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Diazeugma

Posted on April 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

Diazeugma (di-a-zoog’-ma): The figure by which a single subject governs several verbs or verbal constructions (usually arranged in parallel fashion and expressing a similar idea); the opposite of zeugma.

The truck hit the pothole, flipped over, caught fire, and exploded. I felt like I was watching a movie— maybe something ok like “Death of a Truck.” Maybe its remains could be piled in a dump truck and driven slowly to the junkyard followed by a procession of truck drivers, including Amazon, UPS, and followed by a column of independent truckers.

Lately, I’ve had too many of these experiences—observing tragedies. Two weeks ago I was doing my three-card monte scam, cruising along, fleecing the punters out in front of Trump Tower. This is a great place—it has a con vibe the covers the scam and makes it look like a legitimate gamble.. I even wear a blond wig and a blue suit. I tell the punters I’m Trump’s cousin and they eat it up. That day, I had about ten people clustered around the game, taking turns losing their money. Suddenly, a drone flew in and hovered overheard. The punters looked up and said chorused “Oooh!” I got under my card table. It started playing Deep Purple’s “Space Truck’n” as it hovered overheard. Then it said “Bobby Boy, you’ve reached the end of the line.” I invited Bobby under my table. The drone dipped down and blew my table over. Bobby was exposed! A tow hook lowered from the drone and hooked the back of Bobby’s pants and flew off with Bobby yelling “I didn’t know. I didn’t know!”

The next day, the headlines read “Stockbroker Skyhooked to Hell.” I read the story and Bobby had been dipped in industrial waste, sewage and the giant grease trap in Hoboken behind Ghost Burgers, the first burger joint opened in the Colonies in 1791. they found Bobby barely with blistered skin covered with sewage and grease.

The police determined that had invested all of a client’s capital in Truth Social. Bobby would not say who the client was and he’s afraid he’ll be attacked again. At one point, he winked at his interrogator and sad “I musk go to the restroom.” Hmmm.

There have been many more strange episodes. A hyena stole my car last Friday. He drove by with his big toothy smile and then sped away. A troupe of rats was doing acrobatics on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. They were wearing tights advertising d-con: the rat poison. I saw a woman juggling three babies in car seats with a bottle of Mr. Clean balanced on her head. I was impressed by her strength and choice of cleaning products.

One more: I saw a man stuck to the sidewalk by a piece of bubble gum. He had been there for three hours. He was begging for somebody to bring him a putty knife or some WD-40. A passing teenager offered to cut off his foot. Eventually, the man took off his shoe and was freed.

So, if you keep your eyes open, there is a plethora of weird things to see.

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

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Dicaeologia

Posted on April 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

Dicaeologia (di-kay-o-lo’-gi-a): Admitting what’s charged against one, but excusing it by necessity.

The corrals are smaller. Where have all the lone prairies gone? I won’t be buried there, that’s for sure. Carbon monoxide fills the air, slowing down my thinking and making my eyes water and my vision blur. I was driving my manure spreader down Main Street. I don’t know how it happened. The bottle of whiskey wrapped in a rag under the seat is used for lubrication. Sometimes I take a yank, but it’s just to clear the dust away. It was a very windy night and my throat was filled with dust. Ah wait! Now I remember! My mother had called me and asked me to spread some manure in her front yard. It was Dad’s birthday the next day, and he always likes a load of fresh manure on his birthday. It’s a tradition that stretches back to the year we sold 90% of the ranch to a hockey rink, a parking lot and an airport. We kept the house, the barn and 25 acres—I raise miniature cows on the 25 acres. I sell them to people as pets and for diet sized cuts of meat. They are very popular with 30-something professionals who like little things like iPhones, ear buds, and electric sports cars. I also grow weed and have chickens. I sell bags of dope and eggs by the highway. All perfectly legal.

When I delivered the manure, Dad took off his boots and ran around the yard while me and Mom sang happy birthday. At one point he slipped and fell down and we all laugh together. We went inside and had cake while Dad talked about back in the day when commanded 10,000 acres of prime pasture land. He had to sell it off because his brother Bill, the co-owner had taken out 3 second mortgages on the property that he used to buy condos in Palm Beach, Vegas, and Hawaii. Soon after Dad found out, Uncle Bill disappeared without a trace. The properties were foreclosed on and Dad had to sell the ranch.

But why am I telling you all of this? I don’t know. It’s just stuck in my gut. Almost like a piece of barbed wire. Well, anyway, it was time to head home from Dad’s birthday. I said “bye” to Mom and Dad and hopped on my manure spreader. I backed into the Dormal’s house, tore off the front porch and smashed into their car in the driveway. I totaled it. At first, I thought it was my blurry vision from all the pollutants in the air. But then, I realized somebody had glued a picture of an open plot of land to my rear view mirror. It must’ve been done when we were inside having cake. The picture was very high resolution, so it would be mistaken for the mirror’s actual reflection.

After we discovered the picture, the police cordoned off the area and conducted a thorough search. They found Uncle Bill cowering in the garage. He had a couple of high resolution landscape photos trimmed to fit my ,mirror, a squeeze bottle of Super Glue and a Glock. He kept saying he hated his brother (my dad) and he had come to kill him. It was Mom. It was all about Mom.

Dad had stolen Mom from Bill when they were teenagers. It is amazing how the most blissful emotion can become so riddled with hatred that it can become a motive for murder. I wondered why uncle Bill didn’t want to kill Mom too.

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

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Dilemma

Posted on April 24, 2024 | Leave a comment

Dilemma (di-lem’-ma): Offering to an opponent a choice between two (equally unfavorable) alternatives.

Why do things have to be different? Why do we have to make choices? I have a choice about which disease to get sick from—Whooping Nose or Polo Fever. I have contracted both diseases, but only one vaccine can be taken—if you take two, one of them will be fatal. Whooping Nose is pretty bad. I’m pretty sure I caught it in the pet store when I was looking for a rat for my daughter’s birthday. She wants to “experiment” on it by clipping one of its feet off with toenail clippers and making a little prosthetic leg out of tooth picks and superglue. Very admirable. But, Whooping Nose is another story,

It starts with a runny nose and quickly progresses into unending series of powerful sneezes, that get worse and worse as the nose clogs up. The end comes when the jaw locks shut and a gigantic sneezes blows your nose off. Your sinuses come out out and hang from your nasal cavity. If the EMTs make it on time, you’ll survive, your sinuses will be returned to their cavities and your nose will be retrieved and sewn back on. Once you’ve had whooping nose, you’re immune from it for the rest of your life.

Then, there’s Polo Fever. I think I got it from picking up a contaminated polo ball and handing it to my buddy Enrico who had invited me to watch him play in a match. When I picked up the ball he yelled “No, no, no!” And wouldn’t take the ball. He told me it had been contaminated by “the play” and I would soon contract Polo Fever. I asked him why he didn’t warn me. He told me that he had forgotten that I am a peasant.

Polo Fever comes on in a week or more, marked by a whinnying sound coming from your butt followed by your temperature shooting up to 101.5—the temperature of a horse. The absolute worst aspect of the disease is the polo ball-sized and shaped- feces passed by the victim. In some cases it takes surgery to remove the hardened polo ball poop. Less serious is manure rolling—where the victim rolls around in polo pony manure snorting. The victim in locked in one of the cages behind the stables and suppled with a steady stream of steaming manure and hosed down every hour. In addition, a shovel full of oats is thrown at the victim every 10 minutes until he or she is coated with oats like a big Payday candy bar is with peanuts. The sound of hoofbeats soothes the victim, helping them through their ordeal.

So, I have to choose between two vaccines, and consequently, two diseases. I’m heading down “the lesser of two evils” highway. Whooping Noses or Polo Fever. The prospect of intestinal surgery puts me off. Losing ny nose to an explosive sneeze may be worse.

I will pray on it, “God, please show me the way.” God didn’t answer, so being at a loss himself to make a decision, he put two slips of paper in his motorcycle helmet: “Whooping Nose,” “Polo Fever.” He reached into his helmet and the two pieces of paper had become stuck together by the cupcake icing on his fingertips. “I should’ve washed my hands” he said remorsefully. Suddenly, a whinnying sound was emitted by his butt. “Time has made my decision,” he said as he looked at the sky. It was too late for the Polo Fever vaccine, so he went to the doctor for the Whooping Nose vaccine, which was exhibiting the barest symptoms and hadn’t taken hold yet. His nose was barely dripping. The whooping Nose vaccine would still work!

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

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Dirimens Copulatio

Posted on April 23, 2024 | Leave a comment

Dirimens Copulatio (di’-ri-mens ko-pu-la’-ti-o): A figure by which one balances one statement with a contrary, qualifying statement (sometimes conveyed by “not only … but also” clauses). A sort of arguing both sides of an issue.

Protagoras (c. 485-410 BC) asserted that “to every logos (speech or argument) another logos is opposed,” a theme continued in the Dissoi Logoiof his time, later codified as the notion of arguments in utrumque partes (on both sides). Aristotle asserted that thinking in opposites is necessary both to arrive at the true state of a matter (opposition as an epistemological heuristic) and to anticipate counterarguments. This latter, practical purpose for investigating opposing arguments has been central to rhetoric ever since sophists like Antiphon (c. 480-410 BC) provided model speeches (his Tetralogies) showing how one might argue for either the prosecution or for the defense on any given issue. As such, [this] names not so much a figure of speech as a general approach to rhetoric, or an overall argumentative strategy. However, it could be manifest within a speech on a local level as well, especially for the purposes of exhibiting fairness (establishing ethos[audience perception of speaker credibility].

This pragmatic embrace of opposing arguments permeates rhetorical invention, arrangement, and rhetorical pedagogy. [In a sense, ‘two-wayed thinking’ constitutes a way of life—it is tolerant of differences and may interpret their resolution as contingent and provisional, as always open to renegotiation, and never as the final word. Truth, at best, offers cold comfort in social settings and often establishes itself as incontestable, by definition, as immune from untrumque partes, which may be considered an act of heresy and may be punishable by death.]

I was and I wasn’t. I wasn’t what I was. I sounded like a riddle looking in a mirror. While something may be known one at a time, at another time it may be something different—now it’s a car, now it’s a cube of steel riding a magnet across a junkyard. Or, maybe not. Maybe it was a cube of steel when it was a car—a potential of steel, an actual car. Can you look at the cube as steel and say “That’s a 1992 Mercedes.” But I walk down the street swinging my arms back and forth like an ape. I am not an ape though. I am a cup of tea with legs. I must be careful not to spill. I do not want to stain the sidewalk Orange Pekoe. Why do I keep changing? Are they incarnations, or am I insane, or both? I think both. Or better, madness is a sort of a new incarnation. You forget your previous self and take on a brand new guise. When you’re really crazy you don’t remember your past. When you’re sort of crazy, you do remember. In a way being sort of crazy is worse than being totally crazy—you may be tantalized by a recent past—a reality that is “sort of” but not palpable enough to thwart the vague recollections that intrude on your dream and hurt. Being totally crazy is a glutted maelstrom of meaningless ooz with untraceable emotional import, like abstract art free from the canvas, possessing you with its colored fluidity.

There are many variations on this theme. I don’t know them. I don’t care when I roll around on the sidewalk singing Elvis’ “Don’t Be Cruel.” People look at me and step around me with disgusted looks on their faces. Why? Not because I’m in mental distress, but because I’m in their way. Then a guy that looks like Jesus hovers above me, motioning for me to get up. This happens once or twice a week. I usually get up and continue my crazy trek through the day. But today, I can’t get up. I am dead. A half-dozen teenage boys kicked and beat me to death while I lay drunk on the sidewalk. I look down and see my bloodied torso. The Jesus guy points. I look in the direction he’s pointing and there is a golden elevator. I climb on the elevator and ride to Heaven. As I step off the elevator, I become sane. I see my grandma coming toward me with a bouquet of flowers.

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

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Ecphonesis

Posted on April 20, 2024 | Leave a comment

Ecphonesis (ec-pho-nee’-sis): An emotional exclamation.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing Leonard?“ it was my father. I was doing my homework. “Homework, Dad,” I said. I was hunched over my desk, tapping away on my laptop. Our assignment was to write a job description, and then write a letter of application for the job. My job description was: “Wanted: stupid-ass drunk with no skills or common sense.” I thought my teacher, Miss Trank, would find it humorous and give me an “A”, especially when she read the cover letter: “Dear Potential Boss: I am drunk right now. I have had three gin & tonics for breakfast and will be drinking a half-bottle of MD-40 for lunch. So, I am a drunk. Stupid-ass describes me very accurately. For example, I sent away to Amazon for a hammock. The assembly instructions were complicated and I got tangled up in the webbing part.i was drunk so I didn’t care, but my mother cut me loose and and I fell on the ground and threw up. How’s that for stupid-ass? The only skill I have is taking a shower, and I have trouble with that. Apparently, my father is right: I don’t know my ass from my elbow. I have a picture of them with labels hung up in my shower. But they fall down from time to time, if they land face down, I’m screwed. I yell for my dad and he comes into bathroom and picks up the pictures and holds them up for me. Then, I can resume showering. Other than showering, I have other possible skills—well, maybe eating and getting dressed too. But that’s it. On the no common sense front, I can give you a quick example: I go out in the rain with no raincoat or umbrella. I get soaked and have suffered from hypothermia several times. I almost died once when I went camping in my bathing suit. Also, once I threw an alarm clock so I could see time fly. I can report for duty tomorrow. I will be drunk and ready to go.”

Leonard finished his third gin and tonic and started off for school. He staggered across Maple Street and was clipped by a car. He was knocked down on the pavement, but wasn’t hurt (so he thought). He was actually unconscious and dreaming that he was uninjured. A fifth-grader, Billy Wack, poked the crack in Leonard’s head with a stick. Leonard flopped around like a fish.

A crowd gathered. Mr. Topi, who lived on the street, called an ambulance to come get Leonard. He was still dreaming inside his cracked head—dreaming he was dreaming that his head had cracked open and leaked most of his intelligence, which he didn’t have very much of in the first place. Then, he heard a voice say “How many fingers am I holding up?” Leonard saw 300 fingers and fell off the stretcher, a common problem with the Hill Dale EMT team. They were different heights and had trouble keeping the stretcher level. When Leonard fell off the stretcher a small amount of his brain leaked out of the crack in his head.

Suddenly he was being shaken. Miss Trank was trying to wake him up. He had no idea how he had ended up in class. Miss Trank said: “Leonard, I am giving you a double zero on this assignment and you are being suspended from school for two weeks for educational sedition.” I had no idea what Miss Trank was talking about. The crack in my head was healed. I went back to the cloakroom, dug out my back-up bottle of gin and took three big swigs to hold me until the 3 o’clock bell rang.

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

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Ellipsis

Posted on April 18, 2024 | Leave a comment

Ellipsis (el-lip’-sis): Omission of a word or short phrase easily understood in context.

Jeff: Count with me: 1, 2, . . . yup, that’s right, 3. But actually, I was gong to say four. What’s next is always a big question, I’m going to jump up and down now, and what will I do after that? Moo hoo ha ha ha. Here I go! Whoops! Your picture of mom is under my feet. Oh no! The frame broke and the picture tore. What would I do next? Sweep up the mess and threaten to push you out of your bedroom window if you tell mo?.

If you don’t stop crying I will strangle you. I want you to lure Lawrence Burnborn to our basement. Tell him you will give him Peanut Butter Cups and Peter Paul Mounds. He is such a pig that he would crawl through broken glass to get the candy.

Sister: Jeff, you have flipped your wig again. You must’ve stopped taking you meds. Remember what happened last time? You lit my three little hamsters—Iggy, Swiggy, and Ziggy—on fire and put on a flaming hamster juggling show. The show was a failure because you couldn’t get the hamsters to stay lit. They took you to Cortex Creek Rest Home, where you stayed 6 months. You were fine when you got out. It was the meds, the “Normalacyn.” You were diagnosed with “Quadra-Polartechinosis,” a complex condition with four shades of “crazy:” 1. Deep Landfill, 2. Totally Bummed, 3. Starting Up, 4. Running Wild. Now, I think you should go . . .

Jeff: Shut up you human slag heap! You are telling me what I already know, snot face. Now, just go and get Lawrence and bring him back here. In the meantime, I”ll check my electric drill and jar of sulphuric acid. Go get him! Now!

Sister came back in a half-hour. Lawrence was not with her. Jeff went berserk. He chased Sister around the basement with his drill whining. Sister ran back up the basement stairs. Her boyfriend “Nordic” Bill, a giant and Icelandic Exchange Student, was waiting. He was holding a Narwal tusk.

Jeff came up behind Sister and drilled her in the buttocks. He pulled out the drill and went for Nordic Bill. Bill was waiting for Jeff pointing the Narwal tusk in his direction. At the last second, Bill dropped the tusk and turned and ran. Now, Jeff’s father Strom showed up and pointed a double-barreled shotgun at Jeff.

Strom: Put down the drill. You’re headed back to Cortex Creek.

Jeff put the drill down, but picked up the Narwal tusk and pointed it at his father. His father shot hm in the head—firing both barrels. A creature that looked like a small turtle crawled out of Jeff’s mangled head. The ambulance arrived for Sister. The “turtle” skittered out the front door which had been left open by Strom when he rushed into the house. Strom never said a word to anybody about the turtle.

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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Enallage

Posted on April 17, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

I was carded. The ID said I was 45, but I was only 19. Those were the days! No photo IDs. As a 45-year-old I could pretty much go anywhere I wanted to, and I done what I wanted to do where age was a factor. As long as I had the ID in my hand, I was good to go. But I discovered, aside from driving, drinking gin, buying naughty magazines and owning a gun, the stretch between 21 and 45 didn’t have a lot of extra permissions. I paid $50.00 for my fake ID, so I was a little disappointed—until I discovered “Club 45.” It was for men “45 and over.”

I thought this place was going to be wild. I showed my ID at the door, paid my $10,00 initiation fee, and was motioned in. I looked. There were men sitting in bathrobes, reading newspapers and sipping orange juice. Some men had little tables where they were assembling plastic model boats and airplanes. I thought maybe that they were sniffing glue. They weren’t.

I was given a bathrobe and a newspaper and shown to “my” chair. I hadn’t read a newspaper in years. I took a sip from my orange juice and started reading the front page. It was shocking. Toy drones had been turned into weapons of war. I used my drone to video my neighbor’s wife in their hot tub. For the hell of it, I turned to the want ads. The first one I looked at said: “Wanted: A man. Must be energetic and like to experiment.” I thought: “I am energetic—I’m on the track team. I like to experiment: I just got a chemistry set for my birthday!” I was in!

I took the paper and left the club. There was a pay phone across the street. I called the number from the ad and a woman answered after one ring. I told her I was energetic and liked to experiment. She said “You’re just what I’m lookin’ for honey.” She gave me her address. Nobody had ever called me “honey” before. I had only heard it in movies or radio shows.

I walked to the house in about 5 minutes. Actually, I ran. I rang the doorbell. The door opened and there was my friend Eddy’s grandmother in a pink bathrobe and slippers. She slammed the door and yelled “Go away you little pervert!”

I was really disappointed. I didn’t know what we were going to do—but I thought it was along the lines of exercising together and doing some experiments. 2 days later it was Eddy’s birthday. Right after we sang happy birthday and Eddy blew out the candles, his grandmother showed up. We made eye contact and she blushed. She had a man with her. He was overweight and probably 45-50. I asked her if he was energetic and liked to experiment.

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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Enantiosis

Posted on April 16, 2024 | Leave a comment

Enantiosis (e-nan-ti-o’-sis): Using opposing or contrary descriptions together, typically in a somewhat paradoxical manner.

There was so much right about what was so wrong. Once again, I had worked my way into the ”two kinds” of good that are a major vexation in so many people’s lives. We have what feels good juxtaposed against what is good: sensual pleasure vs. some other kind of pleasure. I may ask, “Will I let my skin win” this Saturday night?

What is this impalpable concept of the good? Is there some quality of pleasure that attaches to it? What is that quality of pleasure that gives import to its revelation? Is it borne on the contradiction of intellectual pleasure—like the satisfaction of solving a riddle, the seeking of which can be as addictive as any illicit drug. People may use the metaphor of addiction to characterize their pursuit of puzzles’ solutions: “I’m addicted to Sudoko.”

As soon as abstract concepts comport with examples they lose their purity. They wrestle in the mud. They come down to earth. Ironically, to “know” them, the concepts must be embodied as projections of their definitions “proving” them at the troughs of truth where we stick our faces into their goo, trusting that what sticks is mystically threaded to what is.

Home on the range everything is contestable—even self-evident truth which may be a ruse concocted to achieve a purpose that has nothing to do with anything but desire—desire for a change, desire for a difference, a desire to be free. Free?

We are never free. There are always constraints requiring deliberation or well-considered habits to surmount and traverse. I think it was Plato who said that people do what they do because they think it’s good: bank robbers, for example, think that robbing banks is good. You name it: it gets done because it is thought to be good. But we know that thinking something is good, doesn’t make it good. The same goes for “bad.”

We could spin a tome consisting of spiral staircases and unchained melodies. But, it’s about persuasion. It’s abut belief. It’s about what could be wrong: incorrect, or impermissible, or right, or correct. Nobody knows, and those that claim they do are demagogues. So, where does it go? It goes to making choices based on reflection on a nonexistent future.

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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Ennoia

Posted on April 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

“You might be wondering what’s coming next. It may be worth it for you to wait quietly. You never know. Ha! Ha!,” said my father.

At this point, after at least 100 times, I knew it wasn’t worth it to wait. I don’t know why he kept doing it, but at least once a week he would tell me to “wait quietly” and something beneficial would happen. He was no seer. He sat in his recliner in his bathrobe chain-smoking Camels, watching soap operas all day on our little black and white TV. He was “disabled” and he didn’t work. The Union paid him monthly benefits for the permanent injuries he had sustained when his UPS truck had exploded and he was thrown fifty feet and landed in a dumpster filled with broken glass. His UPS inform saved him from being shredded, but he was badly cut, and physically—he lost one of his eyes, injured from being blown up, and he suffers from PTSD, He can’t ride as a passenger in any kind of vehicle, including trains and airplanes.

They caught the person who blew up his truck. The person had a grudge agains UPS. His brother had died when the UPS driver delivering the heart to be transplanted in his brother got lost on the way to the hospital. By the time he got there, the heart was no good any more. So, this guy started a vendetta against UPS, blaming them for his brother’s death. When they caught the guy, he went “Boom!” and clapped hands. The cops were startled, but they cuffed him and took him away. He was tried and convicted as a domestic terrorist. He got life in prison.

Although we pitied Dad, we believed he could do better than “riding” the recliner and smoking Camels in his bathrobe every day. Instead, we decided to get him a motorcycle so he could tour around the hills and dales of central New Jersey where we lived. Despite his PTSD, he could still drive. We went to Marley’s Harleys and picked one out. He took lessons on the bike for a week.

He took off and never came back. We heard that an “old guy” that looked a lot like him was riding with “The Outlaws.” He was called “One Eye Jack.” That fit: dad only had one eye and his first name was “Jack.”

We gave up trying to find him. Then, 4 years later, there was a loud rumbling noise outside. There was a long line of Outlaws lining the street. One motorcycle was pulling a trailer with with a coffin draped in an American flag. Four men hoisted up the coffin and laid it down on our front lawn. One of the men, with tears in his eyes said “He was always sayin’ ‘You might be wondering what’s coming next. It may be worth it for you to wait quietly. You never know. Ha! Ha!’ His optimism was an inspiration.”

We’re not going to tell anybody that Dad’s dead. We’re going to keep collecting his pension check. He’d like that.

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

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

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Enthymeme

Posted on April 13, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

“Make sure to lock the door.” She looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face.

I thought it was amazing that we found our way to her mud and bark champole—the dome-seeped structure where her people lived. There were no roads, just dirt paths crisscrossing everywhere. Svelto said, “We have no locks here.” Then I remembered: Svelto’s culture is lockless. Burglary is not a crime—it is an art form. This is inevitable in a lockless culture. When I told Svelto to lock her door, I was reminding her of something that’s “normal” in my culture, failing to realize that the norm was not operative in Elvizonia.

There were so many things I had to unlearn to live comfortably there. We had met in a cocktail lounge in New York, and married when we got tired of dating, and then, moved to Elvizonia. She had done an amazing job of assimilating to the dominant US cultural norms—it was like she was from New Jersey or Ohio.

When we got to Elvizonia, she expected me to assimilate. I complied. I had to get a tattoo of her face just below my belly button. The tattoo artist used a sharpened stick dipped in ink made from some kind of blackberries and hot sauce. It made me cry and Svelto was expected slap my face every couple of minutes during the tattooing. The tattoo was terrible. It looked like an ink blot with a nose and scraggly hair. But, in the aesthetics of Elvizonia it was considered a “superb” work of art.

The food was great. I developed a love of potatoes and mutant rabbits—the rabbits had very long ears and only one hind leg. Of course, the lack of one leg made it easy to collect them for dinner (or lunch for that matter). They would claw at the ground and spin around. You just picked them up and put them in a sack. The extra long ears were like carrying handles! Pick ‘em up, bag ‘em, and carry ‘em home.

For me, one of the strangest things of all was the Zeckszoot (Sexsuit). It was a fleece onesie —green for males and red for females—it was mandatory to wear during sex. Failure to wear a Zeckszoot could result in a fine, or even imprisonment. There were peepholes in every champole, and local officials had to be informed of your intention to have sex so they could observe through your peephole, making sure regulations were being followed.

As you can imagine, Elvizonian culture was too much of a stretch for me. My ethnocentricity was disabling. I lost the love of my life. I look at my tattoo of her face and feel the painful burden of my failure at cultural sensitivity. But then! There was Svelto!

She was working in the cocktail lounge where we met. She saw me and came over to my table. She said “Follow me.” We went back into the storeroom. She sad “Wait my little rabbit” and stepped behind a tall stack of boxes. In about a minute, she stepped out from behind the boxes. She was wearing an Elvizonian sex suit. She held up a green sex suit, wriggled it around and threw it at me. I recognized the “sex suit throwing ritual” as an Elvizonian hookup gesture—a one-off—a “just for fun.” I put on my suit and put my hands under my armpits—making wings of my arms. I flapped toward Svelto. We circled behind the boxes. Nobody was watching.

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

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

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

Epanodos

Posted on April 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

The partridge was in the pear tree. The kettle was on the boil. The farmer was in the Dell. I was in a-gadda-da-vida. I had been stuck there since 1968 when my bell bottoms got stuck in time and I was chocked to death by my peace medallion when it got tangled in the external rearview mirror of a Cadillac that almost ran me over. I chased after him and my medallion got wrapped around the mirror. He took off with me hanging from the mirror and I choked to death.

He dragged me about a mile and I was flopping like a hooked fish. I distinctly remember dying. It felt really good. No anxiety. I was untangled from the mirror and transported to the morgue. They took off all of my clothes and laid me on a metal slab and covered me with a sheet. It was quite comfortable—cool and smooth. They determined by the burn marks on my throat and my bloated face, that I had been choked to death. I heard them say that the driver of the Cadillac had been arrested. That made me happier than I had already been.

Like I said, it felt good to be dead. I was comfortable and relaxed. Not a care in the world. The only thing that puzzled me was my awareness of the world around me and the monologue rolling along in my head.

Luckily, I wasn’t cremated. I had a traditional funeral with crying people saying nice things about me. My family was cheap and put me in a cardboard coffin. I didn’t care. I was dead. I was buried near the cemetery’s parking lot and my grave was marked with a white wooden stake with my name on it in magic marker: Brad Black: 1946-1970.

Just as I was getting settled in, I was resurrected. All of a sudden, I was standing by my grave with a guy in white robes standing there. He said “Boo!” and a huge wing popped out on either side of his body. He was holding a lute and started playing “In-a-gadda-da-vida.” He handed me a karaoke microphone so I could sing along. It was great. Then he cut the playing and said “Did you hear that bell tinkling?” I told him I had. He said: “You’re an angel!” My big wings popped out, and suddenly I was wearing a white gown. I went to angel camp and was trained as a guardian angel. I wear a thing like an Apple Watch that tells me when my charges is in trouble. I manifest myself and get things straightened out. Most recently, it was a five-year-old boy hanging from a cliff. He had been knocked over the cliff by his dog which his parents had subsequently angrily thrown over the cliff. Somehow the dog was unscathed after the 300 foot fall. Hmmm. I wonder how that happened?

It felt good to be dead. Don’t get me wrong—I know there are sinners burning in hell right now. When I was in Angel Camp, we went to Hell on a field trip. They gave us ear plugs so we couldn’t hear the screaming of Satan’s victims. I was surprised to see my neighbor Mr. Gundoor. I asked our guide what Mr. Gundoor was in for. He wasn’t allowed to tell me, but Mr. Gundoor was sitting naked on a pancake griddle, sizzling like bacon and screaming.

Well, it’s time to earn my eternal paycheck: there’s a boy stuck in a bear trap, circled by wolves, with a forest fire making its way toward him.

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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Epanorthosis

Posted on April 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

Epanorthosis (ep-an-or-tho’-sis): Amending a first thought by altering it to make it stronger or more vehement.

My name is “Risky” Pelmore.

I was driving to DC from New York—actually I was speeding to DC from New York. I was going 95 and I didn’t give a damn. My SAAB would do 140. I said out loud “I’ve yet to begin to speed” and pumped my car up to 98. The faster I went, the faster I wanted to go—I hit 105 and started to slow down. What the hell was I doing going 105 on the interstate? I got the SAAB down to 70 and set the cruise control. It would keep me in check.

I was going to DC to March in a demonstration against government regulations, all of which had been proven to cause cancer in moles, which are very close to people in the food chain, according to Dr. Longjoint at Hoboken Community College. He claims to know more about everything than anybody. People call him a crackpot out of sheer jealousy no matter what says they call him an imbecile and burn his pamphlet “I Know Everything.” To retaliate, he burned copies of Newton’s “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy,” which he claims has led Western Civilization astray by counting too much, and popularizing accounting. He firmly believes that “the answer is blowing in the wind, and that the growing prevalence of wind turbines is blocking the answer with their big propellers. If they aren’t outlawed soon, we will never find the answer and become even more stupid than we are now. I can feel the truth as a very faint breeze when I get near a wind turbine and get hit on the head by chopped up Crows and Chickadees that fly into the propellers. It is ghastly.

The demonstration in DC has been organized by “Citizens Against Safety” (CAS). We believe that if we keep making things safe, that we will become extinct as a species. “Survival of the Fittest” will no longer be operational. “Safety” will deprive us of our evolutionary maintenance. For example, wearing hard hats on construction sites is leading to thin skull syndrome. It used to be, being thick-skulled was a condition of employment on construction sites. With the mandate to wear hard hats, that is no longer the case. Construction workers may have paper thin skulls leading to accidents around the home, and they may frequently wear their hard hats at home—including in bed. Probably, the worst effect of safety is overpopulation. How are we going to deal with it? I think getting rid of seatbelts would help put a dent in the population, along with getting rid of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors too. Maybe traffic lights too? Anything we can do to increase the death rate will help with overpopulation.

CAS is agitating for the abolition of the Federal Department of Safety. We don’t want the government intervening in the lives of people who would otherwise be dead. Nobody stood in Ben Franklin’s way when he could’ve been electrocuted discovering electricity. But look at today. Dr. Longjoint was not allowed to fly his handmade rocket ship to the moon, because it didn’t meet so-called safety standards. For example, he was cited for building the fuselage out of tin foil held together with zippers. So what? He is a free man and he has a right to act like it. Get off his back Uncle Sam! He is not a pawn in your game! And oh, one more thing: life jackets. If you want to risk drowning that’s your business, not the US Coastguard’s. God! It makes me mad!

I hope to see the Scissors Brigade down in DC. They March carrying scissors with pointed ends up. They drive the “safers” crazy with the simplicity of their potentially fatal risk-taking.

Well—see you in DC. Until then, safety last,

POSTSCRIPT

Risky crashed into a bridge abutment before he got to DC. He wasn’t wearing his seat belt. He flew through the windshield, hit the abutment with his head and rolled onto the highway where a dump truck ran over his legs. He is in a coma now and his mangled legs had to be amputated. Friends from CAS sent him flowers with a note: “Way to go!”

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

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

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

Epenthesis

Posted on April 10, 2024 | Leave a comment

Epenthesis (e-pen’-thes-is): The addition of a letter, sound, or syllable to the middle of a word. A kind of metaplasm. Note: Epenthesis is sometimes employed in order to accommodate meter in verse; sometimes, to facilitate easier articulation of a word’s sound. It can, of course, be accidental, and a vice of speech.

I’m goin’ to the roe-hoe-doe-dee-o. Yahoo! I got my bull ridin’ license yesterday afternoon, an after I flunked the test 9 times. You have to stay on a mechanical bull for 20 minutes without falling off. That’s a long ride partner! I coulda’ gone all the way to the shoppin’ mall. I tried to cheat once on the test by super gluin’ my butt to the saddle. I didn’t think it through. I went for the full twenty minutes, but the glue wouldn’t let me off the bull. I had to squirm out of my Wranglers and drive home in my underpants. It cost me $700 to fix the bull, but I learned a valuable lesson: don’t glue yourself to things unless you’ve got some kind of solvent to break the bond, especially if it’s Super Glue! I keep those Wranglers hangin’ in the garage to remind me of my folly every night when I come home from work. The butt’s as stiff as cardboard, and that’s a further lesson. What a fool I was. My wife actually put a frame around them and wrote “Nitwit” across them with gold glitter. Whenever I start acting like a fool, she takes me out to the garage and points to the pants. I nod my head and say “You’re right honey.” Another wrong turn avoided!

But today, I’m goin’ to the rodeo. I’m doin’ bull ridin’ as you have gathered. I’ve drawn “Old Red Eyes.” He seriously injured a rider last Saturday—he threw him hard, stomped on his face and stood there and peed on him. I didn’t see it, but I heard it was horrible. The rider’s face was smashed beyond recognition. He’s in a coma with possible brain damage. But, I’m gonna’ ride Old Red Eyes to hell and back if need be.

They call my number and I head to the chute. 5 cowboys with cattle prods are pushin’ Old Red Eyes into the chute. I climb on and adjust the body rope—I swear Old Red Eyes made a growling sound. Then, bam! We’re out of the chute. My shoulder comes dislocated—I’m afraid my arm’s going to come off. It hurts like hell! Time to dismount. My boot gets stuck in one of the stirrups. I fall off Old Red Eyes. He drags me around and hits me in the head with one of his hooves, and I pass out.

I “wake up” and I’m flying in a wheelchair over the rodeo arena. A crowd of people is waving at me as I fly over. They’re holding signs that say “Nitwit.” After two weeks, I’m released from the hospital, but I have amnesia from the blow on my head. I don’t recognize my children or wife, or anybody else. I answer to “Nitwit” and everybody laughs, especially the person who says he’s my brother. This is how he greets me, “Hey nitwit. What’s up nitwit? How’s it goin’ nitwit? What’s 2+2 nitwit?”

Suddenly, my amnesia lifted and I remembered everything. I agree that “Nitwit” is a good name for me. I changed my name on my driver’s license and opened a bungee jumping business named “Nitwits.”

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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Epistrophe

Posted on April 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

We came here to conquer. Some drove here to conquer. Some walked here to conquer. Some crawled here to conquer. Hemorrhoids! The vicious scourge plaguing butts withe endless itching, being medicated with sloppy ointment offering only temporary relief. And in the worst case, their surgical removal, often not covered by insurance.

What exactly are we going to conquer? We have developed a technique for unobtrusively scratching your itch while sitting down. Ms. Mill will demonstrate. Ms. Mill please sit up front here. Class, observe carefully. Ms. Mill slowly and almost imperceptibly, rocked her butt back and forth three times, and then, rotated it clockwise and then counterclockwise three times.

The look of joy and relief on her face deeply moved me. She told us that in order for it to work, “your “itchy place” had to be pre-slathered with cortisone which is refreshed by the rocking and rotating and reduces the itching. Right now, I can hardly feel any itching at all.”

I went home a drew up a printable leaflet giving step-by-step instructions on how to do the “Rock ‘n Rotate.” I hosted a hemorrhoid dating site and support group on the web. I had three subscribers, but I didn’t care. I had started posting graphic images of hemorrhoids and was confident they would draw more sufferers in. They weren’t intended to be erotic, rather they were informational. The site’s name was “Itchin’ for Love.”

The videos and selfies started pouring in. I started charging $100 to join the site. I was making more money than I ever dreamed of. Then “Humper” magazine did a spread on my site. As the premier porno industry publication, it caught everybody’s eye. My site was flooded and it crashed. There were far more people afflicted with hemorrhoids than I had realized. So, I purchased more bandwidth and continued my quest. Luckily, nobody knew where I was physically located.

To my shock, hemorrhoids have become a cultural phenomenon. College students have scratching parties in their dorms, people include mention of their hemorrhoids in their marriage vows, there are dances based on the “Rock & Rotate” moves. It is sort of like the hunchback craze that followed the publication of Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” I don’t know whether what I’ve orchestrated is a good thing. When I have my doubts, I remember the look of relief and joy on Ms. Mill’s face when she finished doing the “Rock ‘n Rotate.” I dream about it.

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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Epitasis

Posted on April 6, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

I was looking for love in all the wrong places—the grocery store, CVS, Dick’s, the library and everywhere else where the prospect of finding romance is less than zero. Except, I did hear about a guy who started a romance with a woman he met et Lowes. But, after a week she killed him with paint stripper she had flavored with Mentos. As the police took her away, she yelled “This is my best DYI project ever!” So, there you have it: all the wrong places!

But, help is on the way. There’s a club opening down the street named “Sleezers.” It has a sign over the entrance depicting two women wiggling their butts. Between them there’s a flashing sign that says “Hook Up.”

After I paid my $200 membership fee and bought my mandatory t-shirt, I was allowed to enter. The place was huge inside, but there was only one other patron inside. She was dressed like Cinderella and leaning on the bar with a beer in her hand. She asked, “Are you my Prince Charming?” My heart nearly stopped. She shook her scepter at me and said, “Come on baby let’s hook up.” I said “Sure, let’s go my place.” She made me carry her piggy back. It was only four blocks, so it wasn’t a problem.

We were sitting in my living room. She was telling me about her crackpot stepmother and mean stepsisters. Suddenly she jumped up and lifter her dress over head and said, “you better hurry up. My coach will be here any minute.” I wasn’t fast enough. A horn blew the Stones’ “Parachute Girl.” My Cinderella ran out the front door where there was a giant fiberglass pumpkin mounted on a small flatbed truck. She got into the pumpkin and the truck took off blowing “Someday My Prince Will Come.”

I was devastated. I had felt that I had found the one. It might’ve been a snap judgment, but when you’re desperate, snap judgment is all you’ve got. My inability to make snap judgments had left me alone. I was too picky and that’s how I ended up looking for love in all wrong places. Since I paid my $200 membership fee, I kept going back to Sleezers. I hooked up with Dr. Bob’s daughter. He is the Presbyterian Minister. She was wearing a see-through dress and holding a Bible. Evidently, she was conflicted. Our eyes locked. She nodded her head, and we rook off to my place. She read Paul’s Epistles to us in a low and sultry voice. I told her I loved her and proposed. She laughed and said, “Yes, of course.” We got married. She has twenty transparent dresses. That’s all she wears. She still carries a Bible and her father wants to kill me for letting her dress like a “whore”. When he says that, I get mad.

So, I looked for love in all the wrong places and actually found love in a wrong place—Sleezers.

POSTSCRIPT

When he got home from work that evening she had gone. She sent him a selfie of her wearing overhauls, a flannel shirt and Blundstones. There was a note on the kitchen table that said: “You’re boring and I’ve had 146 affairs since we’ve been married. My boyfriend Buck is picking me up and we’re opening a tattoo parlor in Short Hills, New Jersey, where I grew up. Buck will kill you if you bother us.”

He certainly did look for love in all the wrong places. But, where are the right places? I think it’s about people, not places.

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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Epitheton

Posted on April 5, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

“Hey! It’s Joey baloney!” People would say (or yell) when I came through the door. They nicknamed me “Joey Baloney” in middle school. My mother made me a baloney sandwhich for lunch every day. I asked her for peanut butter and jelly once and she ran at me holding up her mustard knife. I barely got out the front door. She stabbed the door behind me. Two days later, I asked her why I had to have baloney every day. She twitched all over and spun around with the mustard jar in one hand and the mustard knife in the other. “It’s the message” she said with fear n her eyes. “What message?” I asked politely.

“It was the ghost of Mickey Mantle, the greatest of all New York Yankees. He wanted me to save the world one baloney sandwich at a time. Right there, on the spot, I swore my allegiance to the “Baloney Brigade.” Since he was a great ballplayer and an angel too,. I believed him and complied. As “Joey Baloney” soon you will take your place in the Baloney Brigade making baloney sandwiches by my side—smearing on the mustard, slicing the bread into delightful triangles.”

My mother was clearly nuts, but only about baloney. Otherwise she’s normal. So, I decided to play along. We each made each other a baloney sandwich every day. Mom got me my own jar of mustard and we shared the knives from the silverware drawer.

Then, I got an idea. I got my sketchy friend “Sticky” to get me a signed Mickey Mantle baseball. Through his connections, he got me one for $50.00. It was nearly my life savings, but I wanted to cure mom. I wrote “Mission accomplished” over Mickey’s signature on the baseball. Then, when she was making lunch, I threw the baseball through the open kitchen window. It hit mom in the chest and landed in the sink. Mom started to cry and yelled “Praise God. Praise Mickey Mantle. We are saved.”

Something grabbed me by the shirt collar and pulled me into the lilac bushes behind the house. It was Mickey Mantle’s ghost and he was mad. He told me I had better get my mother to work on the baloney sandwiches again or the world would end. I wondered if it was possible for a ghost to be crazy. In Mickey’s case, I thought it was. He said, “You must think I am crazy, but I’m not. Once I explain to you the baloney-doomsday connection, you will be eager to get your mother back to work.”

I am unfamiliar with physics, so Mickey put the explanation in layman’s terms. What he said scared the hell out of me. I told mom of my “Mission Accomplished” ruse. She pinned my hand to the cutting board and said, her voice shaking, “you almost wiped us out.” I sad, “Get back to work. I’ll call 911 and get a ride to the emergency room.”

Joey Baloney is back. Together me and mom are saving the world with one baloney sandwich at a day. Every once in a while Mickey stops by for lunch. Since he’s transparent, you can see his sandwich inside him. He opens his robe and we all laugh. Angels don’t have privates, so he does not have to worry about embarrassing mom,

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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Epitrope

Posted on April 4, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

Tell me more about what’s the meaning of that grease on your hands? You don’t have to answer, I will. Clearly, you’ve been touchin’ grease with both hands—two hands, left and right hand—10 fingers, palms and everything. You disappoint me with your naïveté. Don’t tell me you’re a mechanic. You are half-naked and look depraved. That alone is enough to get you arrested here in Napville City.

Don’t try to get away, or I’ll shoot. “Sir, we’re pole dancers and we’re experimenting with using grease for a better spin on the pole. We just tried it out with that oil pan drainpipe and it doesn’t work very well. It is too slippery and you go flying off the pole. We’re about to try toothpaste. It is expensive, but if it works we’ll get more tips stuffed into our costume bottoms. The toothpaste’s abrasives improve pole spin without being too slippery.”

You’re lyin’. I’ll ask you: What’s that pickup truck doin up on that lift over there: No, I’ll answer: you’re you’re doin’ some thin’ to that truck. You’re stealing its grease. “No! This is my brother’s repair shop and that’s his truck. Ask him.” One of the women said. “Yes sir” her brother said, “That’s my truck. I told them they could have some grease. Anyways, they got the grease out of that drum over there.” That looks like a barrel to me Sonny. Why do you call it a drum? Confess! “We in the repair business call it a drum. If we were a brewery, we’d call it a barrel. Who the hell are you anyway?”

My name is Nosey Camboroni and I been sticking my nose into other people’s business ever since I got a Colombo detective set when I was 14. I’m 28 now and still making a pest of myself, finding something to “pin” on everybody I meet, getting arrested for harassment, paying the fine, and then, going looking for my next perpetrator to question with skill and insight into the human mind. Just the other day I was behind a woman in the line at the grocery store. She started paying with food stamps. I asked to see her US passport, if she knew who Johnny Cash was, and if she could recite “The Pledge of Allegience.” She kicked me in my privates and yelled “You Goddamn creep, leave me alone.” Her anger was a sign that my interrogation had hit home. The police disagreed, apologized for my “crazy” behavior, arrested me, and sent her on her way.

So, what does this example tell you! I’ll tell you: things are falling apart. Criminals are everywhere, but I’m the one in jail for good detective work that is disrespectfully called “harassment.”

Maybe if I had a “Colombo-Mobile” I would have more credibility. A never-washed Ford Fairlane would do, filled with candy wrappers, crumpled tissues,, empty soda cans, and empty coffee containers. The radio would be stuck on NPR and the defroster would be broken. I would patrol the streets of Napville City. Maybe I could have a show on Tiktok: “Detective Nosey.”

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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Epizeugma

Posted on April 3, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

White, yellow and a few other colors were slowly painted. Accuracy was paramount. Time was not a consideration. I had read the bestseller by Dr. Bob Reggi titled “There is No Time For Now.” He argues that time is like a fried egg—flat with a bump in the middle—either hard, medium, or gooey. It was called the time-yoke, holding the circling complexities of the moment together with the “eggcentric” flow of bemusement taking what was once and violently subduing it into what is no more.

I had used Reggi’s humble and unconfused writings as a foundation, motivating my painting. I had painted 645 fried eggs—sunny side up, to over easy, to over well. It was difficult capturing the shades and nuances of the yolks—all seemingly yellow, but in reality more complex than that. In order to have a ready supply of fried eggs as models for my paintings, I built a chicken coop and filled it with chickens—Rhode Island Reds. The egg business was modestly successful.

I also opened a galley to sell my fried egg paintings. I sold none until one day a fleet of Chevy Suburban’s pulled up in front of my gallery. Dr. Bob Reggi stepped out of one of the Suburban’s. He said, “I’ll have a look around.” I was stunned. I ran inside to get his book and a pen so he could autograph it for me.

After a couple of hours he came out of the gallery. He said “Remarkable. I’ll take them all. How much?” I said, “I reckon $650,000.00, plus your autograph.” He wrote a check and autographed his book. They loaded the paintings into a Ryder truck and took off.

A few days later I read that Dr. Reggi had fallen into a vat of uncooked scrambled eggs and drowned. I was devastated and hoped that my paintings hadn’t played a role in his demise. I went to his estate sale and saw that all of my paintings had been slashed and piled in a heap in the driveway. I asked Dr. Reggi’s estate sale manager about my paintings. He told me that after purchasing my paintings he could no longer believe his fried theorem. The repetitive inept depictions of the eggs had repulsed him and rendered him despondent. In his fevered sorrow, he turned to uncooked scrambled eggs. The night he died, he was going to go swimming in a huge vat of cracked and whisked eggs. When he dove in, his head hit the side of the vat and cracked like an egg. The irony wasn’t lost on the estate sale manager—he laughed.

I don’t know what Dr. Reggi was looking for in the vat of eggs. He was a scientist, so his motives were sincere. Clearly, his death was an accident, so I’m off the hook. Although, he may have committed suicide by intentionally diving into the side of the vat.

I have started painting pictures of uncooked scrambled eggs. It is a compulsion I can’t control. Maybe I’m searching for the truth. In the meantime, I am having a giant vat constructed. I am going to replicate Dr. Reggi’s’ “egg dive” experiment. Don’t worry: I will wear a helmet.

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

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

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

Eucharistia

Posted on March 31, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

“My life is a long and convoluted adventure in making decisions, most of them bad. Well truthfully, most of them have been catastrophic, ruining peoples’ lives almost with a snap of my fingers. But finally, after all the destruction I’ve caused, this decision is bound to go right and it’s all because of you. I never believed I could kidnap 50 people and hold them hostage in my late father’s beautifully built warehouse. There are drains built into the floor that will come in handy if I need to hose down the floor, if loved ones don’t come through with the ransom.”

“I hope this doesn’t make you mad, but children are being ransomed at a higher rate than adults, with ransoms receding the older the hostages get, to the point that people over 80 are being ransomed for $5.00. I’m sorry, but this is just the way of the world—the older you get, the less valuable you are. End of story. So, please let my colleagues examine your driver’s licenses so we can determine what your price tag will say. Also fill out the name tag and hang it around your neck. My colleagues will take care of the children’s tags.”

“Now, we’re going to play ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper,’ and you’re going to sing along.”

(After the song)

“There! Don’t you feel good? Fearing death could really make this kidnap experience a real bummer. Oh—we’re starting to get some phone queries. Ed Jones—your wife called and told us she’s not paying Jack Shit—that we can go ahead and blow you away. But before that, we are letting all the children go. Their whining is driving me crazy. We’re going to load them up in a truck and drop them off ten miles away from here.“

“Ok Ed, come on up! Anything to say?” Ed: “This is crazy. My wife’s bullshit shouldn’t determine my fate. I am Manager of ‘Tidy Fries’ at the mall. I . . .”

“BLAM!” Ed flopped to the floor. The Kidnapper-in-Chief kicked Ed’s lifeless body and started crying. Then he started singing Roy Orbison’s song “Crying.” He put his pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.

The police arrived and streamed into the warehouse, guns drawn. After things settled down a bit, one of them said, “He had a good idea, but he didn’t have the class to pull it off.” The cop standing next to him said, “Are you fu*king crazy?” And shot him in the head. All hell broke loose. Nobody knew who to trust. Gunfire was erupting throughout the warehouse. Ed came back to life, picked up a gun and yelled “I’m better off dead. No more mortgage and car payments, no more feeding and clothing my ungrateful kid, no more wife from hell, no more income taxes.”

“BLAM!”

It was a mess. None of it made any sense. It was so incomprehensible it wasn’t reported in the news. In fact, nobody believed it really happened. Except this guy: “My name is Ed, I was there, and it really happened. I have two holes in my head to prove it.”

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

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

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

Euche

Posted on March 30, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

“I swear to God I didn’t do it—I might’ve made a promise, but I never intended to follow through on that one. I never promised a family trip to Italy. I was crazy! But now, I’m going to make a promise I intend to keep. I promise to take us on a hike in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Green Village—one of the cutest little towns in New Jersey. When I was a kid it was just a swamp. My anscestors hunted raccoons there—at night with hound dogs. When Uncle Howard finally invited me to go along, it was some of the best fun I aver had in my life. Howard sold the carcasses and fur, which at that time was worth $35. That was a lot of money back then.”

We got up early and headed to the swamp. The dirt road was still there, but it ended abruptly at a foot bridge. There was a little trail at the end of the bridge that ended at a shore. The swamp had been flooded! There was a big sign that said “Do Not Enter.” We were going swimming later on in the afternoon at Lake Hoptacong so we had our bathing suits. I was determined to have our hike. The mosquitoes were starting to get wind of us, so we sprayed up knowing that it would wash off in the water. We suited up and crossed the footbridge and stepped into the water. We walked about five feet and the bottom dropped off about four feet deep. Our daughter was up to her neck and screaming. I put her on my shoulders and we forged ahead. We came to a hillock. It rose above the water and had trees growing on it. I got out the insect repellent and spayed us all up again. The mosquitoes formed a thick cloud around us. Their whining sounded like little race cars racing around a track. It was starting to drive me crazy.

I saw a black ball in the crotch of a tree. I was curious. I got really close and touched it before I realized it was a tick nest! The second I touched the nest, all the ticks disappeared. Then, I felt a crawly sensation inside my shirt. I tore open my shirt and my chest was covered with ticks. They had latched onto me and were sucking my blood. There was so many of them, I could hear a slurping sound. I thought if I stood up to my chest in the swamp water that they would drown. They didn’t. The only option was Morristown Memorial Hospital emergency room.

As we rode to the hospital, the slurping got louder and I started to feel weak. When we got to the hospital, the ER nurse told me to open my shirt. She yelled “Holy shit” and people crowded into the examination room taking pictures with their cellphones and asking politely if they could pose with me. Ten Candy Stripers were assigned to work on me with Tick Tordaes, pulling out the ticks without leaving the heads behind.

I wrote a book about the incident titled “Tick Tick: Deadly Encounter.” I take some poetic license in the book, like the tick nest is overseen by an evil spirit—a Tick God. Another example of poetic license is the hospital duty nurse falling in love we me, drugging me, and trying to abduct me.

If you’re thinking of taking a family outing to the Great Swamp, bring a lot of bug spray and don’t touch anything that you’re clueless about.

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

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

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

Eulogia

Posted on March 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

I had spent a week at Presbyterian Bible camp. We read the New Testament, said prayers, and sang hymns. It was all very boring, especially the Bible. It was like Shakespeare without the wild turns of phrase and poetic nuances. The story of Christ’s cruxifixction had some drama to it, but nothing coming close to Romeo and Juliet or Richard the Third—“my Kingdom for a horse.” That’s something worth listening to. Think about it. It’s like saying “my back yard for a skateboard.”: the drama of desperation drips from King Richard’s lips. Whereas Christ’s cruxifixction is a sad tale of this guy who got screwed who was forced to drag the implement of his own execution uphill. He was already a bloody mess when he got up the hill and was nailed up on the cross he dragged. The he asked God to forgive everybody who played a role in his demise. This story, for example, does not hold a candle to “Romeo and Juliet.” It runs a straight line from betrayal to execution. “Romeo and Juliet’s” plot is, on the other hand, convoluted, layered and anti-papist.

Even though Presbyterian Bible camp made me into a non-believer, I wasn’t hostile to its tenets, like joining a country club, hiring a reliable stockbroker, going to a reputable private school and insincerely giving God credit for everything.

After Bible camp, I figured I should make it look like I got something out of it. So, when anybody I knew did something I considered good, I would say “God bless you” or “All glory to God.” Most of the time I would yell it so people would pay attention to God’s benevolence. I was very liberal in my bestowal of praise—for example: my sister’s chocolate chip cookies: “God bless you.” Or, my father got out of his chair to change the TV channel: “God bless you.”

Dr. Willap, the head of the local Presbyterian church heard about what I was doing. He came to our house to “counsel” me. I would hear none of it. He started yelling and threw a punch at me and missed. I knocked him out with my football trophy. When he regained consciousness, he apologized as he went out the door. I said “All glory to God.” He turned and lunged toward the door. I slammed the door in his face. He pounded on it for a few minutes and left.

I felt like a martyr. I didn’t like it. Maybe if I switched to the Episcopalian church, I’d have better luck with my spiritual stylings.

God bless you for reading this. May your walk in faith be filled with drama, suspense, and pathos, like a Shakespeare play.

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

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

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

Eustathia

Posted on March 28, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen n love. It is the easiest thing in the world to do. If you have this flaming desire in your gut, you’re in love. When you were little it was for your hamster (creepy but true), next, your third grade teacher, then, your best friend’s sister, next the hooker from Philadelphia, and finally, your wife. I guess this isn’t actually about you. Rather, it’s about me and there are way more “loves” than I can possibly list here.

Let’s focus on my wife. When we got married we did the promising thing. As I took the vows I felt like I was forging chains. When I said “I do” I started thinking about divorce. it was like a switch flipped deep in my soul and my love turned off. It wasn’t her, it was me.

We’ve been married ten years. I pretend I love her. I’d hate to see her upset over such a thing. It would tear her apart. We have two beautiful children—Linda and Pete—they would be devastated if Mommy and Daddy broke up. So, I am a pretender. My life is an act.

Without realizing what I was doing, I fell in love with with the checker at the grocery store. My wife was attractive, but Carmella was beautiful. I started doing all the grocery shopping, to my wife’s great delight. I was exploding with desire. I spoke to her when she finished ringing me up. I asked her if she wanted to go for a drink. She sad sho couldn’t because she wasn’t old enough—she was 20. 10 years younger than me! She said she’d like to go to Baskin Robbins if I wanted to. We made a date. My head was spinning. What had I done?

Date night came. I picked her up at the grocery store. I told a lie to my wife—that I had to go to the library. We had some ice cream and she asked me if I wanted to go to a motel and have some “real fun.” When we pulled into parking lot of the “Sand Trap Motel,” I felt sick. I couldn’t go through with it. Carmella didn’t care and I took her back to her car at the grocery store.

When I got home, my wife was crying. She had fallen in love with one of the check-out men at the grocery store. She told me that she stopped loving me on the day we were married. She and Carl were going to get married and he was going to move into our house and I was going to move out. I was so disappointed that I hadn’t followed through with Carmella. Damn! What a missed opportunity.

I said, “Ok, I’ll leave.” I went outside and called Carmella and asked her if she wanted to live together. She said “Yes.” So now, I’m looking for an apartment in a complex with a swimming and jacuzzi. I am so lucky.

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

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

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

Eutrepismus

Posted on March 27, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

I had reached the bottom. I had gone crazy for dividing things—wholes and parts. I was sitting in bed trying to no avail to tear pieces of paper into tree equal parts. I couldn’t do it. My parts were not equal. Then, I realized that parts didn’t need to be equal! You just need three of them. Further, I discovered that making wholes into parts could have utility—it wasn’t just a game. For example, I could use them to “narrow down” options. That is, I have a stack of three slices of baloney. Which slice should I eat? First, not the one on the bottom. It is probably dirty from being on the bottom. Second, not the one in the middle because it made direct contact with the one on the bottom—the dirty one. So, what’s left? Third, the top slice. Now, you made a choice by numbering the slices. You have “sliced” through the thicket of uncertainty. Get the bread and mustard! You’ve got a sandwich on the way—with three parts—want to add a slice of American cheese? Woo hoo! Now you have four parts. Lettuce? Five parts! You’re on a roll. Now, take a bite!

I first became acquainted with parts and wholes when I tore the arms, legs, and head off my sister’s Shirley Temple doll, leaving the trunk as just this flesh colored thing with a belly button. My sister was upset and angry, beating me over the head with one of Shirley’s arms. When I put Shirley’s arms and legs back on, I put them on backwards. My sister went berserk and beat me over the head with Shirley and then put her back together correctly. By the way, my sister become a chiropractor. I think the Shirley incident was her inspiration. Shirley is displayed in a glass showcase in her office.

I know it influenced my career path. I started cutting things in half. Like peaches, or calves liver. There was something about the feel of the blade as it moved through victims—what I called the meat and fruit and vegetables I sliced apart. My high school guidance counselor advised me to get a job in a slaughter house. It was a perfect job for me. Every time a made a whole into parts, I heard my destiny calling me. I loved dismembering cows. They reminded me of Shirley—and I did not have put them back together again. I transformed cow carcasses into cuts of meat that people would enjoy eating for dinner, or a family gathering.

Soon, I started seeing people as cuts of meat. I couldn’t help it. They were everywhere—in the streets, on the subway, at the grocery store, everywhere. They needed to be made into parts if they were to achieve their end. If they stayed whole they would thwart the “Divine Plan: to go gently at the joints—find your natural divisions.”

I made this up to justify becoming a serial killer specializing in dismemberment. I would dress up in my butcher coat and prowl the back streets for victims. I was called the “Midnight Butcher.” I killed my victims at midnight because it was halfway through the night. I used a captive bolt stunning gun—the kind we used to kill cows—to kill my victims. I would wheel them to my home in the shopping cart I stole from Hannaford’s. I would pose them in the cart so they looked like they were having fun as I wheeled them along the sidewalk.

When I got home, I dragged them down the basement stairs to help them reach their destiny. I got caught when my sister came for a surprise visit. We were having baloney sandwiches and orange juice for lunch in the kitchen. She notice a blood trail across the kitchen floor leading to the basement door. She jumped out of her chair and ran down into the basement where she screamed and called the police on her cellphone.

After that, everything happened really fast—I was arrested, tried and convicted of 11 murders. I am incarcerated in the “Nelson Rockefeller Home for the Criminally Insane.” I continue to work on my part-whole theory and hope, at some point, to be vindicated. I have been provided with a Shirley Temple Doll. My psychologist believes that dismembering it every day is therapeutic. I would rather dismember her.

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

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

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Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Exergasia

Posted on March 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

“Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.” This was Little Orphan Annie’s mantra. So much for “Carpe Diem.” I guess Annie was posing as optimistic. But “loving tomorrow” may be the road to failure and even death. Anticipating a bed of roses may blind you to signs of the times predicting what’s next—like the weather forecast. A blizzard with five feet of snow is coming tonight. Do you still love tomorrow? If you do, you’re mentally ill.

I used to love tomorrow until my girlfriend broke up with me, I rolled my truck over, and got a hernia. All those things happened “tomorrow” and eventually today and yesterday. So then, I started thinking. Tomorrow never comes! This doubles Annie’s delusion. Maybe loving tomorrow involves a spiritual leap—maybe a leap toward the afterlife. That’s the “Big Tomorrow.”

Depending on your religion, you’ve got two places you can go: Heaven or Hell. You land in one or the other depending on what you do today. If you’re good, you go yo heaven. If you’re bad you go to hell. These destinations are eternal—you can’t leave. Hell is a world of eternal pain. Heaven is a world of eternal bliss.

The heaven/hell destinations may provide an incentive to be good. So, even though tomorrow does not exist, I’m going to bet on being good.

So, I’ve started a charity called “Bootstraps.” It helps losers become winners—to be self sufficient, functioning members of the community. We get significant donations from the community’s businesses. Lately, I’ve been embezzling from “Bootstraps.” I have doubled my income and there’s no risk of getting caught. I also collect 10% of my clients’ income from their bootstrapping—doing odd jobs. I make pretty good money there too. I am pretty sure I’m going to hell, but I don’t know for sure. That gives me an opening for my illegal activities. That, and temptation, the king of evil impulses. But like everything, it isn’t totally bad. For example, you may be temped to help an elderly person across the street.

But, there’s always tomorrow. Most things can be put off until tomorrow. So relax.

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

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

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Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Exuscitatio

Posted on March 23, 2024 | Leave a comment

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

How many of you have had your identity stolen? One day you’re Joe Jones. The next day you’re nobody— your identity has been stolen—you’re not a man any more, you’re weak, you have bad posture and you are the ceaseless target of teen-age bullies—calling you names like mommy’s boy and stealing your car no matter where you park it.

What can you do? What can we do to get your identity back—that tough no-nonsense you that once roamed the streets of Utica. But you say, “I don’t know who stole my identity, I don’t where it is or how to get it back.” The first thing to do is buy a big fat handgun, load it and carry it. Make sure you load armor piercing magnums. That way, if you see somebody with your identity you can put him six feet under, go home and watch TV with your wife and be done with it—throw the pistol in the Mohawk River, unloaded.

Now, how do you know when you’ve found the scum that’s stolen your identity? How do you know when you’ve got him dead to rights? First, realize, if he’s stolen your identity, he can make minor improvements to it and be a slightly better version of you.

He will have tattoos identical to yours—a dead giveaway. He will be wearing a recently knitted duplicate of your favorite sweater.

If you follow him into Cliff’s you’ll see he uses your credit card and driver’s license to buy beer and cigarettes just like you.

Now that you know he stole your identity, go ahead and shoot him. Take him down by the river late at night. Put the gun to his head and put an end to his humiliating rampage. Shoot him two three times in case you have to plead self defense.

One more thing: it is easy to confuse an identical twin with an identity thief. So, if you have a long-lost identical twin, make him take a DNA test before you kill him. Also, talk to your mother. She might be of help.

If you find out he’s your twin brother, don’t let that deter you. You still have the option of shooting him, but it is more complicated than blowing away a stranger, like you’ll probably have to go to the funeral.

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

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

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Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

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