Tag Archives: trope

Isocolon

Posted on July 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

Wind. Rain. Snow. With climate change, that’s what we get here all in one day. Arizona has gone weather crazy. Last week, we had a hurricane, a tornado, and an earthquake on Tuesday. I’m not sure if an earthquake is a result of climate change, but I don’t care. A huge crevasse opened under the “Only True Evangelical Resurrectional Sanctuary of the Blood-Soaked Cross.” Rev. Natas told us the earthquake had put climate change on a spiritual footing: “Aside from Noah’s cloudburst, message have always been delivered by God by cracks and fissures in the earth, giving us a glimpse of the hell below us. If you look under the church, you may get a glimpse of the imps and demons living under our feet, and where most of us will reach our ultimate fate as minions serving Satan in hell’s “Home Style Buffett” where things are always steaming hot, even the ice cream.”

“What a lunar bird the Rev. is” I thought to myself, but I went and looked into the fissure anyway. It was smoking and glowing through the smoke. I heard soft moaning sounds coming from deep down in the fissure. The smoke was making me cough, so I had to step away. I decided the moaning was just the wind blowing through the hole. As I walked away, a giant bolt of lightning hit the ground around 10 feet away. I felt the electric current. My hair was singed off and my shorts and t-shirt were shredded. I was still standing and couldn’t believe that I wasn’t seriously injured. I turned around and Rev. Natas was nowhere to be seen.

There was a red telephone booth standing there like they used to have back in the day in England. So fat she filled the phone booth with her bulk, there was a woman dressed as a cowgirl talking on the phone. She held the phone out to me and said “It’s for you partner.” I held out my hand and took the phone. The energetic voice at the other end said, “Hello Mr. Graff! You’ve won an all-expense paid trip down into the crevasse. You will be treated to a “Body Bake” and a “Soul Roll” free of charge. Just jump in the hole and you’re on your way!”

I dropped the phone and ran home as fast as I could. I was exhausted and went to bed at 4:00 in the afternoon. I woke up at 3:00 am and looked outside. It was raining, snowing, sleeting and hailing. This was the craziest weather I’d ever seen. Climate change was making progress. Suddenly, it started raining cats and dogs. All breeds, ages, and sizes. They hit the ground softly and walked away. This was surely the beginning of the end of the world.

My phone rang. I answered it and it was the telemarketer from hell. He told me he could grant me immortality if I would “make the jump, and take the leap of faith.” I hung up and ran outside and picked up the cute little puppy that had just dropped out of the sky. I named him “Stormy” and I knew we were going to have some good times together, if we survived. .

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

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Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Kategoria

Posted on July 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

I thought I knew you. I knew what you liked to wear: Chanel. I knew what you liked to drink: Dom Perignon. I knew what you liked to eat: Porterhouse Steak with Truffle Butter. I knew what you liked to drive: a Mercedes Maybach. I knew your favorite place to live: Paris. I knew your favorite book: “Atlas Shrugged.” I knew your favorite movie: “Nightmare on Elm Street.”

I could go on for ten pages of “what you like.” But you already know what you like—it’s no mystery to you. But after scanning the ensemble of things and preferences, I realized too late that I don’t know you! I thought I married you. I thought I fell in love with you. I thought I lived with you.

I’ve been watching you and spying on you since you came back from the grocery store with your skirt on backward. I asked you how it happened and you told me it was “the wind” in the parking lot, that your chauffeur Brino had to cart you to the car and lay you down on the seat, where your skirt probably got turned around. You credited Brino with saving your life. But we both know there was no wind. We both know you’re lying.

Then you stayed out all night. You told me you were running in a marathon and got lost. Your phone went dead and you were panic- stricken, afraid you may be assaulted or mauled by one of the viscous dogs that lives by the beach. Once again, you credited Brino with saving you and taking you to his mother’s home for the night. But we both know there was no marathon. We both know there’s no “Brino’s mother.” We both know you’re lying. Then there’s my gold Rolex that disappeared. The next day, I noticed that Brino was wearing a gold Rolex. You told me he had gotten it for his birthday from his brother. But we both know there was no birthday or brother. We both know you’re lying.

I said, “Now I think I know you: You’re a cheater and a liar.” At this point my wife started crying. She sobbed: “I’m no good. I’m rotten. I stink.” I said, “Ok. I’ll add that to cheater and liar, and I’ll have a really good idea of who you are.”

I anguished all night. For some bizarre reason I couldn’t live without her. It was like I had reconciled myself to taking a small dose of poison every day. First thing the next morning, I met with an “associate” of mine from Palermo and hired him to do a hit on Brino. That would solve the cheating problem; maybe the lying problem too. I resolved that our next chauffeur would be a young blonde woman with an open heart.

But alas. Brino got wind of my plan and stole the Mercedes and a cooler full of Porterhouse steaks. My traitorous wife went with him. I told my associate from Palermo, if he could bag them both, he could keep the car and the steaks for himself.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added by Gorgias.

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Posted in kategoria

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

Litotes

Posted on July 26, 2023 | 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).

How undeserving. How unworthy. How embarrassed by all this. I say “So what?” I am half the man you think I am. I’m “not what I’m cracked up to be.” I didn’t build anything, but I did make a difference—a minimal difference that destroyed as much as it produced, showing everything has two sides, at least. You’re all sitting here in rags with rice bowls hanging around your necks because of what I did—but instead of wanting to kill me, you want to hug me. And I should give credit to my imp friend Harry Stillskin, sitting over there with his hand on my wife, who helped me pull it all together.

I was stumbling through life with no direction when I met Harry perched on a stool at The Blue Moon Bar and Grill here in Lodi. I sat down next to him and he bought me a beer. He asked me to guess his name. He was wearing a bowling shirt that said Harry on it. So I said, “Harry?” He said, “Damn, that’s right. I should’ve listened to my wife—she told me not to wear my bowling shirt when I wasn’t with my buddies.” We drank a few more beers and got half-loaded. Harry asked me what I did for a living. As a joke, I told him I was a deep-sea diver. He looked shocked. He told me that salt water would set him on fire, so he had to stay from the ocean. I thought he was kidding me, so I let it pass. He told me he was in the kidnapping business. Now, the bullshit was getting out of hand. I ordered two more beers and asked him to elaborate.

He told me he had a spinning wheel that had been in his family for hundreds of years. The spinning wheel spun gold! He would find desperate mothers and make a deal: He would take the babies and spin gold. If the mother could guess his name, she would get to keep the gold and get her baby back. If she failed guess his name, he would keep the baby and the gold. He said it was surprising how few women could guess his name. One would think that “Harry” would be pretty easy to guess. He sold the babies to a baby broker in Canada, no questions asked.

I was stunned. “Bullshit!” was all I could think to say. With slightly slurred speech Harry said, “Oh yeah? Come on. Let’s take a walk.” We walked up the street and came to an old barn—a vestige of Lodi’s horse and buggy days. Harry waved at the door and it slowly opened. Inside there was a spinning wheel, an executive leather swivel chair, a wooden stool and a crib. God! He wasn’t kidding. He churned out a couple of ounces of gold and we split them 50-50. I asked him if we could hire a crew to spin night and day and Harry said “Ok.” So, that’s what we did out of sheer greed. But then, we had so much gold that we bagged it up and dumped it all over Lodi, and then all over the US. Our spinners had come under some kind of spell and couldn’t stop spinning.

The rest is history.

The world was glutted with gold. The price plummeted to 10 cents per ounce. Paper money lost it’s value, among other things, it was used as kindling to start fires. Bartering made a comeback. We have learned to do without. I am valorized for causing a worldwide economic collapse (along with Harry). But, so much good has come of it. When we’re all poor, everybody’s poor. We achieve an equality of misery and freedom from the nagging hunger for material gain. We may be ill-clothed and hungry all the time, but at least we’re all still alive (with the exception of the infirm and the elderly).

Harry and I are so undeserving. Really, it’s our out-of-control gold spinners who made all this happen. So let’s raise a toast to them, resting in their urns in the showcase back there. It was the only way to stop them. .

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

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Posted in litotes

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

Martyria

Posted on July 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

“I’ve seen it all now.” That’s what my father would say when he saw something that was unusual, or he hadn’t seen before. Or, he might say “l’ll be” leaving off the “damned” out of respect for Mother, who did not allow swearing within 15 feet of wherever she was. I was frequently the target of Dad’s wonder. He hardly paid attention to me otherwise, smoking cigarettes and sipping gin and tonics—in the living room, on the porch, in the yard, in the car. We got an automatic shift car just so he could drink and drive with fewer hassles. He never drove fast, keeping it under 10 mph. Once we hit a tree on the way to Cliffs and it didn’t even damages the car. People would blow their horns at us, but Dad would just give them the finger out the window and motion them to pass.

In my continuing quest to get his attention, I tried for an “I’ll be” from Dad every day.

I had found dad’s loaded shotgun in the basement and decided I would shoot one of the songbirds that frequented the trees in our yard. I took the gun up to my room and looked for an article on how to shoot a gun in my back issues of Boy’s Life Magazine. I looked and looked and couldn’t find anything. No luck. But I remembered that my “Cisco Kid” comics had a lot of gun play. I got the basic idea—you aim and pull what is called “the trigger.” I was ready. I came out the front door carrying the gun. Mom and Aunt Ethyl screamed and ran away. I aimed at the tree in the front yard and Dad said “I’ll be.” I pulled the trigger, but it wouldn’t move. There was a little thing that looked like a slider button. I lowered the gun and pushed it toward the front of the gun. Then, I pulled the trigger without thinking about aiming. The gun went off. It blew a 3” hole in the door of our Chevy coupe. You could see a carton of Luckies on seat through the hole. I dropped the gun and started running to the The Church of the Genuine Icon where I would seek sanctuary from my father and the police, like the hunchback in the movie. Father Pringle told me the church wasn’t allowed to offer sanctuary anymore due to the flood of maladjusted teens that had begun overwhelming the church in the late 1940s. “Those WW11 vets were a wild bunch,” said Father Pringle shaking his head. “Gee Father Pringle, that doesn’t help me!” He said, “Ok, ok. Go in the men’s room and rapidly pull three sheets from the toilet paper dispenser at the same time as you flush the toilet. A secret passage will open.” I did as he told me, and boom, a passage opened. I could hide for a couple of days while things cooled off.

I was sitting there wondering who kept the torches lit when the secret door swung open and there was Dad. He said “I’ll be. Son, you’re gonna have to work after school until you can pay for a new car door.” Then, he started laughing—his laughter echoed off the catacomb walls—built and doubled and tripled, and suddenly we were surrounded by spirits in motorcycle jackets and boots wearing Levi prototypes and pastel-colored motorcycle hats emblazoned with winged motorcycle tires. They were holding chains and tire irons. Father Pringle came running through the door and flipped on the electric lights. The spirits vanished.

Father Pringle apologized for not telling me to flip on the lights to ward off the spirits. I told him I didn’t care and Dad said “I’ll be.” It had been a banner day, from start to finish. I stood there looking at the Church of the Genuine Icon. I turned to Dad and said “I’ll be.” He smiled at me and said, “I’ve seen it all now.”

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

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

Maxim

Posted on July 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

“Life is a landfill.” I grew up in poverty. I came of age in poverty. I am still in poverty. I will always be in poverty. I know what it’s like to have one uncooked turnip between four people. The gas and electricity have been shut off for weeks. My mom tells us we’re having “crunchy turnip” and we all pretend it’s the best thing ever, even though it gives us diarrhea and we only have one bathroom. We’re lucky we live in Florida or we would need shoes and winter clothes. I have a pair of flip flops and hand-me-down gym shorts that I hold up with a duct tape belt. In addition I have three t-shirts. My favorite one has a picture on the front of Nickerson’s Hardware Store with a woman in a bathing suit swinging a hammer and smiling.

The technical term for Dad is “lout.” He stands on the front porch and calls people names as they run past the house trying to avoid him. He called my teacher “Ms. Dipstick” as she ran by. She stopped and turned and yelled back “You’re a pimple on the butt of humanity!” Nobody had ever had the nerve to yell back at him. Everybody stopped running and turned toward my father, and waited. They weren’t disappointed. Dad turned and whipped out his butt and yelled “Kiss this!” Ms. Cornweather gave him a double middle finger and continued on her way. She had earned my undying respect. After that, Dad threw cherry bombs off the porch at passers by. It’s a wonder that nobody called the police. Some people thought he was in cahoots with them. He had served on the police force for two weeks. He had “executed” a Poodle named Pierre for what he called “homicidal barking.” Of course, the Poodle’s owner demanded that Dad be terminated. When the man came to the police station to register his complaint, Dad taunted him by speaking in a French accent: “Are vous upsetez mon-sewer? Havez some soufflé.” The owner of the Poodle lunged for Dad and grabbed Dad’s gun. He pointed it at dad and said “Now you die, you murderer.” Dad barked at him and held his hands up like cute little paws. The man dropped the gun and left the police station sobbing. Dad was fired on the spot. Dad’s brother, Mayor Weed. He made sure Dad wasn’t charged with anything and was given a commendation for “protecting and defending.”

Mayor Weed is our landlord. We have never paid rent because there are “certain secrets” that Dad knows. We try to prod them out of Dad. All he will say is “I don’t want him to go to prison.” That’s a pretty big hint! Mom always says “You have to humiliate me, don’t you?” It’s pretty intense.

Last night, I fell through the living room floor and landed on the washing machine in the basement. The house has termites. The Mayor rented us two anteaters from the Zoo. We keep them in the basement and they do good job with termites that fall out of the ceiling beams, but there’s no way for them to get up into the beams. I looked in “Popular Mechanics” and found plans for an Anteater beam ramp. I’m on my way to Nickerson’s hardware store to try to steal the components, and also, possibly meet the girl on my T-shirt. I started a fire in a back room, grabbed everything I needed and made my way home. The girl hadn’t been there. I was disappointed, but I wouldn’t let it kill me.

I got the ramps built and you could hear the anteaters grunting and skittering up and down them night and day. They were getting fat. Then it happened! The Mayor, “out of respect for my father” was giving me a job he called “No Show.” I was responsible for “staying away” and being paid by direct deposit every week. That was pretty good. I am writing a book now. It’s titled “Blackmail” and Dad is helping me. Our two rental anteaters are going to town. They’ve started sticking their heads though the hole in the living room floor with their little babies, and making little whiny sounds.

By the way, we’re still living in poverty. Since I got the “No Show” job the Mayor has made us start paying rent.

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

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

Medela

Posted on July 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

Medela (me-de’-la): When you can’t deny or defend friends’ faults and seek to heal them with good words.

You’re not funny. With all your comedy stylings the only thing that’s made me laugh is your ineptitude. You can’t even do a knock knock joke right. Like this one you recently told at a party: “A man with a kaleidoscope walks into a bar. Who’s there?” Somebody said: “A man with a kaleidoscope?” Everybody laughed at you. The was no knock knock. You should stop telling jokes.

There are so many other things that you’re good at. One thing’s for sure, you’re good at using your electric can opener! You can make a can rotate without spilling a drop! Same goes for pop tops. POW! Goes the soda can when you pull the ring. Same goes for sardines—I’ve seen you pop a sardine can with sardines packed in mustard without dripping it all over the kitchen counter like Joey does. He’s such a slob—he never wipes up his trail of spills. The cat ends up licking it up and puking in a corner of the living room.

Another thing: you’re good at walking. You go in a solid straight line, unless there are obstacles in your way, like your baby Buster playing on the floor, or a toy, or a pair of shoes, or an empty gin bottle—you go around them. You’ve only stumbled over Buster once, and that was at night. Remember? You forgot to put him in his crib when you passed out on the couch. When you got up to pee, you kicked him a across the living room. At least you didn’t step on him. That might’ve killed him. But you know, you learned a lesson from nearly killing Buster, and that’s really good.

But, do you know what you are really, really good at? Being a contentious pain in the ass. When was the last time you agreed with me about anything? You want to argue about the day of the week, the time of day, how old you really are. It is maddening, but it has made me a better attorney. When I point out that everything is contestable, the prosecution is visibly shaken. When the prosecution says “The defendant was seen exiting the liquor store waving a pistol with one hand and clutching a wad of cash and lotto tickets with the other,” I say “Everything is contestable. Try and prove it. I bet you can’t. Nah! Nah! I’m waiting. Cat got your tongue bumpy butt?” It never works, but it makes me feel tough and strong. Being in contempt of court is a badge of honor for me and a testament to the positive influence your craziness exerts on me. That brings me to your talking to yourself, or should I say to “Sir Dottlescone” your imaginary lord protector from the 15th century.

When you converse, your British accent is quite good. I don’t know about Sir Dottlescone, because I can’t hear him. But, I believe he frequently tells you to do naughty things like steal cars and stand naked in your bedroom window. Our cul-de-sac has been packed with hooting teenagers and neighbors have been standing on their sidewalks in awe for 2 weeks now. Thank God, Sir Dottlescone hasn’t told you to kill anybody. Although I did hear you say something about “the rude shelf stocker at Wegmans” and how he should be flayed. But your dramatic skills are admirable—the one-sided impromptu dialogues with nobody who is actually there, are amazing. It’s like a two-sided soliloquy.

Anyway, now you can see—you stink at comedy, but you’re great at other things. We’ll keep you off of your medication so you can continue to pursue those “other things” without missing a beat. Can you ask Sir Dottlescone where my credit card is?

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

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Tagged example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Meiosis

Posted on July 22, 2023 | 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.

I called my dirty room “the dust mote bar and grill” making it seem less of a mess than it actually was. I’ve never been to a bar & grill but I liked the idea of eating and drinking at the same time. I was 12 and I had “borrowed” 2 beers at the last 4th of July family gathering and had eaten four snappy grillers. I was half-drunk when I asked my Aunt Betty to take walk to the lake with me. She called me a naughty boy and laughed and patted me on the head. I continued to the lake by myself. Frustrated. As I neared the lake, I started to remember. It was difficult, but I couldn’t push it out of my head.

I was 7 years old. After a year of promising “next weekend” my father was finally going to take me fishing at Lake Hoppaclang—one of Central New Jersey’s most beautiful lakes. It even had an amusement park on an island. The only condition for dad taking me fishing was that my little brother Don be allowed to come along. Don was what we called “a piece of work.” One of our biggest hopes was that he would learn to tie his own shoes some day and stop shuffling around inside the house saying he was a cha-cha train, and each room in the house a stop on his railroad line. For example, he would say: “Arriving at the kitchen. Next stop, downstairs bathroom. Watch your step.” This went on all day. It made my mother crazy. I heard my parents talking one night about how to suffocate a person in bed with their pillow. Dad was in favor, but mom wasn’t. She ran the show so Don got a reprieve.

We got up a 4:00 am. There was Don with his stupid looking overalls and dirty stuffed bunny that he said he was going to marry when he grew up. There was a half-bottle of rum on the kitchen table and dad looked like he was going to have a heart attack—he looked sort of gray and he was pounding on his chest. He said “Jesus! Let’s get the goddamn show on the road.” We had bought kids cheap “Donald Duck” fishing poles, hooks, bobbers, and sinkers at Walmart, and a cardboard quart container of worms at the gas station.

We got to Lake Hoppaclang just as the sun was rising. It was beautiful and quiet. There was a long dock with small 12-14 fit boats chained to it. As dad got out of the car he said “Hand me those bolt cutters on the floor.” Dad took the bolt cutters and walked down the dock like he was shopping. He settled on a nice looking aluminum boat. He knelt down and “liberated” it with one stroke of the bolt cutters. He motioned me and Don out onto the dock. We jumped in the boat and he pulled the rope on the outboard motor. It started right up and we headed out onto the lake. Don said “I am a fish.” He was about to jump overboard when I grabbed him by the leg. He threw a handful of worms at me and my father called him a moron, and my dad was right. He was a moron. He started punching his stuffed bunny and calling it a moron until my father handed him a fishing pole and told him to “catch a a friggin’ fish” and called him a moron again.

We drifted around the lake and caught at least 75 sunfish. They covered the bottom of the boat—dull-eyed and drying out in the sun. All-of-sudden dad stood up and said “Look at this!” He had a dead sunfish in his hand, holding it like a skipping stone. He threw it and it skipped at least six times. He picked up another one, tripped over Don and fell out of the boat. Dad could doggy paddle, but not for long. He was way overdue for a heart attack. We had no life-jackets or any other kind of flotation devices. The boat was drifting away from dad. Don was clapping his hands and saying “Dad will have big drink of lake and go bye-bye.” I told him to shut up and called him a moron—I was in charge now.

We had drifted around 50 feet from dad. He had taken all of his clothes off, but he was still starting to sink. I pulled the rope on the outboard motor. It started, I pushed the lever on the side forward and we started moving. I twisted the motor’s handle and we started speeding toward dad. He was waving his arms and yelling “No, no, no!” Don was throwing sunfish overboard and making a barking noise.

As we neared dad, I saw we weren’t going to hit him, but we were going to come really close. I told Don to throw the boat’s tie-up chain at dad as we went by. He said “Ok” so I thought he might have understood me. When we went by dad, Don threw the chain. It hit dad in the head and wrapped around his neck. Dad managed to loosen it enough so it wouldn’t strangle him. We were towing dad to shore. We were lucky because I didn’t know how to steer the boat. We drove up on shore and dad stood in the waist-deep water. He ran to the boat and picked up the fishing poles and told me to grab the bolt cutters. We ran to the car and burned rubber as we sped away. That was the last time we ever went fishing.

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

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Posted in meiosis

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

Mempsis

Posted on July 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

I can’t believe how lost I am. I never should’ve gone to the Magnificent Mega-Mega Mall. I need a map, but the Mall’s map racks are empty. The personnel wear uniforms like movie theatre ushers wore back in the day—blue military-looking uniforms with brass buttons and epaulets that look like hairbrushes with gold bristles. The uniformed mall workers are no where to be seen. I’ve tried to ask my fellow shoppers where the hell I am, but they just keep walking by me like so many shopping zombies.

I’m hauling heavy loot on my mall scooter which, by the way has a broken GPS. It keeps saying I’m in Lima, Ohio when I’m actually in Short Hills, New Jersey. What a piece of crap. I’m carrying a portable window air conditioner on my lap. My mall scooter’s battery light is flashing red. I probably have a mile left with power. Then iI’ll be stranded in the biggest mall in the world. From entrance to exit, it extends for 5 miles. The architecture is like a funnel that makes you traverse the entire mall before you could exit. They had jitneys, but they were nowhere to be seen..

The Mall covers over land where I went rabbit hunting with by Beagle Buddy when I was a kid. I also went bow hunting for deer in the woods surrounding the fields. There were apple trees left from long-gone orchards. But, the trees still gave delicious juicy Cortland apples. I would go there with my Radio Flyer wagon and pick apples and haul them home where Ma and I would make applesauce and a couple of apple pies every fall.

I passed a sign: Exit: 2 miles. There had to be emergency exits nearby, but they were unmarked and I couldn’t see them. The red light on the mall scooter was flashing faster and showing a message that said “Charge me Now!” I thought that was pretty demanding. I looked around for a charging port, but didn’t see one. I didn’t need the damn scooter anyway. I admit it: I faked an infirmity whenever I went to the mall. I was actually in pretty good shape. So, I got off the scooter and stored my air conditioner in a nearby janitor’s closest, and covered it with rags. I looked for a jitney. Nothing, so I started walking, pushing past whole families walking slowly and looking straight ahead. Suddenly, I heard a humming sound behind me!

It was the mall scooter driving itself. It was going slowly and the red light had stopped blinking. It was following me! Then, it talked in the robot kind of voice that’s used in science fiction movies. “You we’re not authorized to ride me. You must come with me to mall security for your trial.” I ran. The scooter chased me and butted me from behind, making me fall backwards into the scooter’s seat, where a seatbelt shot across my lap and cinched me in. I was trapped. I asked the scooter if I would be supplied a lawyer. He laughed a creepy robot laugh and increased our speed.

We arrived at Mall Security. There was a mall cop sitting behind a messy dest wearing a white wig, like a British barrister. He said, “You are charged with the unauthorized use of a mall scooter. How do you plead: guilty or not guilty?” I said “not guilty” even though I was lying and everybody knew it. The cop said: “The court finds you guilty. You will be sentenced after I take a quick smoke break.” I was furious. “This is total bullshit. Who the hell do you think you are?” He looked me like he wanted spray mace in my face: “Look wise guy, the Mayor of Short Hills has given us control over the mall and meting out mall justice. That scooter you’re sitting on doubles as an electric chair. Do you want to fry, Mr. Scooter Stealer? Or, are you going to wait for your sentence.” I just shut up and waited for my sentence.

I’m serving my sentence as an H&M sales associate. For six weeks, I’m selling dumb-ass clothes to tasteless teenagers. “My” scooter visits me every once-in-while. All it says is, “Did you learn your lesson yet?”

For some reason, I’ve used my H&M employee discount to buy myself a full-length black pleather trench-coat that smells a little bit like motor oil. I wear it as a bathrobe at home, and also to mow the lawn, and go grocery shopping.

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

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Posted in mempsis

Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Mesarchia

Posted on July 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

I drove a truck. I drove a truck to hell and back. I drove the truck wherever I could get asphalt, dirt, or concrete under my tires. My truck was a mansion dedicated to St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, keeping them safe and from getting lost. Behind my seat I had my sleeping chateau. When I was done driving, or tired, I retreated to the chateau. It was completely dark—not a shred of light. It was soundproofed—I could pull over anywhere and shut ‘er down for some shut eye. I had a water bed with black satin sheets and pillowcases. I slept under a Spider-Man comforter in my Carlos Santana pajamas imprinted with “A Black Magic Women” from the song—which I love. My mattress sat on a hinged lid with an electric motor that raised and lowered it. Underneath was a tanning bed I used to keep from getting a prison tan—a hazard of truck driving, where your cab can be likened to a cell. I had a 35” plasma TV at the foot of my bed where I could pick up Amazon Prime, and local programming. There’s a weight-lifting set at the head of my bed, which I use for bench pressing. There’s also a reading light. Currently, I’m reading Hemingway’s “Men Without Women.” The ceiling has a moon roof I can open and watch stars at night—I love counting shooting stars. But, when I close it, it completely blocks out the light.

In the cab, I have a microwave and a mini fridge, and a two-burner stove built into the dashboard where I make coffee and hot coco, and sometimes, soup. I eat mainly microwave dinners, so I don’t have any dishes—just a couple of bowls. My truck’s name (painted booth fenders) is “Flying Iron.” I like to think of my truck as capable flight. Then, I could pick up and deliver across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—to England and Malaysia. But, I’m just a cross-country trucker, a prisoner of RTE 80. I know every inch of it, every piece of unpicked-up litter, and enduring, unmoving, roadkills.

Driving at night across desolate stretches of RTE 80 can make you start seeing things that may not, or may, actually be there, like outside Winslow, AZ. It’s like the moon with underbrush. It was around 3:00 am and I was headed for Tahoe, a pretty good stretch. A turquoise 1961-or so Corvair panel truck came shooting out of the sky and landed in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and jumped out. Richard Nixon stepped out of the panel truck wearing lederhosen with a white shirt, vintage hiking boots, a German alpine hat with a feather in it, and an American flag pin pinned to his lederhosen’s suspenders. He said, “I’m not a crook.” Then raised two hands in peace signs, got back in the Corvair, and out stepped what was clearly a space alien.

He looked like he was made from Navy Blue modeling clay. His eyes were tiny little red beads that were very shiny. He was at least 7 feet tall and wearing lederhosen and a feather hat like Nixon’s. He didn’t need hiking boots—his feet were hiking boots. He said: “Nixon is doing well. He still insists he’s innocent. I have failed to change his mind, but we believe he is lying. Sometimes my job as intergalactic Nixon minder is boring. We’ve just been to the dark side of the moon to a music festival. There we are and Nixon’s walking around passing out his “I’m not a crook” flyers. He paused, though, when the (translated) “Pings” started playing (translated) “Outer Space.” The song questions the hegemonic foundation of the ethnocentric naming of my habitat, i.e., “Outer Space.” He told me that “outer” implies an origin that privileges a place in the universe.”

Suddenly, there was a flash of bright blue light and the Corvair was gone. I got back in Flying Iron and sat there, trying to make sense of what I just experienced. I couldn’t. So, I put the key in the ignition, started my truck, and headed for Tahoe. First, I stuck the feather I had found by my truck into the sun visor. It looked familiar.

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

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Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Mesozeugma

Posted on July 17, 2023 | 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.

I was going to the park, to the mall, to the community swimming pool, to Cliff’s, to the landfill. I suffered from Chronic Wandering Syndrome, or CWS. It is a curse. When I was a kid my parents would have to call the police for help finding me. They’d fan out all over town. They never found me in the same place twice. Once they found me in the walk-in humidor adjacent to the gas station on the Native American reservation. I loved the smell of cigar tobacco. Once they found me on top of the town water tower basking in the sun in my gym shorts. Once they found me under a picnic table in the town park. I was pretending to be a dog begging for table scraps while a family played along, feeding me a hot dog and some macaroni salad under the table while they enjoyed their meal together. The little boy named me Roscoe and I would yip when he called my name.

As I got older, my CWS worsened. I could ride my bicycle to wander. I never knew were I was going, but I always ended up somewhere, for better and for worse. The most memorable was the Hippy camp outside of town. It was called Rainbow Binge. At least 50 Hippies lived there—whole families and pets too. I met a girl named Potatochontas. She was beautiful. She had purple hair. She wore a dress made out of a flour sack and she was barefoot. She told me is was time for her to take her medicine. She asked me if I wanted some too. I said “Yes!” And she handed me a little piece of paper with the Disney character Goofy’s picture on it. “Just put it on your tongue,” she said. I did, and we sat there. About ten minutes later she turned into a giant bullet. I hugged her, hoping she would fire. She didn’t. Instead I became a bottle of raw milk and I was begging for her to shake me. She grabbed me by the neck and started shaking me up and down. She shook me too hard and I turned into a slice of American cheese, and then a Persian carpet decorated with Humvees and helicopters. She sat on me and wept. I needed to get out of there, but I did not know where I was going next. I got on my bike—it had turned into uncooked spaghetti. I rode away on it anyway, following the road’s white line, hoping I wouldn’t be killed. The police found me jumping up and down on a trampoline at “Lucky Bounce” trampoline park, wearing only gym shorts with a peace symbol painted on my chest.

I was institutionalized. My therapy consisted of “travel agency” where, before I was allowed to go anywhere, I had to tell my therapist where I was going, how long it would take to get there, why I’m going and when I will return. Given the range of destinations at “Mind Passages Mental Facility” there weren’t many opportunities to work on itinerary building, but I did my best. I did well at bathroom, my room and cafeteria. Then, my parents’ insurance ran out. I was discharged with a roadmap and a pair of very good quality walking shoes, but I didn’t know where to go, so I wandered off. My parents had given up. I knew they had stopped retrieving me. It was sad, but necessary. Anyway, I was 25 years old.

I wandered onto a university campus and into the Human Resources office. I told them I was wandering. “Oh, you must be Professor Wandering, the new hire in the English Department” said the receptionist. “We’ve been trying to reach you for a week. I’m glad you’re safe and sound. Your students are waiting for you in ADMIN 312. Your class ‘From Pixels To Pixies in Marshall McLuhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy’ looks fascinating. Good luck and welcome!” As I headed down the hall, I knew where I was going, and for better or worse, I wanted to go there! My first-ever desire for direction. It was magic. I lectured about the “Pixies” a 1960s all-women rock group whose “Goin’ it the Chapel of Love” critiques the commodification of love in post-printing press America. I got a standing ovation.

The real Professor Wandering never showed up. I hope he’s dead. At any rate, my wandering days ended at “Mr. Jones University. I lectured, I published, I served, I’m tenured. I keep my roadmap and walking shoes as reminders of my past and my sojourn at “Mind Passages.” Every once-in-awhile, just to stay in practice, I share my itinerary with my Secretary when I’m going to the library. She humors me and laughingly asks if I need a cab or a map.

Heading to the library, I see a slightly aged Potatochontas sitting in a flour sack dress on a bench in the hall. I am shocked, but filled with joy. There’s a toddler sitting next to her dressed in a flour sack too. Potatochontas smiles. We embrace. I look over my shoulder and the little girl says “Hi. You are my daddy. My name is Rose. Mommy loves you very much.”

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

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Posted in mesozeugma

Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Metaphor

Posted on July 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

“I am an unpaved driveway. Think about it. Mull it over. Forget about it. It’s a heavy metaphor. Dirt. Gravel. Ruts. A weed strip down the middle.” That’s it! Miss Mantandino will love it. She might even read it to the class. I—Billy Widdle—was in love with her and wanted to marry her after we finished the school year—maybe in July. It didn’t matter that she was fifteen years older than me. I was going to do it. She came to my desk to pick the metaphor. She read it, and without a word, put it back on my desk. She made her way back up to her desk and said: “Attention boys and girls. Attention!” The room quieted down and she said”Billy Widdle has written something for today’s metaphor assignment that he will read aloud. Billy, go ahead.” I read it and there was silence when I finished it. James Klogar was the first to speak: “It is more stupid than what Billy usually writes.” Then Suzy Schmid chimed in: “It is a striking portrait of Billy’s self concept. He should be escorted to the school nurse for counseling.” Then Bella Schazoul was called on: “I agree with Suzy, but I would add, clearly he is dangerous. We should call Public Safety and get him out of here before he goes berserk and hurts us.” Miss Mantandino had pulled a small automatic pistol out of her desk and pointed it at me:

“Don’t be afraid Billy. Just don’t make any fast moves. I’ve been trained in classroom firearm utilization by the school district’s ‘Bureau of Bombs, Guns, Gases, Chalk’ in a one-day workshop in a very nice hotel with a jacuzzi and swimming pool.” I did not know what to do. I never imagined the metaphor would take me down this road. I couldn’t tell anybody, but my big sister had written the metaphor for her senior class. I had found it squished between the cushions of our couch. I had copied it and used it.

I started singing a song I had composed. It was a version of “Old MacDonald’s Farm” where he has exotic animals and two wives. His Wife #1 is mauled by a Raccoon, catches rabies, and dies. I was on my final “eee-yi-eee-yi-oh” when Public Safety showed up. They knocked down the classroom door. There were ten of them dressed in military gear with automatic weapons. They yelled at Miss Mantandino, “Where’s Widdle?” She said, “I’m aiming my pistol at him.” They handcuffed me and led me to the Principal’s Office for questioning. The officer slammed my sister’s metaphor down on the desk. “What’s this crap?” He asked. I told him my big sister had written it and I had stolen it and passed it off as mine.” “Oh,” he said “We’re going have to hunt down your sister. Where is she?” I told them she was working on a coffee plantation in Brazil. He said “Ok. You may go back to class now. Please thank Miss Mantandino for her service and vigilance. Just remind her to keep her pistol under lock and key.”

I went back to class. It was nearly 3.00 PM. My fellow students cowered behind their desks when I walked in unescorted. Miss Mantandino stood there—if she had her arms amputated, she would be Venus’s identical twin. I figured the time was right to ask Miss Mantandino to marry me. I raised my hand . . .

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

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Posted in metaphor

Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Metaplasm

Posted on July 12, 2023 | 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.

I told my mother “I paahked my caaa in owuh naibuh’s yahd,” I thought I was pretty funny imitating my great-great-grandfather’s Maine accent. He had been a sailor all his life. His nickname was “Yardarm” and he had actually served on clipper ships. He was 112 and had been forced to move in with us after the “incidents” at the nursing home. He had been accused of “snacking out of order” and running over peoples’ toes with his wheelchair. The snacking thing was ridiculous. Snack time was 2.00 pm every day. Everybody got one apple, sliced, on a plate. My great-great grandfather would sneak into the kitchen and steal an apple at 1.00 pm, and eat it in front of everybody in the day room before the designated snack time. I asked him about the whole thing and he told me “Those bahstads! Make’em wawkh the plank!”

I thought, what the hell is wrong with eating an apple when you want to? I went to Red Crest to find out. I asked Yardarm’s caregiver, Nurse Cakes, and she said “protocols” and took off her nurse hat, and looked me up and down. She said, “He was the roughest customer I ever had. I wanted to push him down the stairs. But, I didn’t. It’s illegal.” She gave me a flirtatious look. It was temping, but she looked like a human moose, and I had a girlfriend. Also, I thought she was crazy.

I ran to the VP’s office with the nurse walking quickly after me. When I got there, I slammed the door in her face. She pounded on the VP’s door and yelled “Come on! I can take care of you! I won’t hit you with my shoe or push you down the stairs.” More craziness. The VP told me to ignore Nurse Cakes. She helped make a lot of people happy at Red Crest Home—mostly younger staff who appreciate her hands-on approach to their welfare.

I had to leave Red Crest before I went crazy. Nurse Cakes was over the rainbow and I was beginning to believe the VP wasn’t too far behind. Before I left, I asked him about Yardarm’s wheelchair incidents. He told me that without cause, by surprise, and with malice and forethought, my great-great grandfather had rolled over a few people’s toes, chipping their toenail polish, and generally damaging their expensive pedicures, causing waves of sorrow throughout Red Crest. I was really angry, I asked him, “Is that all?” Due to “protocols,” I knew I couldn’t do anything. So, I yelled as I went out the door and headed home: “You crazy ass losers! You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!” I didn’t have lawyer. I don’t have a lawyer. I’ll never have a lawyer, unless I win the lotto. But, it was still a good thing to yell it. People do it in movies all the time.

When I got home, I saw Yardarm sitting at the kitchen table working on something made of wood. I asked him if he wanted some grog and he said “shoowuh.” I brought the mug to the table and he gulped half of it down. I asked him what he was making. He said “Lobstah buoy.” I asked him if he was going to make it into a lamp. He said “Naw.” That was it. End of conversation.

Great-great grandfather left that night without letting us know. The next day’s headlines told us where great-great grandfather had gone—Red Crest. Nurse Cakes had been seriously injured by an intruder. There was a freshly painted bloody wooden lobster buoy found at the scene where Nurse Cakes had been assaulted. The lobster buoy was brown and yellow, the colors of my home which I had just finished painting. I kept the unused paint stored in the garage. Clearly, the buoy found at Red Crest was the one Yardarm had been working on in my kitchen.

POSTSCRIPT

Great-great grandfather called us that night from Canada. He had dual citizenship from his sailor days. He had checked into a “much niceuh” facility, Maple Grove, using his Canadian passport. “It reminds me of a hotel I stayed in in Baahbahdos when I was in the rum and sugah trade.” Great-great grandfather’s life is a saga. Now, he’s living as a fugitive at Maple Grove, learning the Canadian accent so he can blend in.

By the way, Red Crest went out of business. Soon after the Nurse Cakes incident, the VP was arrested for replacing resident’s jewelry gemstones with Swarovski crystals.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is available for $5.99.

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Posted in metaplasm

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

Metastasis

Posted on July 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

“You’re no damn good.” That’s all my father said to me whenever the family went to visit him in prison. I would tell him, “No. You’ve got it wrong. You’re no damn good. You killed Mr. Grant with a bow and arrow. It was horrendous. He lay there face down, soaking his lawn with blood while you did a jig. And why did you shoot him with your bow and arrow? You found out he was a METS fan! He was wearing his METS hat and was on his way to a game with his son Tommy, who saw the whole thing and went crazy at the age of nine, vowing to get you. God Dad, you are a colossal loser. You are no damn good!” After my diatribe, Dad gave me the double finger, lit another cigarette, and continued talking to Mom and bouncing my little sister Grace on his knee.

Oh well, Dad was a burden I was doomed to bear. Mom still believed him: that he killed Mr. Grant in self-defense. He claimed that Mr. Grant had “drilled” into his soul and made him want to jump in front of car and kill himself. He was feeling an uncontrollable urge to close his eyes and run into the street—the dead-end street where we lived—when he noticed he was holding the bow and arrow, he felt that “the time had come” to defend himself by shooting Mr. Grant. His cockamamy defense was laughable. There were people snickering in the jury when he told his story, which was totally debunked by Mrs. Grant’s testimony—which was the truth—how Dad suffered from METS-a-phobia and harassed Mr. Grant on numerous occasions before he murdered him.

Dad’s first trial was a mistrial. Dad is very, very attractive. One of the female jurors fell madly in love with him. She bribed a guard to deliver love letters and tasteless pictures to Dad. She was caught when Dad taped the pictures to the walls of his cell. She was recognized as a juror by an honest guard, and that was that for trial #1. Now, the juror lady regularly visits Dad for conjugal visits. Mom thinks ‘conjugal’ has something to do with grammar. Dad told her that the woman is a tutor supplied by the sate for his rehabilitation. Improving his grammar will help him get a job if he ever gets out of prison. He is up for probation in 10 years.

Mrs. Grant has remarried. Her new husband, “Warpy” Grant, is the murdered Mr. Grant’s identical twin. The first time I saw him out in the yard I nearly fainted. Although he is his identical twin, Warpy is way different from the dead Mr. Grant. For example, he struts around his backyard in boxer shorts and no shirt. Mom has bought a pair of cheap binoculars for “birdwatching.” But, there’s no doubt they are for “Warpy watching.” Yesterday, Warpy came to our house to fix the kitchen wall clock. Somebody had removed the batteries and Warpy was going to replace them. Mom gave me $5.00 to take my sister to Dairy Queen. She told us to take our time and take the long way home through the park.

We had our favorites—Buster Bars—and we headed home. We didn’t listen to Mom, and took the shortcut through the school playground. We got home and heard Mom crying in the kitchen. Warpy was laying on the floor. He was wearing his boxer shorts and had a double-A battery in each hand. My little sister screamed and ran and hid in her bedroom. I called 911. An ambulance arrived in five minutes. Mrs. Grant was crying on her front lawn. She pointed at Mom and yelled “Tou killed him you whore!” Actually, he had died from a heart attack, but his wife couldn’t let go of the idea that Mom had murdered him.

One night, Mrs. Grant broke into our house with a bow and arrow to get revenge against my mother. I was in the kitchen getting a late drink of orange juice. When she heard us talking, mom came into the kitchen to see what was going on. Mrs. Grant aimed the bow and arrow at her, and pulled back the bow string. My mother laughed. The bow and arrow was a child’s toy. The arrow had a suction cub tip. It was harmless. Mrs. Grant apologized and went home.

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

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Posted in metastasis

Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Metonymy

Posted on July 10, 2023 | 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}.]

“Pipe Cleaner” was a friend of mine when I was a kid. He made amazing things out of pipe cleaners, so I called him “Pipe Cleaner.” It all started in the second grade, when, after carving swans out of bars of soap, we moved on to pipe cleaners. Miss Moodie told us that twisting cotton-covered wire built character, the same reason for carving soap bars into swans.

Our first project was to make a pony. I watched Miss Moodie make one, and tried to imitate hers. My pony only had three legs and no tail. William’s (aka Pipe Cleaner’s) was beautiful. He had taken 25 packs of pipe cleaners to make a two-foot tall pony with a mane and tail that looked like it was blowing in wind behind the galloping horse. He named the horse “Cheeto.” All the kids went crazy. Miss Moody slumped down behind her desk and fanned herself. She said, “Nap time boys and girls.” We got out our rugs and laid down—too excited by William’s accomplishment to sleep. We just lay there on our backs, with our eyes closed imagining William’s galloping horse. I could hear hoofbeats in our little classroom. It was weird.

The next day Miss Moodie gave us an “advanced pipe cleaner project.” we were all excited and hoped that William would make something amazing again. We were instructed to make whatever we wanted. I made a coaster. It was round and flat. It looked like a hairy pancake. Nobody liked it. William had outdone himself—he had made a Miss Moodie doll. It was unmistakably Miss Moodie, down to the teacher-bun hairdo and weird lace-up shoes with heels like sawed-off broomsticks. We all just stood there and looked at the pipe-cleaner Miss Moodie. William Said, “Watch this” and tickled pipe-cleaner Miss Moody under her arm with a single pipe cleaner. Miss Moodie giggled and told William to “Stop it! Right now!” We all stood there with our mouths hanging open while William kept on tickling Miss Moodie. She was out of breath from giggling and looked like she was going to be sick.

I wrestled William to the floor, and I let him up, and he handcuffed me with pipe cleaner handcuffs. Clearly, William had gone around the bend, but his pipe cleaner feats were sheer genius. He tickled Miss Moodie one more time and ran out the door, stealing the remaining pipe-cleaners from our classroom.

Miss Moodie recovered and stood up behind her desk. She said, “Boys and girls, what you witnessed here today was strange but true. William made what is called in Florida or Granada or someplace like that a “Voodoo Doll.” It is dangerous. You all saw what happened to me. I lost control and giggled. I was embarrassed. William’s family come from Haiti and may not know the ins and outs of being American. I will call them tonight.”

The next day Miss Moodie came to class wearing giant earrings, a beautiful blue dress with ruffles around the shoulders and what looked like a red turban, sandals, and a small bag of something hanging around her neck. She said “bon matin” when she entered the classroom. Her eyes were a little glazed, but beside that, and her beautiful clothes, she looked normal. She told us she was going to be roommates with William’s family and she was going to learn the cultural “activities” of walking on burning embers and “sniffing out Zombies.” Two weeks later, she was gone. William wouldn’t say anything about it and our new teacher was not much older than us. She was stern, but William took care of that with a pipe-cleaner “Loosen Up” amulet that he gave her as a welcome gift.

As time went by, I realized that William was gifted. What he could do with pipe cleaners was magic. As our friendship endured over the years, he became better and better at creating pipe cleaner manifestations. He said the voodoo thing was low-budget and he was still ashamed with what he had done to Miss Moodie. He had stopped practicing voodoo—no more tickling or raising the dead, or anything like that.

He put some kind of spell on his pipe-cleaner creations so the pipe cleaners blended so well with the objects they manifest they were undetectable. William made an 11-room mansion out of pipe cleaners and gave it to his parents. He made me a VW bug for my high school graduation. Finally, he made “iron” lungs for kids who had contracted polio. William was truly amazing. I asked him on day: “Whatever happened to Miss Moodie?” He told me simply: “She walks the night.”

Definition courtesy of “Sliva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added by Gorgias.

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Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Ominatio

Posted on July 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

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

After I graduated from Minor University with an MFA in Creative Writing, I went searching for a job as a writer. The university is located in Arkansas and takes great pride in its distinguished alumni. For example, there was Nostrom McOgle who held the world record for riding on a flat tire. Anyway, I was lucky to get a job in a Chinese fortune cookie factory, WonTan Food Groups Ltd. My job was to write fortunes “addressing peoples’ hopes and fears.”

I had a desk and a computer. The screen displayed a template with 20 fortunes per page. I typed in my fortunes and sent them off to the “proofer” who accepted them for printing, or rejected them. I thought my first sheet was pretty good. For example, “Your house won’t burn down,” “Keep drinking,” “ Your pet may run away,” “You might have cancer.” “Something bad might happen to you.” I thought of my fortunes as “adventures in realism.” I was a fan of Earnest Hemingway. The compact prose he was noted for was perfect for fortune cookies. The blunt and vivid pronouncements exemplify brevity’s “soul of wit.” I was loving it.

Then, the Manager, Ms. Lee, visited my desk one day. She said, “Are you trying to put WonTan out of business? Your fortunes are pathways to misery. Who wants to end a meal with the possibility of having cancer? If you can’t get more upbeat, you’re fired. Do you understand?” I could barely say “Yes.” She was so beautiful and so charming, and so nice that I developed a huge crush while she admonished me. Later that afternoon, she called and asked if I wanted to take a tour of the factory to get better oriented. “Of course!” I instantly replied. I decided I would write “love fortunes” and email them to her. The first one was “Our souls have met. What’s next?” I emailed it to her before our tour.

The tour was fantastic. The machines that insert the fortunes into the cookies are amazing. Such delicate work for a machine. After the tour was over and we had removed our hard hats, Ms. Lee pulled a sheet of paper from her blouse. She handed it to me. It was warm from being in her blouse. “Read it,” she said. It said “You’re fired.” “Why did you take me on this tour? What the hell is going on?” I was nearly crying. “”Your ‘two souls meeting’ did it. I wanted to take you on a tour anyway, so you could hate yourself all the more when I fired you.

Now I was mad! I went back to my desk and threw my computer on the floor. It popped a couple of times and died—just like me; heartbroken without a chance. Ms. Lee was out of my league. So, now I have a new job working for Smut Brothers, the world’s most prolific producers of pornography. I write the movie synopses that appear on CD-dust jackets or on-screen. I enjoy the work, although I do get tired of the repetition of what the actors do. I often think of Ms. Lee and the total failure I was at winning her affections. Then, a new movie titled “Hong Kong Time-bomb” came across my desk one morning. Ms. Lee was the star. Her screen name was Feng Banana and she ran a company in Hong Kong that made crotchless garments. It was called “Flash Pants.” Her role was to randomly “test” the product, which was the central theme of the movie.

I couldn’t believe it. Now, I was really heartbroken. But, I wanted her more than ever. I took a cab to the fortune cookies factory. I had a big sign that said “I know what you do in your spare time Feng Banana.” I stood outside the factory hoping she would see me. She came outside and said to me “If you do not leave me alone, I will have you gruesomely murdered. Do you understand me?” “Yes,” I said. But actually, I did not understand. I remembered something from my MFA program at Minor University: “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand.” I was too young to be murdered. I went back to Smut Brothers and sat down at my desk. I booted up “Hong Kong Time-Bomb” and pressed play.

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

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Posted in ominatio

Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Onedismus

Posted on July 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

Onedismus (on-e-dis’-mus): Reproaching someone for being impious or ungrateful.

“I do more for you than God, and all you do is complain. You’ve been wearing those pajamas for two weeks—they smell like a kitty litter box that needs cleaning. You’re not sick. You’re not injured. Why the hell don’t you put on some clothes and go look for a job?” “You’re no role model either,” I yelled. Her bathrobe looked like a feed lot for monkeys—there were ants crawling down one of the sleeves and cigarette burns on the lapels. Her hair looked like tossed pasta. But God—her figure was to die for. When she opened her robe I went berserk, lunging across the kitchen floor like a raging buck. She smelled like cigarettes, feta cheese, and her kisses tasted like Maalox. She pushed me away and said “Get a job and you’ll get what you want.” Finally, she offered an incentive that would get me out the door.

I took a quick shower and put on some clothes that were way too tight due to my stay-at-home sabbatical—no exercise, eating and drinking too much. I combed my hair and headed down the street to CVS to get a newspaper. I got home and sat at the kitchen table perusing the want ads. I had a Master’s degree in “General Studies,” from an on-line university in Australia. I was ready for anything “in general.”

I couldn’t believe it! There was an ad that read, “Wanted. Man or Woman prepared to do anything in general. Call: 800-231-5673. Mention this ad and ask for Abaddon Acheron.” I immediately called the number. Abaddon himself answered the phone. He asked me if I had a conscience. I told him “not much.” “Good. Perfect” he answered. “You’re hired. Starting salary is $200,000 per year, with benefits, including a 401K pension plan. One of my minions will pick you up at home tomorrow morning at 9:00 sharp. Don’t worry, we know where you live.” When he said a “minion” would pick me up, I got little nervous. But what the hell. Even though she wouldn’t take her bathrobe off, I had a great time with my wife that night. I had a job even if I didn’t know what it was.

The minion picked me up right on time. He looked normal, except one of his sideburns was missing. I figured it was some kind of fashion statement. We settled into the limo and took off. We pulled up at a landfill and drove into a tunnel in the side of a mountain of trash. There were armed guards all along the tunnel. We stopped in front of an elevator door, got out, and the minion pressed the button marked zero. When we got to zero, we were met by Abaddon. He kept going in and out of focus as we made our way to his office. He said, “if you’ve done your research you know that our company, “Infinite Misfortune” specializes in the manufacture of woe. Your position is that of Pet Killer. Your job is to eliminate peoples’ beloved pets by running them over, poisoning them, and even shooting them. You will be a major nexus of woe, second only to our corps of killers who put an end to peoples’ lives, causing the worst woe possible. I thought, “So, this is what a master’s in General Studies got me. Pet killer.”

I was immediately sent out on assignment—a three-person family who had just gotten their little boy a puppy. I was posing as a representative of Purina Puppy Chow. The family had “won” a bag of puppy chow. it had been poisoned by a technician back at Ft. Landfill.

The family was delighted. I wanted to throw up. I couldn’t do it. I grabbed the bag of puppy chow and took off rinning. I dumped out the puppy chow and kept running. I looked back and there was a woman with three Chihuahuas on leashes. They had started eating the poisoned dog food off the sidewalk.. “Too late for them,” I thought as I started crying. Abaddon popped out of a sewer grate and yelled “You’re fired!”

When I got home I called the police. They told me to “shut up” and leave them alone. So I did. To keep my wife happy and willing I got another job: school crossing guard. Every time a kid got run over on my watch, I thought of “Infinite Misfortune” and the great pension plan I could’ve had.

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

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Posted in onedismus, Uncategorized

Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Onomatopoeia

Posted on July 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

Onomatopoeia (on-o-mat-o-pee’-a): Using or inventing a word whose sound imitates that which it names (the union of phonetics and semantics).

My heart went “boom” and I collapsed on the floor. Clearly, this was the end. After a lifetime of eating fatty foods—especially ice cream, and, although technically not eating, downing a half liter of JohnnyWalker Black every day, not to mention smoking 2 packs of Marlboro 27’s per day. Eating, drinking, smoking, and now, being put on a stretcher and zoomed off to the hospital that was named after me: “Chuckles Memorial Hospital.” I was the world’s wealthiest clown. I had made billions acting like a stupid shit. I said stupid things. I did stupid things.

It all happened on my show “Mr. Chuckles Neighborhood.” It was modeled after the neighborhood I grew up in. I had to modify it significantly to make it suitable for kids. For example, Bus Stop Betty was a prostitute in my real neighborhood. In “Mr. Chuckles Neighborhood” she is Dr. Smith, a college English professor waiting for her bus to school. Then, there was “Fruit Stand Fredo” who ran a mafia-owned fruit stand where, in addition to fruit, he sold pot, Ecstasy, and LSD. He was also a loan shark who had half the neighborhood in his debt. Now, in “Mr. Chuckles Neighborhood,” he’s “Mr. Peachy.” He wears a white apron and sells only fruit, sometimes giving it away to homeless people. As you can see, “Mr. Chuckles Neighborhood” is pretty straight-laced.

“Jesus Christ—when’re we gonna get to the hospital?” A voice said “We got here 15 minutes ago. You’re dead. You’re laid out on a slab in the morgue. I wasn’t buying it—I could talk, I could hear voices, I could see, the only thing I couldn’t do was move. My wife walked in to the morgue to identify me: “Yup, that’s fat ass Chuckles. Goodbye shit-for-brains. Have fun in Manatee heaven.” I was devastated—I yelled at her but she couldn’t hear me. I needed a drink, but the voice refused. I was getting cold and asked for a blanket. “Nope,” the voiced responded. It also told me not worry, that I’d be checking out sometime before noon and heading to my next “destination.”

But holy shit! I felt an electric shock and I sat up, I was alive! I couldn’t resist doing a heart attack joke:

“A priest has a heart attack and is rushed to hospital. When he wakes up, he is being raced through the corridors on a gurney. Disoriented, he asks, “am I in heaven?” “No, replies the nurse. “We’re just taking a shortcut through the children’s ward.”

Nobody laughed. The joke couldn’t have been that bad, I thought. Priest jokes are usually good for a laugh. Then it dawned on me: I might be in hell—a place where nobody thought I was funny. So, I tried another joke: “Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl going to the bathroom? Because the “P” is silent.” The kid in scrubs in the corner holding an empty jar labeled “Comic’s Brain” gave a short giggle that sounded almost like a cough. Nobody else laughed—they all glared at him and he cowered. Now I could see what was going on. I had unexpectedly come back to life, and they wanted my brain for science. Now, they were going to kill me. I swore, if I ever got off the gurney, I would kill them!

I was free of my restraints when I woke up in a sunny hospital room with a view of the park outside. There was a tumbler of scotch and a double-cheeseburger on my bed tray. I was alone. I was getting to the point where I wanted my death to resolve itself. “Am I dead or alive?” I asked my empty room. “He’s alive!” my wife yelled as she walked through the door. “Finally!” I yelled, full of joy. “Duke and I are here to get you out of this mess,” said my wife. Duke stepped through the door. It was the kid who had been holding the “Comic’s Brain” jar in the morgue. I noticed my wife had a cute little chrome-plated .25 auto in her hand. She started blabbering at me and hurling obscenities. Suddenly, three police officers burst into the room, guns drawn. One of them handcuffed Duke and the other one shot my wife and put her down forever—she tried to shoot him, but her gun had misfired. Too bad.

I didn’t press charges against Duke. He works for me now as Dick Doormat on “Mr. Chuckles Neighborhood.” Before guests are allowed into my Joke Shop, they’re required to wipe their feet on him.

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

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Tagged figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Orcos

Posted on July 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

I always wondered what the connection might be between swearing something is true, and just plain swearing, as in “dammit.” How about a double swear: “I swear it’s true, dammit.!” But, like all things we say, we’ve got to be careful who we say it to. For example, my mother accused me of stealing my sister’s Mickey Mouse pencil. I responded “I swear I didn’t steal it, dammit.”

I had just learned how swear, so I wasn’t sure when and where to deploy it. I had learned how to swear at my friend Bruce’s house. He was rich and lived at the top of the hill. When we played there, his parents let us swear all we wanted. We sweared about everything: at lunch “Pass the fu*kin salt” or “Let’s watch some shit on TV” or “Where the hell’s the bathroom?” The only downside was Bruce’s sister. She kept trying to get me to come up to her room to see her horse pictures. The first time she asked I complied. We sat on her bed and looked at her pictures. When we were done, she got down on her hands and knees and made me ride her around her bedroom. She made a horse noise and reared up on her “hind” legs. I fell off and ran downstairs.

I found Bruce in the kitchen holding a steak knife. He was licking his lips and rocking the blade back and forth, making it flash under the kitchen lights. There was an open bottle of whiskey on the counter next to where he was standing. There were also two empty glasses sitting there. He said, “Let’s have a shot, or two, or three.” We were only 12 and I had never had alcohol. Then his sister came into the kitchen and slammed down tree shots in quick succession. She said, “My name is July and I’m an alcoholic.” She was 18, so I guessed it was legal for her to drink. But an alcoholic? Wow, she hadn’t wasted any time. She wanted to play horses agin, but I said “No.” She threw a box of Cheerios at me and stalked outside to the garden. She lit a hand-rolled cigarette and stared singing the Neil Diamond song about cracking roses.

I took a shot of whiskey and gulped it down. The world seemed to be a better place, so I drank another shot. I think I was a little drunk. So, I said “I’m goin’ the fu*k home.” Bruce said, “I don’t give a fu*k, go ahead.” I was glad to get out of there and back to my normal family—mom and dad, my older sister Molly and my baby brother, Nestor.

Getting back to the missing Mickey Mouse pencil episode:

For weeks, I had been taking the pencil and hiding it around the house and “helping” my sister find it. For me, it was a game, for my sister it was a total pain in the ass. At some point she told mom about the pencil game, saying I stole her pencil. That’s when my mother interrogated me and I gave the solemn oath including a swear word. My mother went crazy: “Not only are you lying, but you’re swearing too! I’m telling your father.” “Oh shit,” I thought, My father’s a gun nut and he’s been drawing his gun in the living room and aiming it at Nestor’s bassinet, yelling “Come out with yours hands up you little piggy!” Then, he would throw Nestor’s velour fuzzy rabbit at the bassinet.

My mom told my dad I was a liar and a swearer. He said, “Don’t worry I’ll get that little piggy! We’ll be eatin’ him for dinner tonight.” At that point my mom realized that dad had landed in cloud cuckoo land. Mom called 911 and they came and took dad away after he shot up the TV. After he’d been hauled off, I said to mom: “That was fu*ckin’ brilliant calling 911. You saved our lives.” Mom said, “Fu*kin’ A. He was out of his goddam mind.”

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

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Posted in orcos

Tagged example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Paenismus

Posted on July 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

Paenismus (pai-nis’-mus): Expressing joy for blessings obtained or an evil avoided.

I was in the 7th grade and there was a girl following me around. She would hide behind a tree along the sidewalk and say “Hi Johnny” from behind the tree when I walked by. She would crawl under my front porch and say “Hi Johnny” from under the porch when I got home. One night she was under my bed! I told my parents and her parents came and picked her up and took her home.

I got my driver’s license immediately after I turned 17. The open road beckoned. I got permission from my parents to drive to Delaware Water Gap, about 100 miles from where I lived in New Jersey. I was halfway there when I heard “Hi Johnny” from the back seat. It was like she was some kind of evil spirit haunting the car. She said, “You kidnapped me and I am going to tell my parents.” I pulled over to the side of the road. I was going to kick her out of the car and let her fend for herself. She started crying when I told her to get out of the car. I folded. “We might as well go see Delaware Water Gap and then drive back home.”

We pulled into a roadside rest by the Delaware River. It had a pay phone and she called her parents so they wouldn’t worry. Then, I heard her say, “He kidnapped me Mommy and wants $300 ransom left in a paper bag outside Charlie’s Soda Fountain. Don’t call the police.” I tried to call her parents to tell them she was full of shit, but she wouldn’t give me her phone number. Any story I might have to share with the police would be laughed at, and I might be shot. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I had gone crazy. She said, “I love you Johnny. We can run away together.” God! That’s all I needed to hear—run away together. I snapped and told her to lay down on the back seat while I drove us home. She complied.

We got back to our little town and pulled up in front of Charlie’s Soda Fountain. There was a small brown bag on the sidewalk. I hopped out of the car and picked up, expecting to be arrested, but I wasn’t! I looked in the bag and there were three $100 bills inside. I didn’t know what to do. I drove the girl home, gave her the bag of money and told her to give it back to her mother. I rang the doorbell and her mother answered: “Hi Johnny,” she said “my daughter’s mentally disturbed and so am I. We do nutty things for laughs. Keep the money—I think we got our money’s worth.” That did it!

I ran to the car to get a tire iron to beat the two of them into oblivion. I got halfway there and calmed down, I went back to the house and told them if they didn’t give me $5,000 cash, I would have them arrested. The mother gave me the money the next day and I took off with her daughter. She was waiting in the car. She said “Hi Johnny” and I told her to get into the front seat. I got her the medication she needed and we got married in Idaho. Everything worked out beautifully.

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

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Posted in paenismus

Tagged example, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Palilogia

Posted on July 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

Palilogia: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for epizeuxis.

“Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho” Santa had gone mad. Usually he limited his “Ho ho’s” to three per session,. The kids in line were getting restless. Santa was sitting in his throne and he couldn’t stop going ho ho. He was up to 45 Ho ho’s and was sweating and out of breath. He looked terrible. We called 911. As the EMT people took Santa away, the kids who had stood waiting for a half-hour to reveal their Christmas wishes, became uncontrollable and went berserk.

They looted the baskets of candy canes, smashed Christmas tree ornaments on the floor, tipped over the fake reindeer, tore open the fake presents. Then Billy Whaley, whose nickname was Zippo, who loved playing with matches, piled crumpled paper from the torn up presents in the middle of the floor. He said “Bye bye bullshit Santa’s workshop” and pulled out a pack of stick matches, lit one, and threw it on the paper. Everybody made it out the door. The kids watched the smoke, and then the flames coming through the roof. Billy was yelling “Oh baby, oh baby. Do it for me baby.”

By the time the firemen got there, Santa’s Workshop was a pile of smoking charred embers. Shoving what looked like a poker hand back into his boot, one of the firemen said, “I had a goddamn Full House. What am I supposed to do? Fold? Santa’s Workshop is fake anyway, just like Santa and all the rest of the shit with Christmas. You’ve lost the Christmas spirit boys and girls—peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” One of the kids yelled “How are we going to get what we actually want for Christmas; piles of presents, and some money too? Why don’t you go back to the firehouse and resume your poker game, you big fat hypocrite. Kiss my ass.”

The firemen left and the kids and their parents left. The sun was setting and Santa’s Workshop was just a pile of charred wood with remnants of red paint here and there. Santa got out of the hospital and was dropped off by a cab in front of the rubble. His fake beard had been pulled off at some point. He noticed Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer laying on his back with his front legs burned off. Santa started to cry. Immediately his chronic persistent “Ho Ho–ing” stopped, but he couldn’t go “Ho-Ho” anymore. His psychologist told him he couldn’t “Ho-Ho” due to the traumatic experiences he had with “Ho-Ho,” the core of his his being’s signature. Now, in order to “Ho-Ho” again, the psychologist told him he had to build positive associations with “Ho.” The psychologist said, “Prostitutes are frequently called Ho’s.” When you say “Ho” think of an attractive and willing prostitute.” Santa did just that, and was cured. He got his “Ho ho’s” back and went on to serve as a Santa Surrogate for five more fruitful years. He also came to enjoy the company of Ho’s and frequented their lodgings during the holiday seasons, where they watched “The Bob Newhart Show” reruns on Tv and laughed together at the jokes. Out of respect for the ho’s, Santa laughed “ha, ha, ha.”

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

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Posted in palilogia

Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Paragoge

Posted on June 30, 2023 | Leave a comment

Paragoge (par-a-go’-ge): The addition of a letter or syllable to the end of a word. A kind of metaplasm.

“Hi Ho Johnny-o“ said the jester to the king. “How many fruit flys will you kill before you go to sleep?” Things weren’t going well. I was trying to write a children’s story, but violence, bloodshed and death kept creeping in. I don’t know if fruit flies have blood, but they produce some kind of juice when you squish their irritating little bodies. Anyway, squishing kills fruit flies.

The story I’m working on is about a court jester who gets “The King is a Joke” tattooed on his butt after a night of drinking. One of his best tricks was “show Butt” where he sang a song about sitting in church that ended with him pulling down his pants. It was the king’s favorite. The king demanded the “pants down” song every day. Since he got the stupid tattoo the jester was in big trouble—he couldn’t show his butt and it’s message to the king—he would be executed, probably flayed by the king’s son Prince Plato, whose name far outstripped his capabilities. After three days of giving excuses, he had run out. His most recent excuse came close to failing: “Princess Hooters pushed me down the wine cellar stairs.” Princess Hooters believed anything He told her, so he told her she pushed him down the stairs. She asked him if he had gotten hurt. It worked (for now).

THE REST OF THE STORY:

The Jester’s Tattooed Butt

I had to go see Mollgrad the Excuse Broker. I scraped together my meager resources and headed to Mollgrad’s hovel. As a Jester, I didn’t have much to offer. I had three spare bells, a worn-out Punch and Judy set, and juggling balls painted to look like testicles. The Broker took my offerings without question. He left the room and same right back. He had a tin of pine tar and a piece of pigskin. He told me: “Stick the pigskin over your tattoo with the pine tar. Next time you perform, tell the king you backed into a hot stove and burned your butt, and the pigskin poultice is helping you heal.”

The ruse worked for two weeks, then the king wanted to know when I would heal. I panicked and told him in a couple of days. I went back to the Broker. He was surprised that the king cared. “You must see Gregory the Cutler. He is a friend and will not charge you for his services.” Gregory was a stout man—he was strong from grinding metals on his wheel. He told me to pull down my pants and press my butt’s tattoo agains the grinding wheel—to press as hard as I could. Gregory pushed on the wheel’s pedals making the wheel spin faster and faster while I p pressed tattoo against it.

It started to sting, and then it started to hurt. Gregory took a mouthful of rum and spit it on my butt. I started to moan. I started to cry. He went faster. I screamed with pain. He went faster. Then, suddenly he stopped. “It’s done,” he said. My jester pants were soaked with blood, and the the tattoo was erased! The cutler gave me some salve made from ground rabbit ears, hog fat drippings, and dandelions. I was to smear it on my butt twice a day, until my wound started to itch. Then, I was supposed to soak a rag in rum and press it on my wound to stop the itching.

I was saved—saved by lies and modern medicine.

COMMENTARY

As I read it again, I see it will not work as a children’s story. I should’ve realized that a story about a butt was unsuitable. However, as an adult-oriented story liberally seasoned with grown-up themes, I may get it published in “Cosmopolitan,” “Vanity Fair,” or maybe “Golf Digest” which has a really liberal idea of the relevance of golf to adult-themed short fiction.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. Also available in Kindle

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

Paralipsis

Posted on June 29, 2023 | Leave a comment

Paralipsis (par-a-lip’-sis): Stating and drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over (see also cataphasis). A kind of irony.

I saw something that was very disturbing. It was a Wooly Bully, so disturbing I can’’t talk about it. It had horns and a great big jaw. It looked like a Buffalo with some kind of genetically induced malady. There were two women I know who were there observing it—Hattie and Maddy—two girls I went to Lucky Strike High School with. They ran the school paper “Help!” It was almost totally gossip about teachers and teachers and students. Every once in awhile, they’d run an opinion piece. The last one I read was about gym uniforms. It was salacious, written luridly and explicitly about the uniforms’ crotches discomfort, and how the tops of the girls’ gym suits “chafed and flattened their soft cargo.” Then, there was the revelation that the mens coach’s brother supplied the ill-fitting gym suits at inflated prices. The op-ed created a sensation. The men’s and women’s coaches were publicly shamed—made to stand in front of assembly wearing the uniforms the students were made to wear. The men’s coach kept pulling on his gym pant’s crotch, unintentionally showing how uncomfortable they are. The students loved it, chanting “crotch, crotch, crotch.” Hattie and Maddy became celebrities, to the point of being interviewed by Erin Burnett, who was visibly envious of the girls’ op-ed/expose, asking them inane questions like their favorite colors, favorite food, pet peeves.

Clearly, Hattie and Maddy were born journalists. Hattie went to the Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University. Maddy went to Columbia University. Maddy’s senior project is a documentary titled “Is there Hope for Rope”? It tracks the decline of rope in Western culture, and its impact on binding, hanging and towing. She looks at the “invasion” of bungee chords, Velcro, duct tape, zip ties, and to a lesser extent, super glue. In the face of the onslaught, rope has fallen. It’s vestiges are still observable in shoelaces, kite string, macrame, lobster traps, etc.

Maddy’s senior project is a biography of Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press. It follows his successes and failures. He had 7 wives and 18 children. He was the greatest bigamist of his time, keeping his wives in the milking barn where each was assigned a cow. He got his idea for the printing press in the barn, when he stepped in a cow flop. In his next step his boot “printed” a duplicate image of its sole in fresh cow manure. Gutenberg stepped in the cow flop three or four times, printing more images of his boot sole. His first printing press was two boards like a sandwich. One board was the base, the other had text carved in it and would be smeared with ink. The text board would be set atop a sheet of paper set on the base board. Next, Gutenberg’s morbidly obese brother Hans would sit on the inked text board. The pressure from his 300 pound body would make a print. It took Gutenberg a few year to perfect the press. And once he did, business took off. He first printed a series of “bawdy” stories about Lil, a shady lady. The stories had titles like “Lil Befriends the King,” “Lil Goes to Jail,” “Lil Meets the Devil.” Finally, Gutenberg was persuaded to print Bibles, which he thought was a bad idea, but the profits would be huge, so he did it.

Both of these senior projects are admirable. Hattie and Maddy deserve to be the joint anchors that they are on MSNBC. My understanding is they’re going to do an expose of the Wooly Bully’s employment by the Republican Party to scare people away from the polls on Election Day. He is ugly and menacing looking, but I’ve heard he’s really nice with interests in gardening, origami, and knitting.

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

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Posted in paralipsis

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

Paraprosdokian

Posted on June 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

Paraprosdokian: A figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase [or series = anticlimax] is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe the first part. . . . For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. An especially clever paraprosdokian not only changes the meaning of an early phrase, but also plays on the double meaning of a particular word.(1)

“I love you more than dirty socks.” The first time my girlfriend Gabby said this to me I got really really angry. Who the hell does not “love” anything more than dirty socks? I could love a duck or a mosquito bite more than dirty socks. But, I trusted Gabby, so I thought there might be a back story, that, once told would help me understand the connection between dirty socks and love. In the meantime I made a couple of “I love you more than” phrases, trying to catch the weirdness of Gabby’s. My first was “I love you more than a cockroach’s ass.” I said it to Gabby and she jumped on my lap and started kissing me. It was insane, but I enjoyed it. The next day I tried out: “I love you more than weed killer.” I got a reprise of the jumping in the lap and the kissing, with the addition of a 3-course meal for dinner: cream of truffle soup, free-range boar chops, and mango ice cream. I think it was the best meal I ever had.

Then, I screwed it up, I told her “I love you more than the Amazon Prime remote control.” All hell broke loose. She threw my cherished snow globe at me and barely missed my head, putting a dent in the wall. “You liar! You dirty stinking liar! I hear you talking to Siri in the middle of the night: ‘Siri, show me your Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.’ It is easy to see what that’s about, pervert.”

I was shocked by Gabby’s response, I needed to get to the bottom of things—it seemed there was an inverse ratio between my expressions of love and comparisons used to convey them: the more demeaning the more effective at inducing a positive response. So, to get the conversation going, I said to Gabby “I love you more than road kill.” She blushed and moved next to me on the couch. Then, I said, “I love you more than silver and gold.” She stood up, punched me in the nose, and stalked off to the bathroom and locked herself in. My nose was bleeding. So, I said through the bathroom door: “Honey, I need a tissue for the bloody nose. I love you more than the rotten cold cuts in our refrigerator meat drawer.” The bathroom door opened and there was Gabby with a damp tissue for my nose.

Finally, I was able to ask Gabby to explain her quirky “I love you” thing. We got the vodka down from the shelf and poured a couple of glasses. I had developed a fondness for warm Mr, Boston when I was an alcoholic back in the 90s. I took a big slug as Gabby started her story recounting growing up in Guam. Her father was an Air Force mechanic and her mother was a very inexpensive cut rate whore that had married Gabby’s father when she fell pregnant, knowing that her child (Gabby) could have belonged to 50-200 other men. but, she chose to marry Gabby’s father because he was less intelligent than her and she could easily boss him around.

I took another big gulp of vodka and was starting to fade. Gabby droned on: “When we moved to the US, mother couldn’t leave the whoring behind. Soon, our entire neighborhood was on her client list. When we saw our neighbor at the grocery store, he would grab his crotch and say ‘Wo, wo, wo!’ while he looked at my mother. My mother would tell me he had an itchy infection ‘down there’ that made him cry out. For some reason Dad did not care about mom’s whoring. I would see him counting cash at the kitchen table on Sunday mornings. One morning he looked at me and smiled and said, ‘Now I can get that ride mower down at Penny’s’. I admired dad’s attitude. It was clear that he loved my mother as she was: a whore that made a lot of money. He was grateful for his lawnmower. And of course, my mother was grateful for the lack of physical abuse in their relationship which was a primary gripe among her whore friends. The difference was they had pimps and my mother had a husband (at least that’s what she said). Then, one day out of nowhere my dad said to mother ‘I love you more than a toothache.’ Everything made sense now. My father loved my mother, but not much. But there was honesty in the comparison that ‘moons and stars’ could never achieve. And for example, the toothache comparison expresses a quality of certitude of the love that can’t be achieved with moons and stars . . .”

I interrupted to tell Gabby I was going to pass out and that we’d have to do this again real soon. Then, I threw up on the table. It smelled like Mr. Boston’s ass. Then, I fell off my chair and peed my pants. The last thing I remember was Gabby kicking me and saying softly to me: “You’re just like my father. I love you more than my schizophrenia and eczema combined.”

1. “Paraprosdokian.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 4 Jan 2008, 03:30 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 9 Jan 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraprosdokian>.

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Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Paregmenon

Posted on June 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

Paregmenon (pa-reg’-men-on): A general term for the repetition of a word or its cognates in a short sentence. Often, but not always, polyptoton.

Life, death, life, death, life, death. Does it really go on forever? What will I come back as? It is hard to even think about. I’m pretty sure my dog Skippy will come back as a dentist. He likes to chew on things, so reincarnating as a dentist is only natural. I had my teeth cleaned last week and the hygienist reminded me of Skippy with her barking out orders like “Wider!” and “Bite down!” and “Swish!” I felt like I should’ve brought a biscuit to shut her up. Then she administered the nitrous oxide. I’m not sure, but I think she climbed up on my lap and made whining sounds. Maybe it was just wishful thinking—she sure didn’t look like Skippy! Ha! Ha! With her long blond hair, she looked like an Afghan Hound.

I’m getting sidetracked. What would I, Vince Bengal, come back as? I think it works so you come back to work on something you were bad at in this life. So, if you couldn’t fix your car in this life, you would come back as a furnace repairman or a brain surgeon. My life has been a complete failure event. No wife. No children. No education. No conscience. The list goes on forever. Think of any admirable human trait and put “no” in front of it, and that’s me. It’s not like I’m Charlie Manson or Ted Buddy though. Charlie Manson was a murderous lunatic who liked to boss people around. I’m none of those things. Charlie may have reincarnated as the Pope. It’s possible! Ted is a different story. As a serial killer preying on young women, he has a lot to live down. He could be the Governor of Florida, especially with the Governor’s vendetta against Disneyworld—a hotbed of evils and transgressional employee clothing, where they dress as dogs and ducks, and worse.

So, what about me? This is harder than it seems. My first thought would be: Head of the FBI. I could fit in Herbert Hoover’s shoes. But, this is way in the future—it would be somebody else’s shoes. They would be my shoes. I would fight crimes and shoot at people. It would be great fun! I would specialize in fighting shoplifting, reviewing random CCTV footage of retail stores and food carts looking for crime: a stolen Taco or a pilfered pair of athletic socks. This is noble, unlike my current incarnation. I sell drugs to children in the housing projects. My ideal customer is 9-10 years old and gets his drug money from shoplifting and ‘reselling’ to the big guys who get their money from mugging women. It’s like the “great chain of being” some straight jerk told me about. I specialize in hard drugs, so I give the kids fair warning. Fentanyl is a real ass-kicker, and boy, do they love it. This is why I think I may be an anesthesiologist in my next life (if not Director of the FBI). Think about it. Instead of poisoning kids, I would be helping people: knocking them out without violence so they can be cut open painlessly. Or maybe, last but not least: I could be an airline pilot. I would literally get people high—in the sky! Ha! Ha! No harm done.

Uh oh! That’s a siren—it’s not the police—it’s the EMT mobile headed to scrape another kid off the sidewalk or a shooting gallery floor. I tell these kids to be careful, that they can die from this shit. That’s the extent of my responsibility. It’s like buying a handgun here in Florida: “This can kill somebody. Be careful.” What more can I do? Quit dealing? Ha! Ha! You’re joking.

POSTSCRIPT

The door flew open. It was Toby Griswold’s father and he had a gun. “My son OD’d on your shit drugs. It’s time for you to OD on lead!” BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Vince was reincarnating on the floor as he was bleeding profusely, dying of three gunshot wounds to his chest. The great Karma Dove flew in the window and told Toby’s father that Vince was now a flatworm living in a host in South America. When the Karma Dove left, Toby’s father forgot the encounter, but remembered the message.

Vince was paying his cosmic debt for his wrongdoing. He was living in somebody’s intestinal tract outside Caracas, Venezuela. Normally, as Vince, he would be looking forward to Carnival, but he was a flatworm now. Vince was busy hunting for bacteria, as he went through life without an anus.

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

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Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

Pareuresis

Posted on June 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

Pareuresis (par-yur-ee’-sis): To put forward a convincing excuse. [Shifting the blame.]

I had gotten in the habit of saying “My ass” if I didn’t believe something that somebody said. For example: my wife said she was at the grocery store and I said “My ass” because she had been gone overnight. She told me she did it for me—that she slept in the parking lot when she heard they were getting a shipment of coconuts, and she knows how much I love them, so she camped out knowing they would out for sale when the grocery store opened in the morning—coconuts were tremendously popular in our small northeastern town. But, the coconut shipment story was untrue—unfounded rumor. There were no coconuts when she awoke. She was “deeply disappointed.”

I almost started crying when she told me her story, all night sleeping in the car! The dismay she must’ve felt—the anger, the frustration. Poor Hunny Bunny! I could hear my 15-year-old daughter laughing in the kitchen. I couldn’t figure out what was so funny, so I asked her. Her answer was “You!” meaning me. I had no idea what she was talking about. For some reason, I was her favorite joke. Anyway, I asked my wife out to dinner as a sort of reward for what she endured (there was more laughter from the kitchen). My wife said: “Oh honey. I’m so, so sorry. My vegetarian action group is holding an all-night vigil at MacDonald’s, picketing in the parking lot, handing out brochures and playing recordings of cows being slaughtered.” Wow! My wife was amazing. Too bad I was going to be working on my stamp collection and playing Rummy with our daughter. A big night!

I woke up around 2:00 am worried about my wife. She was so brave. I decided to take a drive down to MacDonalds. I woke up my daughter and told her what I was doing. She laughed.

When I got to MacDonalds it was closed and the parking lot was empty. I panicked and considered calling the police. But then, I figured I could wait until morning. My wife always had a good reason, especially for her overnight absences. I would wait until morning and if she didn’t come home, I would call the police. She came home around nine. She looked like she had just taken a shower—her hair was wet. So, I asked her where she was all night. As she started to tell me, my daughter giggled. My wife told me: “At the last minute we decided to go to Burger King. We targeted the Cheese Whopper with our chanting ‘I’ll have a Whopper in the garbage hopper.’” I was impressed. I asked her where she took a shower. She told me her old high school friend Rod ‘Ramrod’ Carbinski had graciously offered her shower, and a place to take a nap before she came home. My daughter was laughing again. But now I could see why. There was a pattern emerging that I could not deny: my wife was competing with me for the neighborhood’s “Top Notch Parent Award.” From her all-night coconut gambit showing our daughter how to love her man, to the social conscience displayed by the vegetarian protest. And also, the sacrifice of staying out all night, sacrificing time with her family to display her love and commitment to making the world a better place.

There was a knock on the door. It was Rod. He told me he was here to pick up my wife, that she was leaving me and “running off to chase our dreams.” My wife came down the stairs toting our big world travel suitcase. My daughter shot her with the handgun I’d left on the kitchen counter after I had blown a squirrel off the bird feeder. I called 911 and told them there had been a shooting. Then, I called Denise: “It finally happened—daughter off to prison no need for a divorce. I’ll explain later.” Rod was blubbering under the kitchen table.

My daughter was laughing.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added by Gorgias.

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Tagged elocutio, figures of speech, rhetoric, trope

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