Tag Archives: rhetoric

Hyperbaton

Posted on March 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

Hyperbaton (hy-per’-ba-ton): 1. An inversion of normal word order. A generic term for a variety of figures involving transposition, it is sometimes synonymous with anastrophe. 2. Adding a word or thought to a sentence that is already semantically complete, thus drawing emphasis to the addition.

I was worried—REALLY worried: panicking. My carnivorous goat had escaped and was trying to eat peole all around northern Pennsylvania.

I am a genius. But, I admit, I’m a little off the mark. I had graduated with Honors from the Frankenstein School of Genetic Engiheering. The school’s motto was “It’s Alive!“ (Et Vivit). The school’s mission was ”To train mentally unbalanced young geniuses to produce mutants of all kinds to make the world more interesting and dangerous.” I was attracted to the word “dangerous” in the mission statement. As a child, I had been brought up in the lap of luxury—never a worry, never a care. Our family had infinite wealth. Just to stay busy, my father watched TV all day. He could recite all of the ads and sing all the shows’ theme songs. The “Green Acres” theme song was his favorite. He hired a country western band to back him up when he sang it. Was headed by Tennessee Ernie Ford.

Anyway, my doctoral project at Frankenstein School of Genetics was “Attack Butterfly and Squirrel Extermination.” I developed a butterfly that disguises itself as an acorn and poisons a squittel when it picked up the faux acorn. The “Pixie dust” on the butterfly’s wings is genetically modified to be fatal to the touch by small mammals. Humans become seriously ill, vomiting and produce flatulence almost constantly for one week. Look but don’t touch, Ha ha. I graduated with highest honors and moved to Pennsylvania

The carnivorous goat became my obsession, eventually I crossbred a goat and raccoon. The raccoon’s propensity for rummaging through garbage was a perfect match to the Goat’s fondness for tin cans. However, I could not have predicted how viscous the Racgoat would be, and how pronounced its appetite for bloody meat would be. The Racgoat has nearly wiped out northern Pennsylvania’s Cottontail Rabbit population. I don’t think anybody cares. After all, what good are rabbits? Also, currently there is only one Racgoat wreaking have in Northern Pennsylvania. The others were dispatched in their cages before they could escape. However, it has been reported that the remaining Racgoat has grown to the size of a dinosaur, and can only be dispatched by a military tank, a flame thrower, a drone, or field artillery.

I am quite pleased that things are developing into a sort of B Grade 1950s science fiction movie, like “Gorgo.” I have already been contacted by Taylor Swift’s agent to make her movie debut in “Racgoat.” The crisis isn’t over yet. Today, the Racgoat invaded a daycare center and nearly succeeded in eating the children. The monster was repelled when a firefighter kept yelling “Baaaa baaaad!”

I just got word the Racgoat is headed for Philadelphia, absorbing all the armaments the US has to throw at it. Oh well, at least he can’t fly. People will be able to evacuate well-before the he gets to Philadelphia.

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

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Hypozeuxis

Posted on March 13, 2024 | Leave a comment

Hypozeuxis (hyp-o-zook’-sis): Opposite of zeugma. Every clause has its own verb.

I went to the supermarket. There was shopping to be done. I saw a candy bar on the floor. It was a Wonker Bar. With the special silver coupon, it could be worth millions! I picked it up and put it in my backpack. A whooping siren like a car alarm went off and I was surrounded by security Guards. “You took the bait, big shot! It was “Whammy” Bontern who I had gone to high school with. He dropped out in our sophomore year and tried to become a policeman, but couldn’t pass the intelligence test—division did him in, as did his police record. He had stolen a bicycle and held it for ransom—for ten dollars. He was caught when he agreed to meet his victim in the park for the exchange of the ransom money for the bike. He was arrested when he rode up with a balaclava on this head. It was a scandal because Whammy’s mother was mayor. Whammy was sent to reeducation camp for 2 weeks. When he returned, he was hired as a security guard in the grocery store.

I had gone to college and gotten a degree in restaurant management. I opened a place called “Eats.” It was informal. We specialized in unhealthy food and drew customers from 100s of miles around, even from Canada. Most of our customers were overweight and smoked. Of course, Whammy hatred me because I had gone to college and had my own business, while he hadn’t progressed in the past ten years. I told him and the other goons that I was going to turn the Wonker Bar in when I cashed out & maybe even pay for it. They were convinced. since I had put it in my backpack, that I intended to steal it. The million dollar coupon would give me an incentive.

Whammy said “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.” Then, he handcuffed me and led me to the”the back room.” He said, “You were going to steal the Wonker Bar.” I said “No.” He said the same thing over and over and I kept saying “No.” He called the police to come and arrest me. They told him to get a life and to let me go. As I was about to go to checkout, he said, “I’ll have to confiscate that Wonker Bar.” I said “No you’re not, I’m paying for it.” He became enraged and tasered me. As I went down, I notice a thing like a mouth on his forearm. He kept putting his arm up to his ear. At first, I thought it was a nervous tic, but he was actually listening to his arm. Why hadn’t anybody noticed?

When I regained consciousness, I ran to the dairy section and grabbed 3 packages of cream cheese. I ran back and Whammy was sitting on the floor in tears. I unwrapped the cream cheese and stuffed it in his arm mouth. It started gagging and chocking and slowly disappearing. Whammy brightend up and his voice lost its menacing tone. I promised not to say anything about the tasering. I thought to myself self—no wonder he’s such a mess, taking advice from his arm all those years.

I payed for the Wonker Bar and headed for my car. I put my groceries in the trunk. Sat down behind the wheel to open the Wonker Bar and check the coupon to see if I won millions of dollars. There was no coupon! Somebody had stolen it.

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

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Hysterologia

Posted on March 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

Hysterologia (his-ter-o-lo’-gi-a): A form of hyperbaton or parenthesis in which one interposes a phrase between a preposition and its object. Also, a synonym for hysteron proteron.

I had fallen, without warning, down a blowhole! It was the same dream I’ve had over and over again. I am pirouetting on the back of a whale. I am ecstatic. My tu-tu goes up in flames. I panic and trip over a barnacle and fall down into the blowhole. My mother is already down the blowhole wearing a two-piece bathing suit and sunglasses and a huge diamond ring. She reaches out to me making hand signals I don’t understand. She says “It’s all right little Poo-Poo” and winks. My tu-tu’s fire goes out, I reach out, and start toward her. The whale’s belly is filled with objects that I have to climb over to reach my mother. The first is my father, passed out with an empty gin bottle nearby. I jumped over him without a problem and landed in a shopping cart filled with packages of jiggling liver. I stood up and fell over backwards, landing on a wedding dress made out of zip-lock freezer bags. I stand up and am poised to embrace my mother and then, at that moment, the whale blows me with great force out its blowhole. I can hear my mother laughing as I am blown into the sky.

Now I am sitting in an airliner, dressed normally, and accompanied by my comfort pet Calliope the parrot. Luckily she’s staying quiet. Uh oh! She’s ruffling her feathers. She straightens up. Loud and clear she says “We’re all going to die.” A steward grabs her cage and runs to the back of the plane. There’s a sickening gurgling sound. The steward comes back with the cage with dead Calliope lying on his back in the bottom of the cage. Suddenly Calliope jumps up on his perch and says “We’re all going to die!” This process repeats itself at least ten times, until we land in Ecuador—at Quito. Calliope is dead, so I leave her on the plane.

Now I’m wearing warm weather clothes. As we’re standing in line to clear customs, my shorts fall down. The woman behind me in line snaps my underpants waistband. I pull up my shorts and turn around and look at her. It is my blue-haired grandmother who is supposed to be locked up for life in New Jersey for sabotaging a ski lift and killing 25 people. When asked why she did it she said: “Colorado is for skiers.” She was judged “somewhat insane” but not enough insane to get her off the hook. I looked at her and she said: “Colorado is for skiers.” “What? I said. She said “Read my lips! Colorado is for skiers!” That did it! I swung my suitcase at her head and she evaporated. I was quite embarrassed by the whole thing. I clicked my heels and said “I wish I was in New Jersey.”

Suddenly, I’m in Boonton. I am working for a company that pumps out grease traps. I love my job. I smell like cooking oil.

I wake up. As usual, I am not in New Jersey. I wake up on the back seat of my car out in the woods somewhere in the USA. There’s a guy with an orange vest that says “Search Party” on it. He has a hotdog in one hand and a beer in the other. He’s smiling and he raises his beer and says, “We’re all going to die!” I hope this is a new dream as I sit there in my car’s back seat waiting to die.

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

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Hysteron Protern

Posted on March 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

Hysteron Proteron (his’-ter-on pro’-ter-on): Disorder of time. (What should be first, isn’t.)

I was #3 of “The Three Blind Mice” . Our hit song “Three Blind Mice” had earned billions in royalties. My name is Curly and I faked being blind. Moe and Larry were actually blind. I helped them get around and did their banking. We had had our tails bobbed after the song made number one on the Black Forest Charts—it was all about authenticity. Being blind wasn’t enough.

After we made our first billion, we bout 2acres on the Hudson River from a Dutch ancestor of New Holland’s first settlers. We built a fromagerie—a cheese factory specializing in gourmet cheese. We specialized in Brillat Savarin Fresh French Cheese and Perlagrigia Italian Truffle Cheese. We would invite our hundreds of friends to our cheese orgies on the banks of the Hudson. It was like the Pied Piper played his tune and everybody ran wild. We had Roman Styled vomitoria set up all over the property for the convenience of our overstuffed guests. We had music—the laboratory mice band “Little White Lies” would play for us and we would dance “The Cordless Mouse,” we mimicked a cordless mouse to the music: pointing, clicking, and highlighting. To point, you bend over and wiggle you whiskers. To click, you’d bob up and down, sort of like a chicken pecking. To highlight, you’d drag your front paws across the floor. It was bliss. But then, tragedy struck.

“The Nashville Cats” breached the estate’s defenses. The “cats” were a blight on an otherwise perfect world. They were homeless and lived off the land. Their leader “Fluffy” had been abandoned as a kitten down by the river. We pitied them and hated them. We threw globs of “Fancy Feast” and “Purina Kitty chow” off the ramparts thinking it would help us make friends. But it didn’t, as the massacre showed,

I put the 2 blind mice in our golf cart and took off full speed to our panic room. We barely made it. Fluffy’s lieutenant Caligula almost got me with a swipe as I shut the door. Finally, the cats left, and left a field of carnage in their wake. It took weeks to clean up the mess, and we established a memorial cemetery down by the river. We repaired the walls, electrified everything, and installed razor wire, but we knew that was not enough.

There was a gaze of raccoons called “The Dumpsters” living in the woods adjacent to the estate. I met with their leader “Wrappers.” I explained our plight and asked him to field a standby force of raccoons to fight off cats when they invaded. He took the cigar out of his mouth and said “Yeah. Sure.” We agreed on remuneration, and he signed the contract I had prepared. Raccoons are notoriously dishonest and easily distracted, but I didn’t have much of a choice. We considered dogs, but when they get together they go wild and run amok.

So far, so good with the raccoons. We hear the cats meowing outside the walls, but we are not fooled by their pity-seeking noise. We still throw them food, but it does not seem to be working. Wrappers assures me the raccoons are ready for the next invasion. I’m not optimistic. Next week, I’m meeting with Fluffy to talk peace. I probably should’ve done this in the first place but I’ve been afraid he will eat me.

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

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Inopinatum

Posted on March 10, 2024 | Leave a comment

Inopinatum (in-o-pi-na’-tum): The expression of one’s inability to believe or conceive of something; a type of faux wondering. As such, this kind of paradox is much like aporia and functions much like a rhetorical question or erotema. [A paradox is] a statement that is self-contradictory on the surface, yet seems to evoke a truth nonetheless [can include oxymoron].

I couldn’t believe he thought he needed another pair of shoes. He had 659 pairs of shoes. He kept them in a pile in the middle of the living room. They reached the ceiling and they smelled. Oh, there were boots mixed in the pile too. I asked him why he had so many shoes. He said, “Son, they are my legacy to you and your sister, although they’re all men’s shoes. Each pair is held together with a clothespin, and their demographic information is recorded on their soles. When I’m gone, your life’s work will be curating the collection. I have provided you with a healthy stipend to manage the shoe collection—to care for the shoes and secure a site for a shoe museum, where you’ll feature a different shoe style each month, starting with the Flip-Flop, which pushes the envelope on what a shoe is. You’ll also sell Shoe-verniers: t-shirts, key rings and socks emblazoned with the museum’s name: ‘Sole’s Inspiration’ named after the Righteous Brothers famous song.”

I was only 12. It was a lot to take in. But, I found the whole thing fascinating and wanted to help fulfill my father’s dream. Time flew. I did my PhD in industrial studies. I wrote my dissertation on the displacement of cobblers by machine-made shoes. My studies mad me angry and also, I felt saddened by the cobblers’ downfall. As a part of my studies I had an internship at a 1960s-style hippie leather shop. I made belts, purses and briefcases. I had a colleague named Selwin who made the most beautiful and comfortable shoes. He was short and had pointy ears. We would joke that he was an elf. Then the whole thing crashed. All my designs had been stolen and reproduced by machines. Selwin disappeared.

My father died, so, when I graduated from UCSB I went to work setting up “Sole’s Inspiration.” Instead of putting out the Flip-Flop as the first monthly shoe, I put out a pair of Selwin’s beautiful handmade shoes. We had our grand opening, and who should walk through the door but Selwin. He was a mess. There had to be a place for him at “Sole’s Inspiration.” I set him up with a shoe concession in the back of the museum that would draw people in. We built him a replica of a cobbler’s shop with a workbench, a stitching pony and all the accoutrements of a real cobbler’s shop. He was overjoyed.

To my great surprise, the museum is a great success. One night I had to go beck to the museum—I had left my cell phone. I looked in the back and there was Selwin and some friends who had the same elfin look. They were smoking clay pipes and playing cards at Selwin’s workbench. I gave Selwin a wave and headed home.

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

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Intimation

Posted on March 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

Intimation: Hinting at a meaning but not stating it explicitly.

Things are a little “different,” You know? I’m fading out. But I’m not fading away. I’m going down that wide-open highway. Got it?

My model airplane club “American Flyboys,” is going to a “Flyathon” outside Summit, New Jersey in the Watchung Hills. There are three landing strips left over from the defunct Air Force base that was located there during the Cold War. What an inspiration to fly—possible world-destroying war! Atom bombs! Too good to be true. I’m bringing my “Inola Guy,” my version of the WWII bomber that dropped the big one on Japan, ending WWII and saving the world from Japanese Imperialism and putting an end to its Emperor’s rule. I’ve made a miniature A-Bomb I’m going to drop on Summit or Chatham. Oh, you think I’m crazy? I don’t blame you. Maybe I am.

My wife didn’t believe me, and how could she? But I had the bomb. I found plans for building an A-bomb on the internet. I miniaturized every thing in accord with 21-st century technology. Plutonium 239 was hard to obtain. I had to take a trip into a government facility posing as Max Planck’s great grandson. I showed them a fake cancelled check for his Nobel Prize. I asked for a crumb of P-239 as a souvenir of my visit. They took my picture and ran it through the machinery. There was one match, but it was not me. I closely resemble Bluto, Popeye’s nemesis. But Bluto is a cartoon character, so it was rejected. Then, there was DNA and fingerprints. The DNA was “suggestive” but not definitive. I found I was a distant relative of Yogi Berra. No wonder I liked to squat! There were also, faint traces of Max Planck lineage. I had tricked the DNA test with DNA I collected from Max Plank’s toothbrush that I stole from the back room of the max Plank museum. I brushed it around in my mouth before they did the DNA swab. The fingerprints were inconclusive. I matched nobody in the known universe. They gave me the crumb and I put it in an envelope that I had marked “A-bomb.”

When I got home, I put it all together, loaded in a plastic Easter Egg—I thought the irony was hilarious. I glued the two halves of the egg together, and glued on some tiny stabilizing fins too. I set the bomb in Inola Guy’s bombay. The bombay doors would be opened by remote control and the bomb’s detonator would be remotely switched on. At the last minute, I changed my target to the Short Hills Mall.

There was a vigorous knocking at my door. I opened the door and half a dozen military police stormed in. Then, a Colonel came through the door and said, “Mr. Ubermensch, we did further analysis on your DNA and found you are a direct descendent of Alexander the Great. Your war-like lineage disqualifies you from ownership of P-239. Please return the crumb.

“The hell I will” I yelled and ran out the door with Inola Guy. I launched Inola and steered her toward the Short Hills Mall. One of the MPs grabbed the plane’s controls and crashed Inola into a tree. There was no explosion. I ran to the tree and there WAS an explosion. It sounded like a cap pistol.

Two people in haz-mat suits “escorted” me to a military police ambulance. They took me to an “undisclosed location,” poking and prodding, looking for evidence of radiation poisoning. I was “cleared” and remanded to a prison cell, prior to shipping me to Guantanamo, where I’ll probably spend the rest of my life. I’ve met this really old guy named John Kennedy who has a luxury cell. He assures me we’re “outta here in two weeks max.”

POSTCRIPT

This document was turned over to the State Department. No action was taken. In fact, State Department employees claim the document is a forgery authored by “little fairies.”

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

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

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Isocolon

Posted on March 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

Isocolon (i-so-co’-lon): A series of similarly structured elements having the same length. A kind of parallelism.

My life was on the line. My happy future was in question. The odds were going against me. My life was a ditch and I was stuck in it.

How did I go from care-free Jerry to horror Harry? It was Lego.

My mother had given me a set of “Classic Building Bricks” for my 9th birthday. I didn’t even know what they were until she told me. When I picked up my first block I became giddy and almost fell down. My mother turned into a talking seal, clapping her flippers like she’d just seen a great performance of Chinese dish spinners.

We’re Selkies, dear. The Lego brings you close to your heritage, when you hold that particular Lego you can see me for what I am. Put the Lego in your pocket. Hold it in your hand when you want to meet me as a seal. We can go swimming and making lots of noise barking down by the docks. When you are 12, you can be a seal .

I went crazy, rolling around on the floor and screaming. My mother turned back into my mother, sat me on her lap and told me “this is your heritage, you must live with it—you must accept that you are part seal.” So, I embraced it. My seal life was exciting. I could swim like a bolt of lightening, catch fish and hang out by the dock, barking.

Then, Sanford Ram’s tour boat chopped my mother in half when it was coming into the dock. It did not have the required propeller guard. I was horrified, sad, and more than anything, angry.

As a human, I got a job on Ram’s boat selling soft drinks. My plan was to become such a fixture, that I could board the boat at will—nobody would suspect anything. Finally, the time came. I had my battery-powered drill and drilled a bunch of holes in the boat’s hull. It started to sink. I ran up on deck and jumped onto the dock. Sanford was running down the dock yelling. He stopped and stripped off his clothes and became a seal and slid off the dock.

He jumped back onto the dock, put on his clothes and became human again. He couldn’t save the boat. He said, “I don’t blame you son. I killed your mother. It was stupid negligence. A long time ago your mother was my wife. You are our son.”

“Where were you all these years when I needed a father? Floating around on your stupid tourist boat, and eventually killing my mother!” He said he was sorry, but that didn’t calm my rage. I pulled out my fillet knife, pinched his cheek, and cut a piece off it. It made a profusely bleeding circle.

Somebody called an ambulance. The cut healed into a round scar. He never told anybody that it was me who scuttled his boat. I still hate him with a fury. Some days I want to harpoon him and push him off the dock. But I know that’s the highway to prison.

Now, I live with my aunt. I keep my “special” Lego on the bookshelf over my bed. I met a Selkie girl two weeks ago. We get along really well in both of our guises. Yesterday we played “High Seas Tag” and had a great time. Tomorrow we’re swimming out to the edge of the harbor to go shark taunting.

Maybe things are better than I thought they were, but eventually, I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill my father.

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

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Kategoria

Posted on March 6, 2024 | Leave a comment

Kategoria (ka-te-go’-ri-a): Opening the secret wickedness of one’s adversary before his [or her] face.

I guess there’s a legitimate place for secrets. Like in the CIA where everything’s secret, even secrets. Or, maybe when you’re working on an invention., like a better mouse trap. But there are mostly bad things kept secret, to enable getting away with bad deeds, like you. All it took was one squealer to bring your house of lies tumbling down.

Do you know who squealed? It was Rev. Bawkward. He told me that after five, you refused to play his organ any more. Since you have no musical talent, we know what organ he was talking about. He said your organ playing had kept him going when he was getting a divorce. I asked him why he was telling me this because he hoped I would kill you or beat you up. Clearly, I’ve done neither. I really don’t care if you play his organ as long as you take some music lessons. If it brings Rev. Bawkward comfort and joy, it’s a good thing. Just don’t keep it secret.

Rev. Bawkward told me about Big Ed Rose at the grocery store. He’s seen Big Ed carrying your groceries to your car which is parked in the bushes at the farthest end of the parking lot. I guess it’s not a secret that he helps, but what was a secret was what you were doing to make the car rock back and forth. I’m not going to accuse you to your face, but you shouldn’t let Big Ed carry your groceries. Maybe you should drive up in front of the grocery store and pick up your groceries.

Last, the stuff you’re buying on Amazon isn’t a secret, although you think it is. I see that you’re buying stuff on Amazon and reselling it on E-Bay. It was the chainsaw that initially got my attention. Today, I saw the set of cold chisels. You say you’re making money for our vacation. That’s a lie. We’ve never gone on vacation, except on our honeymoon.

So, this is no secret: I’m filing for a divorce. You’ve never heard of her, but Candy and I will be getting married as soon as our divorce is finalized. If you’re going to have secrets you should be able to keep them. Rev. Gawker called this morning and he wants you to play his organ. I hope Big Ed doesn’t find out.

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

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Litotes

Posted on March 5, 2024 | Leave a comment

Litotes (li-to’-tees): Deliberate understatement, especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite. The Ad Herennium author suggests litotes as a means of expressing modesty (downplaying one’s accomplishments) in order to gain the audience’s favor (establishing ethos).

Jumping 300 feet into the ocean to save a drowning hamster was not that great an accomplishment. The weather was warm, the water was calm, and the hamster swam to me and perched on my head as I swam to shore and climbed back up the 300 foot cliff. I scolded the little boy who had thrown her off the cliff. I told him “Hamsters can’t fly son. You learned a lesson today.” The kid grabbed the hamster and ran away. To my dismay, two days later I found the hamster gasping for breath on the beach in front of my home. I shook her up and down like a bottle of ketchup. She squirted a small amount of seawater and regained consciousness. So, I have saved the little girl twice and I’m glad I could do it. I have adopted her and named her Hammy.

So, thank-you for the Appleton Person of the Year Award. I’m not sure I qualify, but I trust your judgment. I am going to use the prize money to hire a private investigator (PI). I will give him the task of finding the boy who threw Hammy off the cliff, failed to kill her, and then almost succeed at drowning her at a second try.

“Mel Windwood is my name and I’m here to find that rascal” the PI said with a grim look on his face. He was the owner of “Snoops.” He was recommended by Eloise Pompo who had just completed a successful divorce with Mr. Windwood as PI. So, we got started. We started with the pet shop. The proprietor told us there was a very creepy boy who had purchased 25 hamsters over the past two weeks. He had paid with his father’s credit card. His father was Rev. Skepter. We looked at each other and nodded. We were both atheists so we had no problem playing rough.

We found the boy in the rectory. Windwood tied his hands, blindfolded him, and threw him in the trunk of his Chevy Impala. We met at Ocean Cliff where the boy had tried to throw the hamster—little Hammy—to her death. I held Hammy up to his face. Hammy was growling. I said, “Hear that? That’s the hamster you tried to murder! She’s not a happy hamster.” The boy was visibly upset. Then, out of nowhere, he got his hands free, pulled off the blindfold, and pulled a switchblade knife out of his pocket. Windwood knocked the knife out of his hand and pushed him off the cliff. Windwood said “Well that’s that. Let’s get the hell out of here.” I was shocked. I yelled “Asshole!” over my shoulder as I jumped off the cliff to save the boy. I got to him just as he was about to drown. He started laughing uncontrollably and saying “You’re screwed Mr. Good Guy.”

And indeed I was. Attempted murder. Kidnapping. Tarnishing the Appleton person of the year award. But that’s not the worst of it. Rev. Skepter’s son, aka “the boy” became Ohio’s most notorious serial killer. He would place a drowned hamster on each victim’s face. He was caught drowning a batch of hamsters in the fountain in Appleton’s city park. He was arrested and the rest is history. He’s scheduled for a lethal injection in a couple of weeks.

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

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Martyria

Posted on March 4, 2024 | Leave a comment

Martyria (mar-tir’-i-a): Confirming something by referring to one’s own experience.

What gave me my ideas? My experience! Where else could they come from? We can’t be born with them or we’d all think alike. We’d all like Elvis. We’d all like ice cream. But, we don’t, and we may be considered crazy as a consequence. What is experience? It is anything you’re conscious of, and then, think about, which is a kind of experience too. So, you can’t be wrong just because your experience isn’t the same as somebody else’s: I look at the sunset and have a fit and start running around in circles. You look at the so-called same sunset and you take a picture and write a bullshit poem. Same sunset, different experiences. This is a problem with eyewitnesses, but it is too complicated to discuss here.

I used to spend a lot of time crushing insects with my hammer. I carried my hammer in my backpack. When I saw an insect, say an ant, I would stop and pull out my hammer and slam slam the ant. It’s crushed and gooey carcass made me happy, like a hug from my mother or a piece of chocolate cake. I would carefully clean off my hammer, preparing it for its next slam. It didn’t take much courage to kill insects, just viciousness and a lack of remorse.

But, it did take courage to kill the black widow in the wood pile. The surface was uneven and the Black Widow was suspended in a web with about 2” between it and woodpile. If my blow landed unevenly, there was a chance that the spider would fall on my naked leg (I was wearing shorts) and get me. As I swung my hammer, the spider jumped and landed on my wrist. I brushed it off before it could bite me. I stomped it under my Birkenstock, put my hammer away and ran home.

I still felt the Black Widow on my wrist. I opened my bedroom door and my bedroom was filled with spiders. They formed into a phalanx and came toward me. I ran outside screaming and locked myself in the family car. My mother unlocked it. I was slapping myself and yelling gibberish. An ambulance was summoned to take me to “Crystal Ribbon Sanatorium” for one week’s “observation.” After a week of being hosed down, taking hot baths, electric shocks, and wearing pajamas 24/7, I was released. I couldn’t remember anything and I drooled a lot and drew pictures of crushed insects. I asked for my hammer and my mother gave me a rubber one from a child’s toy tool set.

It’s been ten years since the black widow incident. I still hardly remember it, but I got a big black widow tattooed on the back of my neck. I still enjoy crushing insects and discover that the rubber hammer my mother gave me works quite well. It doesn’t mar surfaces. When I smash an insect and hear its exoskeleton crunch, I feel free. Sometimes I say the “Pledge of Allegiance” after a kill, with my hand over my heart.

This is but one example of how “experiences” have structured my life. Some other time we can discuss my performance art—shooting myself in the arm with a .22 caliber pistol, or windshield diving—colliding with trees not wearing a seatbelt. I also might talk about cockroach ranching. My apartment is my lone prarie.

Currently, I’m full time at “Crystal Ribbon.” I’m in the criminally insane wing. I became known as “Hammer Man” before I turned myself in. I didn’t kill anybody, but I tried. The rubber jammer didn’t do the job. It just left lumps and bruises.

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

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Maxim

Posted on March 3, 2024 | Leave a comment

Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others einclude adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“A wise man is not a wise guy.” I live by this basic ancient truth. It is noted, that Neanderthals lived by the maxim too. There is a Neanderthal painting on a cave wall in France of a man in a playful pose being beaten over the head with a jawbone. It would seem that wisdom was not valued—that wise guys ran the caves and routinely murdered smart people by beating them on the head with jawbones. Some people claim the Biblical story of Samson is derived from Neanderthal cave paintings. But this can’t be true. The Bible is a much more reliable source of holy stories with powerful symbolism that is true because holy people say so to give you a chance to exercise your faith, which enables belief in otherwise unbelievable things, like Samson slewing 1,000 Philistines with a donkey’s jawbone. I don’t believe it, So it must be true. At least, that’s what I think.

As a boy, I lived on a quiet street in New Jersey. Beautiful maple trees, and flower gardens and close cropped lawns. There was a Philistine family that lived up the street from us. I delivered the newspaper to them and collected on Mondays. I had little envelopes to put the collection in and put under the doormat. Mr. Mitini would put troubling notes in my collection envelopes along with the money, like, “There’s blood on your hands.” I told my Dad and he told me not to worry, as long as I got paid. Then, one Monday, Mr. Mitini came to the door when I was dropping off the collection envelope. He had on a striped bathrobe and had a jawbone in his hand. He asked, “What did we do wrong?” I ran away and stopped delivering the paper to the Mitinis for two weeks. When I resumed delivery, Mr. Mitini apologized and looked normal. Everything was fine after that.

This experience motivated me to become an archeologist, studying the Philistines. Theirs is a tangled history, just like all the other cultures I study in the period I study. For a pretty exhaustive introductory account of the Philistines, see: https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/article/what-we-know-about-the-philistines/

I haven’t read all of it yet. As a scholar, I’m pretty lazy, but I managed to get tenure here at Roy Orbison University. Our school song is “Crying.” It fits because we’re chronically short of funding. Talking about funding, I ‘m trying to get funding for a research project in Las Vegas. Most people would agree that visitors to Las Vegas are Philistines. I am interested in determining the accuracy of the appellation in light of the overarching truth of my other studies. I need $500,000. I am certain I will double it and pay every penny back to Roy Orbison U. I’m meeting with the grants committee tomorrow. I think if I offer each member $1,000 if they finance me, I’ll get the grant.

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

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Meiosis

Posted on March 2, 2024 | Leave a comment

Meiosis (mei-o’-sis): Reference to something with a name disproportionately lesser than its nature (a kind of litotes). This term is equivalent to tapinosis.

They called me “Shorty.” I was 6’ 8” tall. I think it was my father who gave me the nickname when I was a baby and wouldn’t fit in the basinet. My feet hung over the end and made my ankles sore. So, my dad hung out at the grocery store until they threw away a box I could fit in. My dad glued the box to two saw horses, and that was it. I had grown so much by the time I was four, I started wearing adult clothing. I loved my blue suede shoes with gold buckles, and red sharkskin bell-bottoms. It couldn’t last forever. As I aged, my clothing became more age appropriate. Now, I have to wear long and tall pants and shirts. I have to go all the way to New York to find them.

I wanted to be a railroad engineer, but that wasn’t meant to be, even though I had had a summer internship with the Erie Lackawanna line. I sat on my seat with my arm hanging out the window as the wind blew through my hair. I loved blowing the horn as we’d pass kids pumping their arms up and down. But, given my height, I was being pressured to play basketball. The first time I picked up a basketball, I dropped it. I started wearing basketball clothes. I lived in Chicago now, so I wore Chicago Bulls garb. I looked the role, but I couldn’t play it.

There was a Bulls coach who I met on the Chicago L, he encouraged me to come to a practice, given my height. I told him I had no athletic ability. He said, “Let me be the judge of that.”

I showed up for practice. After about ten minutes he told me I was right—I had no athletic ability and to quit wasting his time. He gave me cab fare. I cried all the way home. I told my dad and he clenched his fists. My Dad was “Notorious Nick.” He is deceased now, but then he was a Capo commanding an extortion crew. Dad said, “Don’t worry son, I’ll take care of that slime.”

Two days later they found him hanging from a basketball basket with his pants pulled down, and “Slime” written on his forehead in red lipstick. He didn’t die, but he became nicer. My dad asked me: “You want to play basketball?” I said no, “I want to be a railroad engineer,” Two days later, I was a railroad engineer. I had a few mishaps, but I learned. The worst was the woman duct-taped to the tracks. I stopped before I squished her, but I found out it was a college fraternity prank. I told Dad and, in lieu of arresting them, he had them all drafted, assigned to the infantry, and sent to Vietnam. They’re all complained to their congressional representatives. They were all ignored.

So, guess what? I fell in love with the girl duct taped to the tracks and she fell in love with me. She was studying pipe fitting at BOCES. We have a two-year old daughter. We couldn’t decide whether to name her “Choo-Choo” or “Wah Wah” so we named her “Piper” or “Pipe” for short.

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

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Mempsis

Posted on March 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

Mempsis (memp’-sis): Expressing complaint and seeking help.

“What’s the matter with you?” My wife asked.

I yelled, “I’m stuck under the bed. Pick up the bed and pull me out! I found my slipper, but my butt’s wedged under the box spring. Come on, where are you?” My wife came back in the bedroom. She said, “I’m putting you on an under bed diet, honey. My slippers trap worked perfectly. Your fat ass is captured.” I squirmed around, I tried to lift the bed, I sucked in my stomach, nothing worked. She said, “It’s going to get a little smelly under there, but I’ll clean you up as best I can. I have this rubber tube for you to eat your special diet through. According to the web, you’ll lose 20 lbs in a week.”

If I had my cellphone, I would’ve called the police. My wife had clearly gone around the bend. On the other hand, I was fat and she had been pestering me for at least five years to lose weight. The worst consequence of my obesity was our daughter. She was only 6 and she weighed 165 lbs. She was on the Elementary School wrestling team. Our mantle was loaded with her trophies. This was great in one sense, but her weight was clearly an unhealthy price to pay. She would tell me she wanted to be fat like me and beat everybody up.

I’d been under the bed for a week when my wife left the door open. I saw my daughter’s feet go by and called out to her. She came in the room and said: “God it stinks in here! Why are you under the bed?” “Never mind that, just get me out of here!” I yelled. “Lift the bed!” She lifted the bed and I skittered out from under it.

I was on the warpath. I asked my daughter where her mother was. She told me was at “Hair-Snips” her friend Barbara’s hair salon, getting a makeover. I took a shower and put on clean clothes.

The only weapon I could find was my claw hammer. I was going to do a citizen’s arrest for false imprisionment, and I thought I would need a weapon to render her compliant. I walked into “Hair-Snips” and all the women turned a looked at me and started making cat calls: “Woo baby, what’s your number?, What’re you doing tonight?, Nice buns, I want a piece of what you’re packin’ honey,” and more. I had lost 20lbs under the bed. I was a stud again! I looked with an air of detachment at the fawning women and strutted to my wife’s chair, and gave her a long hug, and stuck my tongue in her ear. I felt like a rock star. “Let’s go out to dinner tonight baby.” So, the three of us went out to dinner. Our daughter ate a donut in the car on the way to the restaurant. My wife looked knowingly at me.

We discussed it and decided the under bed diet was too cruel for our dear daughter. So, we decided instead to handcuff her hands behind her back between meals.

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

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Merismus

Posted on February 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

Merismus (mer-is’-mus): The dividing of a whole into its parts.

Mrs. Rogers, my fourth grade teacher, told us to think of a whole and then divide it into its parts. She called on me. “Johnny?” I was a wise guy, a class clown, and a pain in the ass all rolled into one. I said, “You can’t divide a hole into parts because there’s nothing there.” I gave Mrs. Rogers my wise guy smile and looked around the classroom. My joke hadn’t registered. Ms. Rogers said “Give me a straight answer or you’re going to visit Principal Lamron’s office. I was pals with the principal, so going to his office was no big deal. He was my mother’s brother—aka my uncle. I’d have my favorite grape soda, and he’d show me his latest magic tricks. Then we’d play a couple of hands of draw poker and I’d go back to class acting like I’d been admonished. I would rub my eyes making them red so it looked like I might’ve been crying.

I went back to class and dutifully made up a part-whole narrative: The car was black. It had 100s of parts. I will enumerate a few major parts, giving only their names. Here we go: hood, trunk, tires, doors, muffler, seats, speedometer, windshield, gas tank, radio, air conditioner, heater, seat warmers, tail lights, blinkers, and more.” Mrs. Rogers complimented me. I said “Cool. Maybe you can take me for a ride some night out to Lasagna Lake to look at the stars.” I did it again. I was remanded to my uncle’s office, but I kept going out the door. It was a perfect warm spring afternoon.

I headed for the playground. The sliding board was my favorite, climbing up the ladder and whooshing down the slide. I solid down and blew a slice of wind that sounded like a musical instrument—maybe a trumpet. Somebody yelled, “That was disgusting. What an oaf!” The voice sounded familiar. I turned around, and looked, and it was me! I was older, but it was me. I said to me, “What are you doing here?” I answered: “I am here to tell you to stop the bullshit. You weren’t born to be funny. It will only get you in trouble. Your destiny is to be a landscape gardener.” I said, “Now, that’s actually funny, asshole.” I/he got an angry look on his face and evaporated with a humorous squeaking sound.

I went back to class. I kept cracking jokes and hanging out with my uncle. I kept on through middle school. high school and college where I started a comedy club: “Bonkers.” In all those years I had become consistently hilarious. Eventually, I hit Las Vegas. Then, I was performing in Tahoe. I looked out at the audience, and there I was with a sign that said “Landscape Gardener.” It rattled me, but it didn’t affect my performance.

In my next show, I dressed like a landscape gardener, pushing a lawnmower out on stage. I told a few grass cutting and trimming jokes and groundhog, Japanese beetle, and rabbit jokes. Then, I did my usual routine. I got a standing ovation. Now I understood my destiny.

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

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Mesarchia

Posted on February 28, 2024 | Leave a comment

Mesarchia (mes-ar’-chi-a): The repetition of the same word or words at the beginning and middle of successive sentences.

“Love is to love without question. Affection gives endless affection without expectation.” These qualities of experience wreaked of silliness. In the cruel battle of life I thought they made weak. They made me a loser, a jerk, a stain on the carpet of life. I tried living in accord with the golden rule—but I thought I would become a golden fool.

I had a girlfriend. Her name was Nelly. She wanted to “do it” every night. I would say “Whoah Nelly.” She would get up and leave. On average, she’d be gone for 2 days. I wanted to be understanding, an endless source of caring and a peaceful man. I was certain she was seeing other men, so I never asked her what she was doing when she left home in the middle of the night. I tried and tried not to get angry, but I was cracking. So, against my will, I followed Nellie one night. I had a bad idea of what I was going to see: Nelly picked up on a street corner by a rich guy in a limousine. I followed her to a non-descript dimly lit building: “Clarksville Home for the Maimed.” I looked in the window and Nelly was reading a book to a man with no hands. One look at his eyes and you could tell he was blind—probably the victim of some kind of explosion. Nelly saw me and smiled and motioned me over. She said, “This is Mike. He was blown up in a July 4th accident. His wife threw him out after the accident and he’s been living here ever since.” “Wow.” My pity meter went through the roof. I almost started crying.

So this is what Nelly did when she disappeared. Then I noticed Mike’s fly was unzipped. I asked him how he could do that with no hands. He told me that when Nelly was there she unzipped and aimed him at the urinal, otherwise a nurse would do it. I was starting to crack again.

I threw Nelly out when she came home the next morning. Eight months later, I ran into her in line at the Post Office,

She was massively pregnant. She pointed at her stomach and said “Yours.” In the light of her smile, my paranoia faded. We went to my house, and we talked. She told me her sexual needs are normal, and I agreed. I had Googled it months ago and determined it was me who had the problem. As far as maimed Mike went, she told me her father was an amputee and blinded from the Vietnam War and she would go to the VA hospital and read to him. When he died of cancer, she started going to the Clarksville Home for the Maimed when I refused to offer her the warmth and comfort she desperately needed.

“But what about Mike’s penis?” I asked. She stood up, grabbed the clock from the mantle, and threw it at me with both hands. It hit me in the head and drove the demons out. It’s ten been years since that day when I learned how to trust. Our daughter Ella looks just like me. That’s good.

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

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Mesodiplosis

Posted on February 27, 2024 | Leave a comment

Mesodiplosis (mes-o-dip-lo’-sis): Repetition of the same word or words in the middle of successive sentences.

This is a new chapter in my life. I’ve had my fill of St. Louis. Panera Bread had gotten inside my head. I smelled like yeast and was dusted with flour, like a poltergeist pizza. I had grown up in St. Louis, graduated from high school in St. Louis, and was arrested in St. Lewis for stealing a garden gnome when I was 19. I was sentenced to 3 months community service. That’s where I met my dog, a stray Coyote-Poo. I named him Jocka after the dog in the French song about oversleeping. But now I was moving out. At 27 it was time to go. I will be unfettered, foot-loose, a free bird. Drivin’ and arrivan’.

So, where am I going?

I’m goin’ to Kansas City. I think it’s in Kansas somewhere. I think Kansas City is my destination. Maybe I’ll pack some meat when I get there. I flicked on the GPS and found out Kansas City is in Missouri. I was delighted that the drive would be shorter.

I was singing “I’m goin’ to Kansas City, Kansas City Here I Come” when my Hyundai was hit by a toilet iceberg discharged by a jet flying overhead. I lost control of my car. I hit a guard rail and bounced off. The car blew up and started burning. I was able to drive it to the Kansas City line before the smoke got to me and I pulled over choking. I rolled down my window and Jocka made his escape. My seatbelt wouldn’t come unlatched. I pulled out my knife specially designed for seatbelt cutting—and breaking glass too! I got it online at “Jay’s Blades.” My eyes were burning as I flipped open the knife and started cutting. Suddenly the car door flew open and there was a firefighter standing there. He reached in the car and pulled on my seatbelt. This caused me to stab myself in the stomach. The knife was protruding from my stomach—I was afraid to pull it out. I had seem countless doctor shows on TV where pulling a knife out was fatal. Next, an EMT person showed up at the car door. She said, “We’ve got to get you out of here.” She grabbed me by the shoulders and started pulling me out of my car. The knife got stuck in the steering wheel and popped out. “This is an emergency” she said. I felt my life leaking away. I hadn’t made it to Kansas City. I was about five feet from the city limits. I could smell the barbecue over the smoke coming out from under my hood. Despite the fact that I was dying, I had hunger pangs. The EMT said, if you don’t get to a hospital in a half-hour, you’re dead. That was disheartening.

We were speeding along in a Kansas City ambulance when we passed a big red sign titled “Piggy’s” with a flashing neon pig in a bun. I took off the oxygen mask and yelled “Turn around, I want a barbecue sandwich!” The driver turned and smiled, his silver front tooth gleaming in the streetlights. He pulled the emergency brake and did a full 360. The EMT ran into Piggy’s and came out with a steaming barbecue sandwich. She threw it to me as we continued on to the hospital. It hit me in the face and splattered on my stretcher. I scooped up what I could and stuffed it in my mouth.

I passed out just as we pulled in to “KC General.” I woke up when I fell off the gurney because one of the wheels fell off. I passed out again. I woke up in my hospital bed feeling pretty good. I looked at my stomach wound and it was stitched up with florescent orange fishing line, with a hookless fishing lure dangling from it. I asked my nurse what the hell it was about. She said, “It celebrates the centrality of urban fishing to KC’s cultural heritage—before there were cows, there were bass. We decorate nearly everything with fishing lures. Christmas is a very special time here.” I felt like I was hallucinating or dreaming. All of a sudden, I felt like I’d been hooked up to a car battery. Somebody yelled “Clear” and I felt myself starting up again. I looked at my stomach and it was held together with normal stitches. I stayed in the hospital for two weeks, and then, I walked to Kansas City.

I didn’t take a train. I didn’t take a plane. My car blew up, but I got there just the same. I got to Kansas City, Kansas City here I am. I sued the fire department and EMTs for worsening my knife wound and almost killing me. I was awarded $12,000,000. I bought Piggy’s, a luxury condo, and a new car—not a Hyundai. I hired a PI to find Jocka. He had gotten a job modeling flea shampoo and acting as a watchdog at a dog salon named “Royal Woofers.” When he saw me, he went crazy dancing around in circles and howling. Now, we’re living happily ever after, but we’re think of moving. We’re looking at New York, El Paso, Surf City, San Jose, Las Vegas, Chicago, or Galveston.

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

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Mesozeugma

Posted on February 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

Mesozeugma (me’-so-zyoog’-ma): A zeugma in which one places a common verb for many subjects in the middle of a construction.

“Life is too boring to reclaim from the pits, my downward plunge, or life’s tragic rodeo.” I actually had these thoughts at one point in my life before I turned into the North Star and guided everybody home. I made a giant blue wing and sent it forth throughout the land. Soaring along, picking up passengers one by one, setting the tone for the future—wolves and lambs hanging out, the wolves turning into vegetarians by the magical power of B. Good. He played the guitar like the spirit in the sky blessing Heartbreak Hotel on Tuesday afternoon, giving everybody a little red Corvette for their special day.

Somebody said “It’s raining crabs in Disneyland.” This must be true at some level or it never would’ve been said, even if it’s a lie. If it is a poetic configuration we can retrieve its significance from the swamp of literalism. We must ask ourselves if there in fact any such thing as literalism—isn’t it just a deep rut in poetry’s road, so we’ll-travelled that it has become a road in its own right distinguishable from the poetic road, but as we know, not different, only observable, like a stain on a sweater or a floor. Nothing new here. Time to fire up the grill.

We’re having big fat wieners imported from Germany via jet. We have big fat buns. We have big fat mustard. We have thin sauerkraut to challenge our sense of continuity, to teach the first lesson of fracture’s ubiquity—how the world goes 1, 2, 4, thwarting our expectations, dashing our hopes and dreams. But, tomorrow is never today unless you have severe jet lag, like you flew nonstop lower class from Sydney, Australia to Newark, USA with diarrhea and shingles. That’s bad. Think about it. If you can’t think about it, you haven’t read it: to read is to think. Of course you can think without reading. You can listen. But the most important things can’t be read or listened to. Thinking entails taking what’s there and thinking about it. As soon as that happens, it’s like you’re pole dancing with what is. But that’s the best we can do if we want to “share” with others, to socialize and overcome our isolation. We are willing to sacrifice the unsharable for the shareable, by communicating.

Well, that took us nowhere—not like a bus or a subway conveying us to a well-imagined destination—even if we’ve never been there we can go map in hand, GPS in front of the face—pulled into time by a well charged Apple device—playing music, leaving messages, staying in touch, but not actually touching.

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

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Metabasis

Posted on February 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metabasis (me-ta’-ba-sis): A transitional statement in which one explains what has been and what will be said.

“There is nothing. Now that we have established that there is nothing, let’s take a look at something.“ My philosophy professor was insane. He thought he was clever. I thought he was insane—totally insane. Not a scrap of sanity. For example, in one class he repeated “because” for forty minutes and then told us it had transformed into “Cosby” exposing the causal mechanism behind Cosby’s jokes and his flagrant perversion (he’s in prison now).

If our professor wasn’t a professor, I was sure he would be sitting on a rag on some street waving around a styrofoam cup. He was already an alcoholic, so he was only one step away from the pavement. Today, we were gong to hear the ethics lecture again—for the fifth time during the semester. It’s a hypothetical situation where we are supposed to figure out what to do:

“A man is waiting for a bus and his pants fall down. They were too big because he had lost weight and pulled the wrong pair from his dresser in the early morning darkness. All of a sudden he notices a flaming baby carriage rolling down the hill toward him. He thinks if he tries to stop it, he may catch on fire too, plus, he does not even know if there’s a baby in the carriage. He steps back and trips over his fallen pants. As he falls to the pavement he catches a glimpse of a baby, apparently dead, in the carriage as it goes by. He’s relieved and sad. Then the carriage hits a bump and the baby flies out crying and lands in the middle of the street. The man pulls up his pants and, holding them by the waistband, runs in front of a truck headed for the baby and scoops up the baby, letting go of his pants, he trips and falls on top of the baby, breaking one of the baby’s ribs and puncturing one of the baby’s lungs. He calls 911 and saves the baby. Over the years, he develops a drinking problem. He’s hanging out in the afternoon in a cocktail lounge and it’s his 45th birthday. A young woman sits down beside him and he buys her a drink. She’s drinking tequila shots. About five drinks in, she tells him she was rescued from a flaming baby carriage when she was a baby. She’s half drunk and so is he.”

What should he do and why?

The class will argue for 20 minutes. The consensus is usually, he shouldn’t tell her who he is and try to get her to hook up with him for the night. Then, tell her who he is in the morning, hoping she’ll go away anyway. If not, they can move in together and she can express her gratitude endlessly and he can live like a king.

This is a bizarre outcome and displays the ethical bankruptcy operative in the United States. 50 years ago that young woman would not have sat down by a strange man. All the baby carriage stuff would not have happened—people held onto their baby carriages back then! What a bunch of crap. I hope it’s not too late to drop the class.

POSTSCRIPT

As he turned around, he saw a burning baby carriage coming at him down the hallway. He pushed open the fire exit and ran out into the parking lot.

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

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Metalepsis

Posted on February 24, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metalepsis (me-ta-lep’-sis): Reference to something by means of another thing that is remotely related to it, either through a farfetched causal relationship, or through an implied intermediate substitution of terms. Often used for comic effect through its preposterous exaggeration. A metonymical substitution of one word for another which is itself figurative.

Now there was a canyon in my garage. It wasn’t grand, but it was bigger than my foot. The block and tackle had snapped. The ‘57 T-Bird motor had crashed-landed on the concrete floor. The oil pan was destroyed, but there was a dim light shining out of the crank case. It was eerie, spooky, and scary, and more. I yelled into the motor, but there was no answer. The light just kept on shining.

I was all alone in the garage. My wife had gone to visit her mother and my daughter was away at college in her junior year at Reed College. She was studying anthropology—but that was beside the point right now! Then I thought—Anthropology—hmmm—maybe we could excavate the T-Bird’s engine and treat the light as a natural phenomenon to be scientifically studied instead of a supernatural phenomenon—a ghost in the motor. I called my daughter. It was 2.00 am in New York, but only 11.00 pm in Oregon. She picked up the phone. Quicksilver Messenger Service was playing in the background—“Take Another Hit.” Typical.

I explained what had happened. My daughter told me the only way to “really find out” what’s going on in there is to go inside and find it. She told me she had a professor who was an ethnoherbalist. He had just returned from an expedition to an undisclosed location in Iceland, where he had unearthed a trove of Viking “Altitude” potions—medicines that could make them shrink for concealment, or grow for battle. We could use a “shrinker” to get inside the engine and look around. My daughter said she would talk to him. I was skeptical. It sounded like a nutty professor story from the “Twilight Zone.” She called in the morning and told me it was ok, but on one condition: he would accompany me into the engine. I agreed. He was flying out to New York that afternoon and would meet me at the airport. I was still skeptical.

I picked him up and we drove to my house. He was at least seven feet tall and had huge feet. He had only one eye. I asked him how he lost it and he said “None of your fu*kin’ business.” So, I left it alone. We went out into the garage and took the “get little” pills. We had one hour to get in and out of the engine. If we failed, we’d be crushed as we grew back to our normal sizes. We shrunk to about 1” tall. We climbed in through the oil pan and over the crank shaft. We could see the light shining from one of the pistons. He climbed up the piston rod to check out the light. He yelled down to me that it was some kind of phosphorescent material and he would scrape it off and put it in his specimen bag, and we could examinine it when we got back out of the engine.

He had a tool like a small putty knife. He started to scrape and there was an explosion that blew me back out onto the garage floor. I climbed back into the engine to look for him, but he had disappeared without a trace. I called, no answer. Time was running out, so I had to get out of the motor. Right on schedule, I got big again. After nearly endless inquiries, it was determined that the professor was missing. I never told anybody about out trip into the engine. My daughter knew what we had done, and she kept it quiet for our sake.

I restored the T-Bird to its original condition. The strangest thing though: when it idles in neutral the engine sounds like it is saying “None of your fu*kin’ business. None of your fu*kin’ business.”

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

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

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Metallage

Posted on February 23, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metallage (me-tal’-la-gee): When a word or phrase is treated as an object within another expression.

“That’s it. Say ‘I can’t do it’ once more, and I’ll make sure it’s true. You’ll never do anything again. Nothing. Got it? I learned how to drive a car. So can you. Anybody can, unless you’re disabled somehow, and you’re not.”

This is how it went. I would say “No” and Dad would threaten to kill me if I didn’t do what he wanted me to do. He was bossy to the max. It was like living with an angry dictator. The “learning” thing wasn’t something I wanted to do outside school—that’s where you learned—where you were supposed to learn. Not with your crazy father yelling at you.

Take this for example: Dad decided it was time for me to learn how to use the power mower. I said “No” and he said he would kill me if I didn’t. So, it was time to learn how to mow the lawn with gasoline mower.

My father said “Hold over there on that thing.” He pulled the rope on the side of the lawnmower it started, and took off with me dragging behind it. I got to the edge of the yard and my father was yelling “Disengage the clutch!” I had no idea what he was yelling about. I let get go of the lawnmower. It took off across the street and headed for the neighbor’s dog sleeping under their car in the driveway. The dog jumped up and bumped his head on the rear bumper and ran away. The lawnmower hit the car’s bumper, bounced off and took off in another direction with me chasing it. It was too fast for me. I watched as it rolled down the sidewalk through the gate to the municipal swimming pool, and into the water. Me and Dad pulled it out of the pool and dragged it home. Dad told me he was hiring a hit man to take care of me. I was terrified for a week. Then, he told me he was going to give me another chance. He had a landscaper friend who taught me how to run our new power mower.

So, home learning was two phases: Phase 1. Dad doing a terrible job leading to a catastrophe, blaming me and threatening to kill me. Phase 2. Finding somebody who knew what they were doing to teach me. Dad just couldn’t give up Phase 1, no matter what. So now I was going to learn to drive a car—a big metal car—a potentially fatal lesson. I begged and pleaded for a proper instructor, but two days later I was sitting behind the wheel of our Oldsmobile with Dad in the passenger seat. He pointed and said “Turn that key until the motor starts. Pull that lever down from P to D and press on the pedal on the floor.” When I pressed on the pedal, nothing happened. Dad said, “That’s the brake pedal nit wit.” We were starting to roll down the street. I located the gas pedal to the right and pressed it down, the tires squealed and I could smell burning rubber. We went roaring down our residential street, hitting 50mph. We were headed for our neighbor’s house at the end of the street. I remembered the brake and pressed it. The Oldsmobile skidded to a stop sideways.

Mt father said, “Get out of the car and walk home loser. You better start thinking about the future now, because you don’t have much. The mob will take care of you, and don’t beg—I’m just sick and tired of your stupidity.” I knew it was an empty threat and I didn’t worry, until I saw this guy with a mustache and a bulge in his jacket walking up our sidewalk. I ran out the back door. When I came back home, my mother told me my driving instructor had been looking for me and had left his card.

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

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

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Metaphor

Posted on February 22, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metaphor (met’-a-phor): A comparison made by referring to one thing as another.

“Time is a doorknob. Life is a laundromat. Truth is a pedicure. Candy is dandy. All aboard the ham-hock express. Smile out the window. We’re all being watched. By God. By the Conductor. By CCTV. The seat is hard, so I stand: baby buggy bumpers bobbing beneath by my blouse.”

She sat down. She had read her metaphor assignment with such power and conviction that I was still on my knees holding my hands in a prayerful position—like clapping, but not moving—pressed together, worshiping her reading. How did she discover these words in her brain’s synapses—all gemlike in their resplendence?

Now I knew why I was taking Creative Writing. It was Francine—the Francine of my dreams. The tower of words. The stronghold of poetic rigor. The bejeweled tongue. The golden lips. The smooth fingerless hand injured in a farming accident. I did not look at it. Instead, I listened to her words. They covered over her scars.

Prof. Roman told me to get “the hell” off the floor and stop acting like a fool. I thought of talking back, but I was a grown up now. I was in college. The rest of the class was looking at me with their mouths open—like they were stunned by my behavior. I’d show them! I was next in line to read. Prof. Roman looked at me like I smelled and said “Ok Milton, it’s your turn.” I was related to John Milton, so Mrs. Roman expected too much from me. I turned out the classroom lights and began;

“I like Piña coladas—they are the dreams of my days, my lost shakers of salt, my stolen hound dogs. My bank account is a bundle of worms, the crow of the roost, a bicycle pump with a hose that is loose.” I finished and sat down. My fellow students were laughing and booing. Prof. Roman said calmly, “Get out.” Francine said from the back of the room, “If he goes, I go.” All the students said “Ooooh!” Prof. Roman relented. Me and Francine were the alpha and omega of the Creative Writing class. When I read my assignments everybody but Francine would leave the classroom. Prof. Roman encouraged them to leave.

Our last assignment was to write about our favorite pet. I never had a pet, so I made one up. It was a rabbit with 7 legs that ran the 50-yard dash in competitions around New Jersey. He never lost a single race and he died of a heart attack comfortably in his hutch when he was 9. My father had him stuffed and he rides on the dashboard everywhere my father goes. His name is “Hoppy” after Hopalong Cassidy the famous 1950s TV cowboy. Prof. Roman said my story “paralleled” “My Friend Flicka” too closely and gave me an “F”. I didn’t even know what My Friend Flicka was. I was angry. REALLY angry.

I swore I would get her—I was innocent. She just didn’t like me. I Googled her for three days straight! Nothing! I decided to stalk her—it was risky, but I had to do it. I discovered she was the flasher lady who stood outside the school, on a hill, giving everybody a peek. Faculty, staff and students enjoyed it, and nobody complained. She had perfected her “reveal” so it looked like an accident—usually the wind blowing up her skirt. Every once in awhile, her blouse would blow open. Now that I knew her “accidental” reveal was a carefully orchestrated ruse, I could threaten to reveal the truth. I told her I would squeal on her if she didn’t change my grade to an “A” and write me letters of recommendation for MFA programs. She agreed and I was set.

POSTSCRIPT

The story of my fake racing rabbit was made into a movie entitled “My Friend Flick: Vampire Racing Rabbit.” A sequel is under production right now entitled “Flick 2.” Francine has written a book entitled “My Special Jerk.” It is about our college days together. It is selling well. Prof. Roman has been promoted to Dean of College and bought an expensive fast car that she takes drag racing in Pennsylvania on the weekends wearing fireproof red shorts and a Pink Floyd t-shirt.

Francine and I are still together. I was hired into Prof. Roman’s position. Francine is teaching at the community college and comes up for tenure next year.

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

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

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Metaplasm

Posted on February 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metaplasm (met’-a-plazm): A general term for orthographical figures (changes to the spelling of words). This includes alteration of the letters or syllables in single words, including additions, omissions, inversions, and substitutions. Such changes are considered conscious choices made by the artist or orator for the sake of eloquence or meter, in contrast to the same kinds of changes done accidentally and discussed by grammarians as vices (see barbarism). See: antisthecon, aphaeresis, apocope, epenthesis, paragoge, synaloepha.

He was fallened, flat as a pancake—never knew what hit ‘em, boom time on to the next incarnation. His walker was a little mangled, but I grabbed it thinking I could hang my underwear on it to dry. I hoisted it over my head and started walking home. My husband “Lousy Joe” was sure to ask me where I got it from. I was going tell him it was in a trash pile out in front of somebody’s house. I’d tell him the pile had a “free” sign stuck in it.

When I got home Lousy Joe was standing on the sidewalk waiting for me. “What the hell is that?” He asked. “I found it in a trash pile—it’s an old-fashioned laundry hanger,” I told hm. “Oh no you don’t. I’m going to use it as a step ladder, Hand it over.” We could share it, but he never would. He confiscated everything I brought home. Last week it was a tennis ball. He grabbed it and threw it at the living room wall and put a dent in the wall. Once I found a rubber boot by the creek. He took it from me and pulled it on one foot although it was way too small. He wore it on one foot until his foot got really sore and started to smell. His foot was so swollen we had to cut the boot off and go to the emergency room. He had to have is toes amputated. It was pitiful. He cried like a baby and actually thought I would try to comfort him. Instead, I went out side and smoked a half-pack of cigarettes and met a guy whose wife had fallen down the stairs during an argument and fractured her skull. I told him why I was there and he thought it was funny—my husband limping around in one boot with his foot rotting. I told him I thought it was pretty funny too. Since we shared so much in common, I asked if he wanted to go for a drink. He said, “No. I’ve got to get out of here. I think my wife is going to die.” I said, “Oh, that’s a shame.” He mumbled, “I planned it. I had a mannequin that I practiced with for a month when my wife was at work. I got really good at pushing it down the stairs, until finally I could make it land on its head every time.” All of a sudden a woman walked out of the hospital and told hm she was cleared to go home. It was his wife. He was really angry. His plan had been thwarted.

He told her to wait by the curb. An old pickup truck came roaring toward her. Her husband was driving. He barely missed her. You could him swearing in the truck. Her turned around and came back, and missed again. The third time was not charmed. He missed again, drove up on the sidewalk and hit a concrete barrier. He flew through the truck’s front windshield. There was hole in the windshield where he had flow through. He was lying on his face, still alive.

I was completely shocked, but I envied her. There was a good chance her husband would die, and she didn’t have to kill him. I wasn’t so lucky. So, I bought a mannequin, and hid it in the basement.

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

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

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Metastasis

Posted on February 20, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metastasis (me-tas’-ta-sis): Denying and turning back on your adversaries arguments used against you.

“Why were you looking through my dresser? Pervert. Creep. You need help!” My sister yelled. Another accusation. Every day she accused me of something new. Last week, it was using her toothbrush. Before that, “ransacking” her closet. In every case it was the other way around—she was doing what she accused me of doing, and I told her: “You’ve got it all wrong Ginger—it is you who’re doing all these things to me! Let’s look at our dressers and see which one’s been gone through!” We looked hers—all the drawers were tidy. Clearly, nobody had gone through dresser. Then, we looked at mine. Things were pushed all over the place and hanging out of the drawers. What was alarming was my lock-blade gravity knife was missing. It had a 10” blade and was made for killing. I had inherited it from Uncle Chuck who had been shot in the back when he was robbing a bicycle repair shop in Huntsville. They found him with a bicycle chain around his neck, strung up, dripping blood from the bullet hole in his back. Nobody knew who shot him or hung him up. There were 11 witnesses, but none of them saw anything. He was buried with honors by the Boy Scouts who he had faithfully served in various capacities for 27 years.

Anyway, my sister yelled, “I didn’t do this, you did! I straightened my dresser back up early this morning. Creep. Pervert!” “I know you did it and I know you’re not going to admit it,” I said. “I just want my knife back. Uncle Chuck wanted me to have it. It’s dangerous. You could get hurt playing with it.” She had the knife. She had it tucked in the waistband of her pants, in the back. She pulled it out and flicked it open and laughed: “Hurt myself? It’s more likely that I’ll hurt you! Creep. Pervert.”

I grabbed her wrist and shook it hard. The open knife came out of her hand, cut through my cheap flannel slipper and stabbed me in the foot. The knife had pinned my foot to the floor. I couldn’t move. My foot was soaking the varnished floor with blood. My sister yelled, “You’re in big trouble now. A knife is not a toy, you idiot.”

I reached down with two hands and yanked the knife out of the floor. I pointed it at Ginger. She ran downstairs yelling “Mama he tried to kill me with Uncle Chuck’s knife.” My mother came running up the stairs yelling “What did you try to do to Ginger?” She got upstairs, looked at my foot, gasped, and asked me what had happened. I told her everything, especially about the false accusations. The police were called. My mother told them I had tried to murder my sister, but she had fought me off, knocking the murder weapon from my hand, where it fell and stabbed me in the foot. Dad just sat there nodding his head. I was arrested, handcuffed, taken to jail, tried and convicted of attempted 2nd degree murder. I professed my innocence throughout my trial. I received a three-year sentence.

Three days after my conviction, my sister murdered both of our parents and burned our house down. I was immediately acquitted. I went and visited Ginger in jail. I asked her why she did it. Against her attorney’s advice, she told me: “The roller skate living under my bed would wake me up in the middle of the night by singing “Brand New Key” and skating up and down my body. It would park on my forehead. It would stick its key in my ear, open my brain, and give me orders. When it was done, it would close my brain and roll back under my bed. I had to obey the roller skate because it was a certified dictator, as I learned from ‘Dirty Sock’ on the floor next to my bed. I never told anybody about this for fear Roller Skate wouldn’t give me the bucket of gold he promised as a reward for obeying orders.”

All those years, my sister had been completely insane. I should’ve seen the signs: wearing her dress backwards, getting a tattoo of a handgun when she was 11, burning up our ant farm with a magnifying glass, and, of course, the barrage of false accusations that landed me in jail.

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

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

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Metonymy

Posted on February 19, 2024 | Leave a comment

Metonymy (me-ton’-y-my): Reference to something or someone by naming one of its attributes. [This may include effects or any of the four Aristotelian causes {efficient/maker/inventor, material, formal/shape, final/purpose}.]

“Hey Fatty!” Yes, that was my nickname. I grew up in a small town and I had always been called “Fatty.” It had been going on for so long it was “normal.” It did not strike me as a taunt any more. It had become my name. I had my own business called “Fattiy’s,” It was a dessert bar in the mall. I sold ice cream sundaes and Buster Bombs—my own invention. They were round-shaped ice cream pops—vanilla ice cream, chocolate coating and rolled in peanuts. They also contained an ounce of Vivarn, and you had to be 18 to purchase them. They were quite popular. I had a steady stream of return customers who would inevitably comment on how good the Buster Bombs made them feel—better even than Coca Cola.

My most popular sundae was called the “Monday”. It had caffeinated coffee ice cream, walnuts and powdered coffee beans that were made to be snorted—laid out in a line on a napkin with a straw. Patrons would be lined up at the door when I opened the door at 7.00 am, They’d yell “Monday!” I’d work like crazy making Mondays until around 10.00 am. Then, Fatty’s would empty out.

At around 3.30 the kids would arrive. They loved their sugar. I fed the kids “fortified” sundaes with 10-times the sugar as in normal sundaes and just enough caffeine to affect the quality of their lives. The favorite sundae among the kids was the “Naughty.” Our all-county football star drank 3 Naughties every day. He would tackle two or three kids before running out the door and running to practice imitating a police car’s whooping siren..

The kids would clear out of Fatty’s around 4.30. I would close until nine, when some adults would trickle in. The late-night menu consisted of “calming” sundaes to prepare them for a good night’s sleep. The most popular sundae was the “Snore.” It was made of Melatonin ice cream topped with whipped cream and three cherries soaked in “ZZZ NyQuil.” Most of the adults would come and go via Uber. I also offered the “Stiffy” for men with marital issues. It consisted of ingredients shipped directly from “Hoo Doo Ltd.” in New Orleans. I really don’t know what the ingredients are. I just sprinkle them on two scoops of vanilla ice cream with a banana on top, garnished with two cherry sour balls.

I am retiring next week. I have written a sundae “cook book” that will be published by Harvard University Press. Harvard believes it is important to finally publish something other than boring academic mumbo-jumbo. The title of the book is “Drink, Drink and Be Merry: Sundaes for All Your Needs.” I’ll be going on a book signing tour. My first stop is Miami, FL where my book is required reading for government employees and all middle school students.

Well, I’m going to drink a “Snooze” and go to bed now. Good night.

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

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

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Ominatio

Posted on February 18, 2024 | Leave a comment

Ominatio (o-mi-na’-ti-o): A prophecy of evil

They called it a love boat. It was named “The Urchin.” The passengers signed up for our cruise called “Reconciliation Vacation.” They were trying to repair their damaged marriages. I was serving as a cabin boy, tending to guests’ personal needs. This was Captain Alzheemar’s 1,500th voyage and he was becoming cognitively impaired. For example, he kept yelling “Avast” at young women in bathing suits by the pool. He had started wearing a life jacket all the time, eroding passenger confidence in the ship’s seaworthiness. Last, he started wearing his captain’s hat backwards.

The rest of the crew was a little quirky too. One of the stokers was teaching himself how to eat fire. Luckily, he practiced down in the boiler room. The chef had burned his hand and was wearing a Sponge Bob mitten to cover and protect the burn which he had received when a rum cake had gone up in flames.

We had 25 marriage therapists on board to make the reconciliations happen. Given my observations, I thought reconciliation was impossible.For example, I had seen a man purposely step on his wife’s foot. I predicted there would be some kind of brawl or riot, although I didn’t think it would happen so soon.

There was a dinner dance reception scheduled for 7.00 pm. In order to induce people to attend, there was a raffle. First prize was 100 cans of tuna fish and a tuna cookbook titled “Bona For Tuna.” Nearly all the passengers showed up. Those who didn’t were fighting in their cabins. There was ample alcohol and the guests were sucking it up. The music started. It was Blondie’s “Call Me.” Suddenly, somebody yelled “You do that again and I’ll fu*kin kill you.” It was like a cue for people to start arguing. The song ended and they went back to their tables arguing. Then somebody threw a pork loin and all hell broke loose. A flaming chair went flying across the dance floor. The marriage therapists were singled out and being bombarded with salad and water, poked on their hands with dessert forks, and hit by small barrages of wedding rings.

The Reconciliation Vacation was a complete disaster. We docked in Bermuda, in Hamilton the next day, and most of the guests disembarked and rented motor scooters to tour the island. There were 108 motor scooter fatalities. They were deemed accidental by the cash-strapped Bermudian coroner’s office. The remains were loaded into the ship’s walk-in freezers below deck and would be buried at sea somewhere between Bermuda and Boston.

As we left Hamilton, Captain Alzheemar came on the PA and said: “We are about to start our engines and get the hell out of here. While we wait, try to say ‘toy boat’ three times quickly.” As Captain crazy pants signed off the PA, I was thinking, maybe the Reconciliation Vacation was somewhat successful. It didn’t help everybody, but it was instrumental in alleviating the marital dysfunction in possibly 108 lives.

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

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

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