in America from Baptist to Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, and beyond.

It’s the story of “Hard Luck Harry.” Everything goes wrong in his life. His Beagle named “Collie” disappears one snowy night. He loses his job. His wife cheats on him with Sgt. Schmidlap of the Royal Canadian Mounties. His car catches on fire in his driveway. He finds out he has cancer. He becomes an alcoholic. All of his investments tank. He cuts off his right hand with a band saw, and worst of all, God won’t answer his prayers.

He spent a whole day in his living room, sitting in his lounge chair praying, and listening to hymns streaming on Sirius. He was optimistic that a day-long prayer-fest would get through to God, no matter how busy he was dealing with the world’s woes. He was sure God could multi-task and fit him in “by His grace” to the group of worthy souls: prayers answered, problems solved. Good to go. Slam, bam, thank-you God.

It didn’t work. Nothing happened. Not a single prayer was answered.

The clock on the wall struck twelve and in anger and disappointment Harry yelled “Damn you God.”

Trumpets blew.

Satan appeared. He was wearing a backwards red baseball cap, white t-shirt, bluejeans and black Blundstones, “You hit the jackpot baby!” said Satan through the sulfurous haze. Harry’s wife yelled from upstairs “What’s that smell? What’s going on down there?” Harry told her to shut up and go back to sleep.

“In exchange for you being a postmortem roomer in “Hotel Eternal Hell,” I’ll solve all your problems,” said Satan in his slick mellifluous voice.

Harry thanked Satan and took the deal. He lived happily ever after.

But when he died—wooo hooo, everything went to hell forever. As Harry prepared to sit on his glowing red eternal hot plate, he was filled with regret. He should’ve just lived his life as a total loser—what’s a life of failure compared to an eternity of burning your ass on a hot plate? He was about to find out.

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Assumptio

Posted on October 30, 2026 | Leave a comment

Assumptio (as-sump’-ti’o): The introduction of a point to be considered, especially an extraneous argument. See proslepsis (When paralipsis [stating and drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over] is taken to its extreme. The speaker provides full details.).

We’ve lifted 16 tons, but what did we get? More callouses? Black lung? A free blender? Insanity? Swizzle sticks from Hooters? The list goes on forever and the answer is no and yes—not always no, not always yes. Not always. The only thing that is always no and yes is “maybe.” Maybe, maybe, maybe. It’s almost certain, that’s not maybe. Maybe is less than that.

But why should anybody care about this?

Well, it’s not a question of why, but a question of meaning. It extends to life’s biggest questions; who, what, when, where, how, why? Answer these questions and you have gotten the answer. Now, you’re in a position to judge.

If you are the “who” in the equation, probably “why” is the most salient category. As the summation of the other categories, why is the motive. Why prompts action. It may be the answer to all of the questions. Now, it’s time to stop. Why? Because it is. Because why you may ask? Answer: just because, or because I say so.

POSTSCRIPT

The author contends that what is printed above are “musings”, and as such should be immune from criticism. They constitue a display and are what they are in their own right.

This is bullshit. Nothing in the world of literature (broadly construed) is beyond reproach. In fact, nothing is beyond reproach, not even reproach.

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Asteismus

Posted on October 29, 2026 | Leave a comment

Asteismus (as-te-is’-mus): Polite or genteel mockery. More specifically, a figure of reply in which the answerer catches a certain word and throws it back to the first speaker with an unexpected twist. Less frequently, a witty use of allegory or comparison, such as when a literal and an allegorical meaning are both implied.

Me: “Are you going to help me with the yard work?”

Moe: “I’ll help you remember I’m going to the shore today. You can help yourself to the yard.”

Once again, Moe had wiggled his was way out of a chore. What really got me were his wise-ass quips. They were funny, but they were also infuriating.

We shared a three bedroom house on a quiet street. We had bought it together as an investment. That was my second mistake. My fist mistake was assuming that Moe would help with the property’s upkeep. Since we were co-owners I couldn’t just give him the boot, or move out myself. Too much was at stake financially.

So, I decided to have the locks changed on the doors and get him to sign a legal document to regain access to the property. It wasn’t legal and it probably wouldn’t hold up in court, but it would send a message.

After the locks were changed, and he came home, we argued on the front porch. Eventually he apologized! I was shocked, but he promised to hold up “his end of the bargain” from that day forward.

He put a sign on the front lawn that said “Wanted. All-Around Handy Person. Wash dishes, clean house, mow lawn, wash car, cook breakfast, make lunch, cook dinner, do laundry, other tasks as required. Live-in.”

He was going to pay somebody to take care of every possible chore! Moe was off the hook and his handy-person would take care of everything at no cost to me!

Moe said he was going to pay for the extra help by getting a part time job at “Larry’s Pizzeria.” One of the perks was all the pizza he could eat. He hired some guy named Melrose as handy-person, and we all had pizza with a different topping every night for dinner.

Melrose fed us corn flakes and water and coffee every morning, and peanut butter and no jelly sandwiches and water and coffee for lunch every day. Along with the pizza every night, we had three healthy meals per day, and the lawn was neatly cut in summer and the sidewalks and driveway shoveled in winter. The cars were always spotless, down to the vacuumed carpets. Clothes were cleaned and folded. The house was immaculate—including the bathroom’s shining porcelain. You could eat off the kitchen floor. It was too good to be true, and it was.

Melrose was slowly poisoning us.

Moe’s hair was falling out, and so was mine. Our gums were bleeding and we felt dizzy all the time. We went to our doctors, got diagnosed, and went to the police. Melrose was arrested for attempted murder and is currently serving a life sentence in “Harmony State Prison.”

Moe and I both recovered and were back to the same old bullshit. After all we went through, Moe still always finds an excuse to evade responsibility. The one concession he has made is to do the cooking himself, to avoid being poisoned again. I do everything else. That’s fine with me. Moe’s taking courses in “culinary arts” at County Community College. I have a check-up every month to make sure Moe’s not slowly poisoning me. That’s a small price to pay for Moe’s fabulous cuisine.

I said to Moe: “It’s good to finally see you get off your ass and take care of business.” Moe responded: “Yeah. Now you can get off my ass and mind your own business.”

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Astrothesia

Posted on October 28, 2026 | Leave a comment

Astrothesia (as-tro-the’-si-a): A vivid description of stars. One type of enargia.

It was my birthday—December 23rd. I had invited my 3 best friends over to celebrate with me, and most likely bring gifts. Everybody had an excuse for not coming. Bill told me he had to wash his dog. Barbara told me she had already promised to go out on a date with her latest flame. She was hoping to marry the guy, so I understood. Jeff told me that we weren’t really friends and he couldn’t imagine why the hell I would invite him to my birthday party. That hurt.

I was all alone, except for Sniffer my adoring dog. He was odd- looking. A cross between a basset hound and a greyhound, he was two feet tall and fifteen inches long. His one skill was jumping up in the air, which he would reprise every evening when I came from work at the peach cannery.

There were numerous dents in the ceiling from Sniffer hitting it when he jumped. With his long legs and light weight, his average jump was 8-10 feet straight up. It was amazing, but because of this I couldn’t take him out for a walk. He just stayed in my apartment and slept most of his days and nights away on his big blue pillow on the living room floor. It had his name embroidered on it. He loved it.

He barked as he hit the ceiling, and I dug a biscuit for him from out of the tin I kept in the kitchen. At least I wasn’t totally alone on my birthday.

I had baked a chocolate cake. I was going to eat the whole thing after I changed into my pajamas. It was a tough choice. I had three pairs of pajamas. One pair was light blue and were like long underwear. One pair had a black top and Black Watch plaid bottoms. One pair had black bottoms and a black top with Jon Bon Jovi’s smiling face on them. I chose my “Jovis” because they had a festive edge and reminded me of my birthplace: New Jersey. I pulled them on and headed for the kitchen to eat my cake.

As I passed the sliding glass doors in the living room, I looked outside. It was a new moon and it was really dark outside—except for the stars. The sky was loaded with stars—silver white twinkling shards of light—light streaming to Earth from 25 trillion miles away. A trillion is a lot for something to persist, the light seems almost immortal as it courses through the cosmos to come into view. The sparkling lights gave me a sense satisfaction, along with Sniffer, I felt ok alone on my birthday.

I continued on into the kitchen, put 36 candles my chocolate cake, and one dog biscuit. I lit the candles and blew them out, fed the dog biscuit to Sniffer, pulled the candles out of the cake and dug into its fudgy thickness thinking about my dog and the beautiful stars spread across the sky, like fiery holes poked by God in the shroud of darkness, to guide us and delight us.

Then, there was a knock on my door. I opened it and there stood my three best friends. They yelled “Surprise!” and took turns hugging me. I nearly cried.

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Asyndeton

Posted on October 27, 2026 | 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.]

I was big, tall, blond, and soaked in cologne. I was the perfect man. I smelled like a whorehouse in high gear.

This cologne had taken years to perfect: “Twilight of the Idols” named after Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous book. Its sweet odor smashes Christian morality with one whiff and surmounts rationality with four-wheel drive passions reaching almost straight up to night’s first twinkling stars. The nose, not reason, knows which way to go in the body’s quest for divine guidance in its nasal awakening to infinite wafting on one of my carefully prepared smells.

I had been in the smell business ever since I first smelled death in the Endless War, going on somewhere all time as a cornerstone of the human condition. Its stench put it on an even keel with all that is flesh, uniting all sentient beings in the One Big Stink, marking at once our demise and our unity as meat-laden creatures.

But I have discerned in my own experiments that even stench waxes and wanes if left to it’s own biodegradable devices—that there is a higher order of truth that is evident in decay: it has an end, a telos of transformation, an alternate incarnation—as “all flesh is grass.” So I added a note of sweetness to “Stinking Truth” to allow for truth’s transformation as a contingent smell, that may necessitate changing its name while it changes its odor, yet still retaining its generic status, which is not of it, but about it. In the cases of the nose and its sensing of odors: the nose sniffs and the mind names, and we all know, the name is not the thing. So we are stuck—all of our senses stick it to us with words. If we haven’t seen, smelled heard or tasted it ourselves, our words act as surrogates for passion giving us the linguistically fabricated illusion that we have “sensed” something other than a word or words chained by grammatical and logical conventions constituting different languages. English cats say “meow.” Japanese cats say “nyaa.” It’s onomatopoeia played to the tune of different languages.

I prepared an odor replicating putrefaction so the faint-hearted wouldn’t have to go to war, or go sniffing roadkills, to imbibe its shocking, yet enlightening, smell. It comes in a green bottle with a wick. I named it “Stinking Truth” to highlight the nose’s role in the quest for certainty, and its achievement of Its sensing in the unremitting stench of rotting flesh.

Anyway, if you’re “starting to smell something fishy,” you’re right. Like Shakespeare said (to paraphrase) “A rose by any other name would still smell like a rose.” Words comport with the world by convention. If we’re going to communicate with each other at all, we must use them and experience them together by sharing meanings for the noises they make together as tenants in the “house of language” (Hegel?)—an abode we build that may act as a fortress against brute experience and its projection like smoke rising from the remnants of a fire, it is both a symbol and a sign: a “sigbol” sorted one from the other by acts of interpretation, like the naming of a pet.

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Auxesis

Posted on October 26, 2026 | 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.

It was big, sizable, gigantic, humongous, gargantuan. It was my pimple of the week! What was worse, it was on the end of my nose. My nose was already too big—it was starting to look like a volcano ready to erupt.

I wouldn’t it let get to me. I put a bandaid over it to conceal it and went to school.

I was sitting in math class when it started dripping on my pop- quiz. I tried erase it, but it made a big hole in my paper when I rubbed it. What would I tell my teacher, Mr. Sine? I was on the verge of crying when a little red woman popped out of my bandaid. “You’re the only one who can see me” she said as she hopped down onto my desk. “I am the Scarlet Pimple-null. I vanquish pimples wherever they rear their pus-capped heads.”

Now I knew I shouldn’t have smoked that doobie on the way to school. Everything was catching up to with me—a pimple from hell, a little red imp, and now Mr. Sine was heading toward my desk.

“That thing smells Mr. Tweezit. Go the nurses office, now!” Scarlet laughed and straddled my nose like it was a horse. “I’m on my way!” I exclaimed, sounding dutifully aligned with Mr. Sine’s command. I looked cross-eyed at Scarlet. She was holding her nose and laughing. I asked her when she was going to get rid of “this thing” (referring to my pimple). She laughed and pointed. It was the school janitor Mr. Fignoocker. He said, “That thing on your nose smells. Let me give it a squirt of my all-purpose surface cleaner, and, by the way, who’re you talking to?” I told him “Nobody, and no thanks, I’m on my way to the nurse’s office.”

I got to her office. As I got ready to enter, Scarlet jumped down, and said “You don’t need me any more—the nurse will take care of you. Bye!” With that she vaporized in a cloud of red mist.

As I opened the door, there was Ms. Stooletti waiting for me. “Pull down your pants,” she said with a sparkle in her eyes. I pulled them down and she gave me a thorough examination. “Nothing amiss down there,” she said in a dreamy voice. I said, “It’s my nose. I have a gargantuan pimple under the bandage.” She tore off the bandage. The big red pimple was on the verge of erupting. She held up a gauze bandage between my pimple and her face. I erupted and splattered smelly goop on the bandage between us.

It was over.

Ms. Stooletti carefully folded the bandage and laid it on her desk, and then, wiped my nose off with a warm washcloth.

“What’s next?” I asked myself as I felt another pimple beginning to swell on my right ass cheek.

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Bdelygmia

Posted on October 25, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

“Hatred is the feeing I feel inside every time I look in your hollow eyes. ‘You cheated. You lied. You told me you loved me.’ What can I do but go ahead and dump you?“ I was practicing my break-up speech with Penny, my once true love.

Penny was worse than “Runaround Sue” my previous romantic blunder—Sue had literally run around with every guy in town. It took her six months to make the rounds, all the while going steady with me. She called me her “Little Teddy Bear” while all the while in reality I was her “Little Sucker Fish.” I finally gave her the boot when she cheated on me with my father. I squealed on Dad to Mom and set a trap for her. I bled out the brakes of her Ford Pinto. She didn’t even get out of the driveway when she had to stop and go back inside to retrieve her purse. When she went to stop and the brakes failed, she pulled the emergency brake and stopped right there. No harm done.

So, failing to kill her, I gave her my first break-up speech ever (she was my first girlfriend). I ended it with a poem: “Roses are red, violets are blue, I hate your guts, and I hate you too!” She told me to go fu*k myself and jumped in Mack Pleegy’s Merc. She yelled out the window, “We’re goin’ down by the river to do it. Why don’t you come down and watch us, loser butt?”

That was a bad breakup. She cared even less than I thought she did.

Now, I was thinking that my break-up with Penny had to be beyond mere words. I threw my speech away and went down to Big Al’s “Guns and Ammo” to possibly buy something to shoot Penny with. Everything was too expensive. I couldn’t even afford the single action, single shot, .22 caliber “Ptarmigan Plinker.”

I needed a cheap and easy way to wipe Penny off the face of the earth. God, did I hate her!

I settled on drowning her. It was early winter and the ice on Miller’s Pond was barely frozen over. I would take her there on the pretext of ice skating, push her out on the thin ice, and revel in her screams for help as she broke through and drowned.

I pushed her out onto the ice. She went about six inches and fell through. I had pushed hard so she had a lot of forward momentum. She fell forward and a slammed face down on the ice and broke through.

She stood up and faced me and started accusing me of attempted murder. She was right. I was screwed, so I picked up a big rock and hit over the head with it. The rock wasn’t big enough. It only made her bleed from her forehead. She started yelling for help. Now, some people came running from the adjacent jogging trail. I tried to run away, but they caught me.

I was convicted of attempted murder. I’m currently on house arrest. I had a great lawyer who vividly displayed what Penny had done to me that justified my attempt to murder her.

I have a job with Amazon now, keeping track of packages on the internet. I have a new girlfriend, Lorilai. She’s allowed to visit me. If I had to do it all over again, I’d have just given Penny the speech.

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Brachylogia

Posted on October 24, 2026 | 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.

“Dive, dive, dive.!” I wasn’t on a submarine, I was driving down Main Street, clocking the bars. “Dive, dive, dive!” I yelled out the window of my Subaru. Main Street looked like Potterville after Jimmy Stewart killed himself.

It was wild. People came from hundreds of miles around to partake of the depravity. I remembered the good old days when you could walk down Main Street and not be solicited five or six times, or offered grass or acid for sale. I was headed for “Stinky Al’s” to meet my wife and three kids for dinner. I walked in the door—my kids were out on the dance floor doing the cha-cha-cha. Little Timmy was only two and he was dancing up a storm. He was my favorite. He couldn’t speak yet. Maybe that’s why I liked him. The rest of the kids were a total pain in the ass—constantly talking back and asking for money.

My wife saw me a jumped off of Tom Kant’s lap. He had lipstick smeared on his cheek, and so did she. My wife assured me he was “just a friend” every time I caught them together. Once, they were both naked and “making the bed.” That was almost the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, but I “trust” my wife. I save a lot of anguish that way. I let it go.

We gathered around the table and my wife went to the ladies’ room to “freshen up.” Tom followed her, but I thought nothing of it. When she came back, I ordered for us all: “Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke, fries, fries, fries, fries, fries,” the waitress replied, “Ok, five cheeseburgers, five cokes, and five fries.” This was our fun little gambit. The waitress followed through, so I would leave her a tip. I was a ten-percenter, so she would do just about anything I told her to do. I told her to skip to the kitchen to place our order. She complied. We all laughed.

The burgers were the size of silver dollars, the Coke flat, the fries soggy. Ketchup didn’t help. I paid the fifty dollar tab and left a five dollar tip. My wife helped me with the math.

We rode home up Main Street: “Dive, dive, dive!” I yelled out the window of the Subaru as we passed the sin-holes lining the street and the hookers leaning on cars and beckoning as we drove by. The street was lit up with neon—there were drunks lying in the gutters like they belonged there. My wife told me to stop the car—she said she would walk home because she needed the exercise. I saw Tom waiting under a street light. Me and the three kids rode home without her. Me and my kids, Jessica and Wally, sang “Wheels on the Bus” while little Timmy clapped his hands.

When we got home, the two oldest left to “go out” with their friends. Me and Little Timmy sat silently on the couch. I wondered what he was thinking. Suddenly, he jumped off the couch and yelled “Cha, cha, cha!”

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Cacozelia

Posted on October 23, 2026 | 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.

Je ne sais quoi drifted across the room. There was a nonsequitor hovering over the place like a mist straddling our meeting, like at any minute I would be yelling et tu, Brute into the fierce-looking faces of the people, where the vox populum was crying out for my resignation from the Workshire City Council.

There were complaints directed like slings and arrows toward my coherence—the citizens’ weak minds couldn’t climb the cliffs of glory looming hermeneutically in the waysides of their little shrunken crania. When I spoke they wretched and cowered.

I often wondered why this unwashed hoi polloi voted for me. I am so far above them. Surely it was the tantalizing stylings I made through the oral fog blowing from my face.

I was clear about my promises because I knew they were the rungs on the ladder I would climb to the apex of their hopes and acme of their dreams—spanning the alpha and omega of their feeble little desires.

I promised them:

  1. $5,000
  2. Lower taxes
  3. Free health insurance
  4. New shoes
  5. Handgun permits
  6. Pardons for them and their relatives and friends
  7. Free harmonica lessons
  8. Free beer
  9. E-Z passes
  10. Goats

This was my ten-point “plan.”

The fools want me to keep my campaign promises, but alas, “All the world’s a stage” and it’s just one big act. C’est la vie Workshire. My bags are packed. My motor’s running. The loot’s in the trunk. Catch me if you can!

POSTSCRIPT

They chased him, they caught him, they tried him, they convicted him. He had stolen the mayor’s regalia and mace, a silver punch bowl, a laptop computer, a set of police walkie-talkie-talkies, and a painting of “Big Al,” Workshire’s first mayor.

Voila!

He is currently serving a six-month sentence in a très inconfortable cell.

Que sera sera Councilman Rousseau.

You canis sordidus. You dirty dog!

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Catachresis

Posted on October 22, 2026 | 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.

I was living the high life; caviar for breakfast, caviar for lunch, pickled herring for dinner. My mouth smelled like a Bangkok fish market at high noon. But, I was living the high life—high like a pizza pie up in the sky—it was amore all the way. It didn’t have to hit me in the eye to tell me I was rich.

I smeared some caviar on my face and dumped some of the herring’s wine vinegar on my head. Since I had won the lotto, I could pretty much do and say what I wanted to do and say. I was like a convertible with its top down in the rain, a Carolina Wren sitting on a barbed wire fence, a boil about to be lanced. I didn’t care, but I wanted to care.

I went on line to dating site titled “Mister Bates.” it costs $6,000 per date on line. Delivered to your doorstep, your “date” was $10.000. It was a ripoff, but I had enough money to pay off the national debt: I had won the “Yogi Berra Lotto.” You had to squat-to-play. But, if you won, you won “untold wealth” promising that you’d make no more “wrong mistakes.”

My $10,000 option was knocking on my door like a woodpecker in heat. I opened the door and she hit me in the nose with her next knock. My nose was bleeding like a broken dishwasher—leaking all over my caviar stained Tarzan bathrobe that I had just purchased at the Salvation Army Gift Store out on Rte. 10, near the Ledgewood Circle.

I suddenly stopped bleeding and got a good look at her. I would’ve paid $30,000 for what I saw. I was a sucker, but I didn’t care. I had enough money to buy New Jersey and replace the Parkway, all in one shot. I called my friend, Father Thouthiney. I wanted to get married. My $10,000 dollar woman was named Whimsy—and wow—was she whimsical—she was like a little ant dancing on the head of a nail. Don’t get me wrong—she is full size, just right, like Goldilocks’s third tries. We got married ( Father Thouthiney brought a notary with him).

I have no friends, so the four of us pulled up to the dining room table and feasted on caviar and herring, spread on, and wrapped in, Wonder Bread. We washed it all down with Yoo Hoo, chanting “Me-hee for Yoo Hoo!”

It was and will be bliss. Tons of money make the future as bright as a search light showing the way to San Jose at 2:00a.m.

So what if I’m as shallow as a puddle, or as tasteless as oxygen, or as thoughtful as a clam, or as sensitive as a sloth? I’m batting 1.000 in the game of life & nothing else matters.

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Catacosmesis

Posted on October 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

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

My life is a giant ingot of lead—heavy to bed, heavy to rise. I’m unhealthy, unwealthy, and unwise.

It’s all about Little Debbie.

I stuff my face night and day and day and night, with her sumptuous goodies. Raspberry nougat blueberry swirl fingers are my own true love. I lick my fingers and go back for more.

Coconut pecan fudgies are mana from heaven. I eat two per day.

Bubblegum-flavored cupcakes topped with licorice twists turn me into a feral version of myself. I snoffle loudly as I stuff two or three in my face at a tme. Mmmmm,

Marshmallow Saskatoon-berry tarts are the end of the rainbow. I flip them like coins into my mouth and consume a minimum of ten per sitting. Yummm.

Then, there’s maple peppermint garlic pies. They are bite-sized and they shine in the sunlight bathing my kitchen counter. I put them in the microwave for 30 seconds and their luscious smell fills house. As I eat them I blow into a paper bag to reap the full measure of their Italiano-ethos. I put vowels on the ends of words for at least an hour after I’ve eaten them. Itsa’ gooda’ stuff!

The most insane Little Debbie snack food is chocolate-dipped masago—a kind of salmon egg sushi. It proves the saying “Everything goes with chocolate.” I pour them in a cereal bowl, and sprinkle on a little salt, add a cup of whipping cream, and go to town. The little balls pop in my mouth mixing their fishy flavor with their Peruvian dark chocolate coating. Oishii! Wow!

Some people say that Little Debby is an extraterrestrial, landed in the Catskills in the 1930s I am a proponent of this theory. I believe she is still alive and continues to churn out her “cosmic” snacks somewhere in the mountains. She has disguised herself as an adolescent to throw the scent off of her ancient outer-space origins.

Some people say it was she who yelled “Let them eat cake” at starving French peasants back in the 18th century. We’ll never know.

I don’t care where she comes from, or how old she is. Today, tomorrow, and forever, she’ll be my “Little Debbie”—the most creative purveyor of unhealthy snack foods in the cosmos and my main course on the way to cardiac arrest.

Mon amour!


							

	
			

				
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Cataphasis


			

				Posted on October 20, 2026 | 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.










It was frayed, stained and had a hole it in it. Ir smelled like sour cream, and it was stiff in places. But it was my blanky. My partner in life. My consolation in a cold and brutal world. I spread it out over my comforter    every night, for extra comfort and peaceful sleep.





I was 32 and I cherished blanky. I had joined a blanky support group for people like me. There were five of us. The oldest was 63. His name was Herman Mellon and he had named his blanky Millicent and he carried her everywhere in a briefcase so they would never be apart. No matter where he was, he’d find a rest room and air her out by snapping her in front him and then carefully folding her and placing her back in his briefcase.





Then, there was Betty Fielding who had made her blanky Herman into a turban—Herman the Turban. She called herself the Mystic Genie and told fortunes in a little booth on the boardwalk down by the beach, Her blanky turban was her “swami hat” and added to her credibility without revealing her blanky fixation. 





Mel Bordon was a long-haul truck driver, He had cut a hole for his head in the middle his blanky. He called his blanky “Poncho” and wore it like a poncho on his x-country jaunts, stopping for Mexican food at his favorite places on his route. His poncho doubled as a bib and was stained with chile and guacamole, but he loved its feeling around his neck—making him feel safe like a little baby in his truck cab crib. 





Barbra has fashioned her blanky into a chic skirt. She has it dry cleaned once a week. It is pink with little blue teddy bears blowing trumpets printed on it. It was very cool looking and she was frequently complimented on it, but little did anybody know, when it was at the dry cleaners, she cried herself to sleep at night—even a warm ba-ba was no help. But, she respected her blanky’s need to be clean, sacrificing her own comfort for her blanky’s.





At our meeting we would share our latest blanky adventures. My stories were the most boring. I mostly shared my dreams I had when I was all tucked in with Blanky, which was what I boringly called him. Last night, we dreamt we were away in a manger and Blanky was covering baby Jesus and keeping him warm. I was baby Jesus and I blessed Blanky for his charitable gesture. 





Mel had misplaced his briefcase with Millicent in it  and considered committing suicide. Luckily, he had found it. He was ready to stick his hand in the garbage disposal when he saw his briefcase’s reflection in his kitchen window, sitting right there on the kitchen table. He thought that he was losing his mind until he opened his briefcase and gave his Blanky a rubdown. Then, all was forgotten. 





The rest of the group had equally compelling stories to tell, but it’s my bedtime and my Blanky is waiting to usher me into beddy-bye for nighty-night-night. I take a deep sniff and begin to go sleepy. I’m hoping to finish my dream tonight about me winning the lotto and starting a blanky farm in New Hampshire.

							

	
			

				
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Cataplexis


			

				Posted on October 19, 2026 | Leave a comment
			


				

				

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










I was looking everywhere for my pipe tobacco. I know I had left it on the table by my chair. I loved it. It was just about the only thing I had in my life left to love. It was named “Weasel’s Well Blend.” it came from Kentucky where it was manufactured and cultivated on a prison farm. Given it was subsidized by government money, it was really cheap. At $4.00 per pound it put all other pipe tobacco to shame, for example, an ounce of “Cherry Blend” was $9.00 at Cliff’s. Weasel’s Well tasted and smelled like weasel’s butt, but I could afford it. I would just sit most days, profoundly retired, in my “electric” chair, reclined at 45 degrees, watching Fox News, and huffing away. 





My wife hated the pipe and was my number one candidate for having stolen my Weasel’s Well. 





She walked into the living room and I fired away: “If you took my pipe tobacco you might as well kiss your ass goodbye. I will quit sharin’ my Social Security check with you and put you out on the street where you belong. Damn you anyhow!” She responded, “You’re the only weasel around here I have anything to do with. If I was going to steal anything it’d be that disgusting piece of wood you call a pipe. Why don’t you clean that thing and start smokin’ Cherry Blend. Milly’s husband smokes it and their whole house smells as sweet as a cherry pie fresh out of the oven.” 





I thought to myself “Here we go with the damn Cherry Blend again.” I said, “I’m gonna’ close my eyes and count to 15. If my tobacco I ain’t right here on this table when I open my eyes, I ‘m gonna do something drastic, goddamnit!” When I opened my eyes she was standing there with some big guy dressed like a biker. She said, “This is ‘smacker’ Whitlow and he’s gonna beat the shit out of you if you don’t clean that dirty old root of a pipe and take up smokin’ Cherry Blend!” I was shocked.  





I got out my pipe cleaning tools. I reamed out the pipe stem and soaked the pipe in “Honey Drop Bowl Sweetener.” Now, I’m goin’ broke on pipe tobacco and the house smells like cherries. I’ve had to back off on my gin intake to afford my new tobacco. Now that I’ve backed off on the gin, Fox News has started sounding more and more like total bullshit. I miss the good old days, but staying out of the hospital keeps me on the “right” track.

							

	
			

				
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Charientismus


			

				Posted on October 18, 2026 | Leave a comment
			


				

				

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










“Hey Baloney Face, how’s your little weasel hangin’?” Baloney Face answered with a smile “A little to the left, but that’s all right. It’s Saturday night tonight. I’ll get it straightened out for sure after the Halloween Dance. At least I have somethin’ hangin’.” We caught up with Baloney Face, or BF. We were headed for Little League practice,





BF got his nickname from his love of baloney. He carried slices of baloney and Kraft singles in a thermal lunch box. He would roll the baloney and cheese together into cylinders like cigars. Then he’d stick it in the cigar holder he got from his grandfather, making a “balonagar” that he would “smoke” for a couple of hours & then eat. 





We figured he was a little crazy, but it seemed like everybody in our little group was a little crazy. I collected my boogers and fed them to my cat. Eddie had a scab collection and Billy enjoyed sniffing his dirty socks. As friends we were united by our weirdness, and the fact the were more less outcasts. 





Anyway, we were walking down the street and spied Nick Ruggles, or “Bully” Ruggles coming toward us. He yelled at Baloney Face, “Why don’t make yourself into a sandwich and cut yourself in half.” I yelled back “Why don’t you go back to your sandbox and play with the cat shit?” I was pretty good with the comebacks. We bolted across the street, and tore toward the baseball field. This time he didn’t chase us. 





Baloney Face pulled his “balonagar” from his mouth and said “I hate that guy. I hope be burns in hell.” We all nodded in assent and continued our trek to baseball practice. Bully wouldn’t be there. He only had one hand.











							

	
			

				
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Chiasmus


			

				Posted on October 17, 2026 | 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).










We are friends—pals are us! We had known each other forever. We met in college, married two sisters and started a small business. We made electric dog washers. For our patent, we adapted a treadmill to dog-washing. The treadmill was surrounded by nozzles that alternately sprayed soap and warm water, and at the end of the cycle, blow dryed the dog. The water came from a hose hooked up to the nozzles.





We manufactured them in five sizes—mini to jumbo. An added bonus was the exercise your dog got while taking a bath. Some people used them for their miniature horses and burros. We named the pet washers “Tread Baths “ and eventually had franchises throughout the United States. Our work, at this point, consisted of overseeing manufacturing and opening envelopes and depositing checks. The franchises did not include repairs and maintenance —that was the customers’ responsibility.





We would tour sites to make sure they were projecting the right image. We had a “collector” named Lumbo who took care of customers who missed more than two payments. Lumbo was a former “fixer” for the mob. He was so scary, usually one visit yielded back payments. He wore brass knuckles on both hands and asked customers if they would like to write a check from a hospital bed. He was incredibly effective as a collector. We paid him half of what he collected. It worked well for everybody but the customers in arrears. In some cases he would repossess the custumer’s tread bath. He and his partner Fredo would load it in the van and drive it home. Frequently, customers would be “injured” helping to load the van.





We’re currently working on a new project. It’s a combination microwave oven and phone, iPad, lalaptop charging station. The charging station is built into the microwave, framing it on one sides with cellphone holsters, and on top with a laptop dock, and on the bottom with an iPad dock The item being charged plugs in via the holster or dock. We’ve been beta-testing the product for six months and it looks like a go! We’re calling it the “The Cook ‘n Dock,” not too clever, but fairly explanatory. Just think—no more tangled wires or overused outlets. Just plug in while you’re cooking that frozen dinner and you’ll be up to 60% while you’re on your third glass of wine.





The Cook ‘n Dock will be manufactured in Greenland and retail for $395.95.






							

	
			

				
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Chronographia


			

				Posted on October 16, 2026 | 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.










“The frost is on the pumpkin. The hay is in the barn.”





It was time to start thinking about Halloween. As usual, I was anguishing over what to wear as a costume. Last year, I went trick or treating as Felix the Cat, a cartoon character from the 1930s. I make my own costumes, instead of wearing one of those fire traps from Spencer’s Gifts. I wore black leotards, my black turtleneck, my black wingtips, and a black balaclava. I carried a pillowcase. My tail was one of those things they sell in Vermont Country Store catalogue—you stuff it in the crack between your door and the floor to stop the draft from coming in. To emphasize that I was a cat, I carried a catnip mouse toy in addition to the pillowcase.





Even though it was Halloween, I was arrested and booked on suspicion of burglary. My pillowcase was empty, so they had nothing on me, except the fact that I was a 32 year old man trick or treating like I was a kid. I couldn’t help it. Halloween had its hold on me since I was 7 years old and made the rounds for the fist time holding my mother’s hand. I was dressed as a hobo, and it was the only time in my life that she afforded me a modicum of human affection. She took me out that Halloween on the condition we split the candy I collected 50-50. It was a small price to pay for my mother’s touch. That was the first and only Halloween we spent together. In subsequent years, my sister took me out and she, like my Mom, charged me half the candy I collected.





This year, I was taking no chances. After hours of anguishing, I decided I was going out as a farmer wearing overhauls and a straw hat, a red plaid shirt, and big rubber boots. I was carrying a pillowcase and an old pitchfork I found in my garage.





The first house I went to was the last house I’ll ever go to. I rang the bell, the door opened and a huge growling dog came running at me. I lowered my pitchfork and impaled the dog. The dog squirmed around, whined a little, and died a cruel death. The owner grabbed my pitchfork and lunged at me yelling “Murderer!” I turned around to run and he stabbed me in the ass. I ran down the sidewalk with the pitchfork hanging out of my ass and passed out bleeding profusely. Somebody called an ambulance and I was transported to the hospital. It took 60 stitches to close my wounds.





I paid a $200 fine for “animal cruelty.” My assailant was not charged, and purchased a new giant dog to terrorize visitors.





As sad as it is, I’m swearing off Halloween forever. Instead, I’m going to dress up like a turkey and march in the Thanksgiving Day parade. “Gobble, gobble, gobble!”






							

	
			

				
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Climax


			

				Posted on October 15, 2026 | 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.” I said this every morning, first thing when I woke up from dream world. As I returned to the boring terrain of everyday life, I lamented the fact that I was awake. Reality was always a disappointment. 





I got up. I put on my robe. I put on my slippers. I put on the kettle. I tried to put on a smile. I couldn’t. I grimaced and the the tea leaked out the corners of my mouth. Just like every other day I choked, and choked, and choked and started drooling. I wanted to go back to sleep, to dream, and that’s just what I did.





I was soothed as I drifted off, hopefully for the rest of the morning. I could be late to work. Nobody noticed my presence or absence at Carl’s Automatic Knives. We made and sold switchblades from 1/4“ scratchers to 1’ long “Switch Swords” designed solely for stabbing and maiming fellow humans. 





Carl had a scar across his forehead and down to his chin. He “won” it in a duel when he was in high school in Newark, New Jersey where everybody carried a knife and you weren’t considered “cool” unless you had a knife-cut scar somewhere on your body. There were two or three duels at lunchtime every day. Students and faculty would bet on outcomes, and a select group of students would act as bookies as special projects for their math classes. Carl received his scar from William  “The  Valkyrie” Watt school “Slashatorian.”  Carl was no match for William and their duel was ended when William carved a “V” on Carl’s chest to complement what became Carl’s facial scar.





Anyway, I was falling asleep—back to dream world. I felt like Roy Orbison, but I wasn’t in a romantic stupor. I was a dragster driver. It was “Sundaaay!” at Raceway Park! I was driving a dragster powered by a diesel train engine. I’d been clocked 300 mph crossing the finish line. I was here on this beautiful sunny day to break my own record. The dragster held a tank-load of jet fuel. I was shooting for 310 mph.





Jet fuel is dangerous. I could be killed if my train engine exploded from the jet fuel. My mechanic, One Hand Dave, assured me he made all the right adjustments. I was ready to go. My mechanic held a lit Benz-O-Matic torch over the engine’s specially adapted blower. I put the pedal to the metal when the light tree hit green. The was a deafening roar as I launched down the track. When I reached the end of the track, the engine blew, and I hit the ejection button and parachuted to safety.





I had hit 322 mph, better than I expected. I rode back to the starting line in the track’s convertible Chevy. I was swarmed by beautiful women. 





I woke up a little disappointed that I didn’t have a “romantic interlude” in my dream, but I was feeling really good. I got up, got dressed, and got to work in time for lunch.






							

	
			

				
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Coenotes


			

				Posted on October 14, 2026 | 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 know it’s going to happen again. I’m sitting in my leather upholstered recliner watching “Red Green” reruns. I’m on episode 138. Red is working on his chainsaw engine in his barn. Suddenly he is surrounded by rats—a seething horde of rodents corner him in an empty horse stall. I doze off and begin my nightly nightmare. In my nightmare Red has hired Scattie Mac Scotty. He’s the local rat catcher who seduces rats with his bagpipe stylings. I see myself joined with the rat pack, following Scattie as he plays “Don’t Fear the Reaper” loud and clear on his bagpipes. I’m following the pack, seduced by Blue Oyster Cult’s greatest hit. We are winding our way up Bluebird Hill’s dirt road, which ends in a sheer 600 foot drop onto the rock-strewn beach below. As we near the crest of the hill, I feel myself giving up my struggle to live as I near the cliff. I look down and step over the edge. I’m falling. I wake up. I’m on the floor It’s another goddamn nightmare.





I know it’s going to happen again. I dread going back to sleep. But, I must get some sleep. I drink a half-bottle of Scotch to pave the way. In a drunken haze I drift off to sleep in my twin bed. I’m standing in line at a ticket window in a crowded London train station. I’m wearing a kilt and I’m confused. I can’t remember where I’m going. I ask the man in front of me. He says “How the bloody hell do you expect me to know?” He was right, although I found the image of “bloody hell” quite disturbing. It’s my turn at the ticket window. I ask the cashier where I’m going. She says, “From the looks of you, it’s Inverness, but I get off work in an hour and we can head for my place.” I thanked her for the invitation and bought a ticket to Inverness. I knew I could get some good Scotch, sweaters, and a new dirk to go with my wardrobe’s Celtic ensemble. I boarded my train. Suddenly it turned into a small rowboat being pursued by the Loch Ness Monster. I was rowing like mad. Just as he was going to eat me, I woke up. I’m on the floor. It’s another goddamned nightmare.





This can’t go on. I join “Nightmares Anonymous (NA).” We sit in a circle and talk about our nightmares. Hearing about others’ nightmares gives me new nightmares that scare the crap out of me. But, for some reason I can’t quit NA. I am focused on the woman across from me. She is a cashier at Grand Central Station. Tomorrow, I’m going to buy a ticket from her at her window. I’ll pretend I don’t know where I’m going, and I’ll ask her.





POSTSCRIPT





He followed through on his plan at Grand Central Station and asked the woman where he was going. She told him “You can go to Newark, or come over to my place when I get off work at five. Here’s the address.” She handed him a slip of paper with her address written on it. To a certain extent, it was a dream come true.
















							

	
			

				
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Colon


			

				Posted on October 13, 2026 | 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 was going over there again. I was going over to her apartment. I loved her. She did not love me. So here I was.  A one-man delegation looking for love. She fancied herself “the minister”  of love who would eventually yield to my entreaties. She actually told me this. I thought she was crazy, but I loved her. 





She saw me there as a representative of the Kingdom of Love to woo her, and eventually obtain her compliance. Specifically, I was at her apartment representing the Ministry of  First Base’s interest. I was trying to kiss her. 





It was impossible. When I got close enough to make a smootchie, she would abruptly stand up and walk across the room seductively. I followed her and sat alongside her again, touching shoulders. When I went in for the smootchie, she abruptly stood up and walked across the room again. I tried this six or seven times and struck out each time. I slipped out my smart phone and looked up a riddle for affection on Google. I figured that would get things moving in my direction. This is what I found: 





I’m a nine-letter word and rhyme with perfection,
I am yet another name for love. What am I?





She instantly knew the answer: Affection. Maybe the riddle was too easy, but her quick answer revealed to me that she knew what affection is, or at least knew one of the many names for love. 





At that, I sat by her again. I was feeling confident that my “delegation” was getting represented. I leaned over to kiss her and she didn’t move, our lips met & my duty was done. A first kiss planted firmly like a victory banner on her mouth. 





Now, it was time to take on my corollary duties as the “Ambassador of Second Base.” This was a much more tricky move, but I had trained for it with Mary Sledgewhap, who I had gone all the way with last summer. She led the way. She took me around the bases so fast, I hardly had a chance to make my plays. In fact, I had hit a home run and wantonly ran the bases, reaching Home Plate like a Major League Champ. 





Here I was again, this time with “Her Ladyship “ Betty Long. She slapped my hand and told me to go home. My delegation had temporarily failed. We made a date for the next night. 






							

	
			

				
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Commoratio


			

				Posted on October 12, 2026 | Leave a comment
			


				

				

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










“Where’d that boy go?” Grandma asked. Grandpa answered, “Behind the goddamn couch.” “No way,” said Grandma, “He’s in the goddamn hall closet.” “No,” said Grandpa, “He’s behind the damn couch.” Grandma said, “Gran’pa, he ain’t behind the couch. He’s in the friggin’ closet.” Grandpa: “Behind the couch.” Grandma “In the closet.” “Damn you old lady,” said Grandpa, “He’s behind the couch.” “Closet.” “Couch.” “Closet.” “Couch!” They started yelling back and forth, repeating what counted for each of them as their strongest argument—which was an assertion with no backing or proof.





They were at an impasse. Their daily game of hide and seek played itself out as usual—arguing over where I was hiding. For Grandma, I was always in the closet. For Grandpa, I was always behind the couch. They were always both wrong, just repeating their “sole arguments” over and over as if they really believed them. One time Grandpa went so far as to assert that he saw me duck behind the couch when Grandma wasn’t looking. Grandma would do likewise, saying Grandpa wasn’t looking when I slipped into the closet. Neither of them would get out of their loungers to go and see if the other was right. But, that was it. Repitition was their dominant gambit.





They were “armchair” hide and seek players—the “seek” aspect was limited to them yelling at each other from their chairs.





As always, they were both wrong. They just liked yelling at each other from their chairs. Their marriage was a life-long shouting match, with no end in sight. It was complicated by the fact they were both hard of hearing and never wore their hearing aids, except on Thanksgiving when the whole family gathered. In the meantime, I visited for the weekly hide and seek game. I was always the designated “hider.” I always hid where I’m hiding now: under the dining room table. They both knew I was hiding there, but they pretended they didn’t to make the game “more exciting.” 





They were starting to get hoarse from yelling at each other, so it was time for me to come out of hiding. My grandparents saw me crawling out from under the table. I stood up and they both acted surprised. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” Grandpa yelled, appearing to be startled. Grandma said, “We’ll, I’m flabbergasted. I never imagined that!” “You know damn well you did!” Grandpa yelled. “Shut up you drooling old coot!” “Over my dead body.” Growled Grandpa, and the yelling match was on. It’s what kept them together through all of their life’s changing scenarios. 





For them, each insult was an avowal love. For them, love was a fifty-year-long yelling match, and I was privileged to play a role, hiding under the dining room table once a week. 

							

	
			

				
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Comparatio


			

				Posted on October 11, 2026 | 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.










He was like a pierced ear on a dog. He was like a blank yardstick. He was like a bowling ball with no finger holes. He was like a trailer hitch on the side of a car. He was like an empty tub. He was like a cow without it moo. He was like a frog with no legs. He was like a store with empty shelves.





As hard as I tried I couldn’t make an apt comparison for Albert Loney. But that didn’t stop me. I was a comparaphilliac.





Albert Loney was like a poopless fly. He was like a shoe without a sole. He was like moldy cheese. He was like a raccoon in my garbage can. He was like the crud growing on my earlobe. He was like the wind blowing in my window. He was like rising water. He was like a dirty dove—that’s it: dirty dove!





When he talked Loney had a tone to his voice like a cooing dove—especially when he said “coooool coooool” after he saw or heard something he liked. On the surface he was unkempt—gravy stains grace his shirt front. His fingernails were filthy. His shoes were scuffed. His hair was tangled and unkept—but he was generous, kind, and loving. In short, he was a dirty dove.





People started calling him DD: (Dirty Dove), and it stuck. DD has more friends now. He has actually become a “Snow White Dove.” He wears all white. He bleached his hair all white, with a little white goatee. He looks like a holy Colonel Sanders. He looks like an elderly Frank Zappa in a tropical suit. He looks like a hospital orderly. He looks like “The Good Humor Man.” He looks like a lab technician ready to test a pile of chips.





I feel like a fatherless son. I can’t stop making comparisons. It’s like I’m in the Twilight Zone. It’s like I’m lost in a maze. Nothing is what it is. I feel like I need help. Like I’ve lost my grip. Like me is like somebody else that I don’t want to be, like me. I am a comparaphilliac.





POSTSCRIPT





The author of this piece suffered a nervous breakdown. He was placed in “Wilted Rose Sanatorium” where he lived like a worm in loam. Like writing a bestselling tome. Like polishing a dome. Like reading a gnome. Knowing he would never be cured of his comparaphillia, he said “My disease is like a prison of my own making, like my second marriage, . . .”






							

	
			

				
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Comprobatio


			

				Posted on October 10, 2026 | Leave a comment
			


				

				

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










It was time to celebrate our bath-rite. We gathered to hear the annual celebratory speech by the Filthy Hermit. We took a bath once a year to celebrate out cult’s ability to stand together when we all stank—from feces to cod-liver oil, which we drank by the quart to keep our vitamin D deficiency in check. We piled our clothing in a pile, took a group bath in the Big Lagoon, and burned our clothing and went naked to Salvation Army for new clothing. Our public nudity was tolerated because we lived in a a Nordic country where tolerance is a key virtue. As long as we were hasty in picking out and putting on our fresh clothing we were tolerated.





Once dressed we would parade trough the city streets, back to the field and the smoking embers of our former clothes, symbolizing our rebirth as “clean” people which would last about a month as our garments began their evolution into filth and the clean/dirty cycle would complete itself after a year’s wear.





Duly assembled we waited for Filthy Hermit’s speech from the sacred mound—a pile of refuse over 1,000 years old. Filthy Hermit never bathed. He had a ring of dirt around neck and the single rag he wore to conceal his penis was covered with lichens and saturated by some king of scum that smelled like rancid animal fat.










The Filthy Hermit spoke:





“I commend you cleanly clothed compatriots. You have bone the filth of the world to arrive here as a faithful mass—a beautiful mass of faithful suppliants seeking well-earned praise as you leave today to begin your dirty pilgrimage from here and back again next year, nobly ye shall follow the footprints of our forebears. Ye shall go forth and wallow in the filth of the world. You are deserving of my blessing. I bless thee one and all. Amen”










We all felt blessed. We all had survived another year. We rejoiced as we headed home, crawling in the dirt, rolling in dog poop, sticking our heads in trash cans, stopping for a burger and dripping grease and ketchup on our garments . . .






							

	
			

				
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Conduplicatio


			

				Posted on October 9, 2026 | 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.










“Baby, baby, baby, I’ll never change you, baby.” Stung Blanchard





It was post World War Two. Baby’s were being born left and right, and down the middle. It was referred to as a “baby boom” and the babies were called the “baby boomer generation.” 





Given the times it was only natural that “baby” would become a general term of endearment and desire. In 1948 Stung Blanchard was the first composer to popularize “baby” to figuratively bear the weight of affection for a loved one who would be thought of as a “baby” demanding coddling, and hugging—all the behaviors of innocent love and affection, and, referring mostly to women, the aura of helplessness demanding protection from the woes of the world, fitting perfectly with the “breadwinner syndrome” operative for men of the late 40s through the early 60s.





Blanchard’s “baby” caught on and became a standard for the emergent rock n roll music. Virtually all love songs of the time were centered on “babies,” almost as if there were no other apt images with a poetic turn that could substitute for “girl.” Girl was actually frequently used, but it was less effective and much less frequently invoked than “baby” which was more resonant with the zeitgeist.





After his smashing success with “baby,” Blanchard tried to branch out. He opened a burger franchise called “Baby Burgers.” He sold small bags of “baby burgers,” little burgers the size of a silver dollar. The business failed when the rumor spread that the burgers were made from ground up babies. Blanchard was actually arrested and investigated for buying and grinding up babies for his burgers. He was vindicated and went back to writing baby-themed love songs. He struck it rich with “Baby on my Lap” a haunting ballad about an elderly man who has trouble getting off the couch and finds love just sitting there. It won a Grammy Award and catapulted Blanchard into the land of fame and fortune as “Baby Man.” Right around then, “baby” became a catch phrase in everyday speech, as in “Go baby!”





In his twilight years in the “Slow Goin’ Nursing Home,” Blanchard carried a baby rattle and shook it whenever he needed something. For example, three shakes was a request to fill his sippy cup. 





He died quietly with his rattle by his side. They played a medley of “baby “ songs at his funeral. Even though it was too late, they played “Baby Please Don’t Go,” and everybody cried.






							

	
			

				
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