The Daily Trope | Figures of Speech with Examples

Time 2021-08-31 22:32:13

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“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” “The world is satisfied with words, few care to dive beneath their surface” (Pascal). “There are no secrets in life; just hidden truths that lie beneath the surface” (Hall), or any of a bunch of sayings that worry about surfaces, and the power they have to draw you away from the truths and realities they cover, contain, conceal and decorate. But, sometimes it’s good to be led away, or distracted from the truth. When I was nine years old a giant pustule erupted on the back of my neck. It stuck out about two inches, was bright red, and looked like a volcano. It would erupt on occasion spurting puss that had a faint, but bad, odor—something like the air around the refineries in Linden, New Jersey where we lived at the time. Not that bad, but bad. The doctor assured us it wasn’t contagious and would go away on its own in a month or so. Nevertheless, my sister wouldn’t come near me and begged my father every day to make me live in the old tool shed alongside the house. Whenever she said that to my father, I would cry and my mother would put on a pair of rubber gloves and console me.My father started calling my pustule a “bimple” making everybody laugh, me included. I would rather be teased than shunned, so I made up a “Bimple Dance” that I would do to the tune of “Howdy Doody Time.” I would point at my bimple, hold my nose, and make a bad smell face while I rotated my hips. Despite my malady, I still had to go to school, but I was afraid I’d be bullied, especially by Stew Contraglio the class bully. My father felt my pain and made me what he called a “Bimple Tent” cover my bimple—to conceal it. The tent was black cotton. Mom had embroidered the Brooklyn Dodgers logo on it. It tied in the front under my chin. The “tent” was formed by an empty Dixie cup, circling and sheltering and hiding the bimple’s soft volcano shape under the tent. My cover story for the tent was right out of the fifties: my neck had been probed by space aliens and I had to keep it covered at all times to block the lingering space rays. Word got out about my alien encounter, but I declined all newspaper, radio and TV news interviews due to the “anguish” I had already endured.I felt like a million drachma! Everything is beautiful on the manic side of life. I feel like Archimedes soaking in a tub. I want to yell “eureka, eureka, eureka” over and over, throwing granola in the air like confetti with one hand and waving a little handgun with the other—a perfect combination: hope and fear, like dessert at an awards ceremony: an icy road to τρελός! Oh, I never won an award. All the works, all the entry fees, all the submitting, all the meaningless honorable mentions—never a ribbon, never a plaque, never a cash prize. Just βλακείες, βλακείες, βλακείες ever since I was five. I started off crying when I didn’t win and advanced to donning my black hoodie and pulling out my black collapsible metal police baton that I brought in a gym bag to the event, knowing that “Plan B” was, as usual, going to be operative at the end of the event. As soon as I knew for certain I had lost again, Plan B kicked in. I slipped off to the men’s room to put on my μεταμφίεση, concealing my face and pulling out “Big Bopper” the baton to get ready to turn the tables. I would wait outside the venue for my quarry; the soon-to-be disfigured winner. When he emerged, I lunged, swung the baton hard so you could hear it cutting through the air like the whip Mama used to use on the back of my legs whenever she felt like it, as punishment: 90% of the time I was clueless as to my transgression and Mama wouldn’t tell me. She’d say “You’ve been a naughty dog-poo William.” With “naughty dog-poo” roaring through my head, I would severely beat the winner and gloat a little bit over my handiwork. Then I’d go home like nothing happened, clean Big Bopper, put my hoodie in the wash, pick out a Stouffer’s meal, microwave it, and stream “Ed Sullivan” reruns until bed time. This is when I felt really good, up on a manic cloud floating above it all like Zeus, invincible, αθάνατος!Tooth and nail. They went at it “tooth and nail”? What? Somebody must’ve landed at the dentist’s. Maybe it was a saw. They have teeth, and two people with saws and nails, fighting it out, would certainly project a discomfiting image of conflict. If I was in that fight I’d much rather be going “spike and tooth” than using only a 4d box nail. You can’t do much damage with a box nail—poke out an eye, scratch the skin or get in little stabs that may, in their sum, be fatal. Anyway, there’s room for improvement in the image. How about “They went at it saw and nail?” Better, how about “They want at it chain saw and nail gun?”Now we’re getting somewhere: severed limbs, nails like porcupine quills sticking out of each other’s heads. That’s the stuff great movies are made of. Just think: Warriors carrying nail guns and chain saws go up against marauding hordes of Neolithic-looking madmen carrying only clubs and flimsy animal skin shields. But they have a secret weapon: jumping dogs with teeth like sabers and claws like daggers. Only the size of Chihuahuas, they jump on your head, tear off the top, and eat your brains. The only defense is a well-placed nail or a sweeping pass with a chain saw at full rev. Sadly, the Neolithic-looking hordes will win. Their leader Clogloo will hold up a bloody pate bowl and drink the steaming grey goop from it chanting “Winners and losers, win and lose.” Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added byGorgias.Heterogenium (he’-ter-o-gen-i-um): Avoiding an issue by changing the subject to something different. Sometimes considered a vice.You ask me why I “insist” on lying, lying, lying all the time. First it’s not true, and second, you are the one who’s lying.The only things I do “all the time” are eat, sleep, poop, and urinate. And I don’t actually do those things all the time. I just do them every day, night, and morning. Talking about eating, nothing beats a good meal (and a couple jumbo cups of Diet Coke) at great restaurants like MacDonald’s or KFC. Every time I eat a Big Mac with cheese, and a jumbo order of fries, I feel like I’m ascending to heaven—I can hear angels singing “Have a second order of fries.” And KFC! The 16 piece meal, including 4 large sides and 8 biscuits, supposedly feeds 8. I can put it away with a couple of Diet Cokes in five minutes. That’s no lie, ask Melania. I have to pretty much take her by gunpoint to my fast food favorites. She says they smell like Slovenia and remind her of the unpleasant things she had to endure to settle in America. By the way, I wish people would leave her alone about the beautiful garden she made at the White House. The rumors that the flowers keep uprooting themselves and dying—committing suicide—rather than remaining planted in the garden, are hard for us the live with. We cry together watching the FOX News reports about all the dead plants. Melania thinks it is Democrat-trained groundhogs, possibly equipped with military grade stealth technology, making them invisible. She says they probably have battery-powered chips in the backs of their fat little necks that send vision-blocking rays at our eyeballs. Anyway, I’m glad I could be here today. I enjoy talking about myself, and also, about my perfect wife. See you at the voting booth in 2024. Help Make America Great Again, again—with Rudy, the My Pillow Guy, newly implemented voting restrictions, and all the wonderful militias, we can do it!Homoioteleuton (ho-mee-o-te-loot’-on): Similarity of endings of adjacent or parallel words.I was a Dead Head in the 60’s. I was a travel-all-over rover, driving my green and white VW bus everywhere the Grateful Dead was appearing. It was a big pot-smoking acid-dropping family. If I hadn’t had my trust fund to draw on, I couldn’t have been a Dead Head. The drugs alone cost bundle, especially since I gave a lot away, mainly to hot looking hippie chicks who showed their gratitude in many splendored ways.The weirdest thing that happened was at a Dead event in Kentucky. I took a hit off a joint, and looked up, and bam, there was Al Gore standing in front of me in a pair of jungle fatigues singing along with the Dead’s “Box of Rain.” I didn’t know who he was at the time. I found out years later when he went into politics. We smoked the rest of my joint together. We talked, and he did almost all the talking. I don’t remember what we talked about, but after that conversation I decided to go back home, go to college, and go into finance.Horismus (hor-is’-mus): Providing a clear, brief definition, especially by explaining differences between associated terms.As you become more deeply involved with “hunting” you should know the difference between a bullet and a pellet. A bullet is a single projectile, often called a slug. When well-aimed it will blow a hole through its target causing blood to spurt out if a heart shot, or ooze out, if the strike is elsewhere. For example, it may blow off a leg, become lodged in the rump, or somewhere along the spine, causing a slower bleed-out and a more agonizing death. A pellet is a lead sphere. It comes in different sizes, from bird shot, to upland game, to buckshot— which comes in different sizes, the largest of which is called “00 Buck.” Coming from a shotgun, pellets are sprayed in a lethal pattern, mutilating one’s prey, or blowing a big hole in it, if fired from close range. Remember, if you’re going to kill animals, you should choose the right projectile. You should only kill people in self defense (broadly defined). Instant killing is a fun thing to do, but you might want to consider wounding your prey so you can have the satisfaction of tracking it’s blood trail and finding its dead body somewhere in the woods. Imagine, wounding a rabbit and trying to find it. What a challenge, building the character attributes of patience and perseverance as you crawl through a thicket in your camo overhauls, dragging your new Remington over and under beside you. Bullets and pellets. Vehicles of death, makers of meals: deer, squirrels, ducks, raccoons, pigeons, chipmunks (if you’re really hungry). Remember, that Bible commandment about killing is just about killing people. If there’s a season on it, it’s fair game. Unless it’s a cow or a chicken, you can kill it. Cows and chickens can be killed any time, but you, unless the chickens or cows are feral, should let the farmers do the killing. Don’t worry. You can get farmer-killed meat at the grocery store! Now, you’re one step closer to being a hunter. Every time you load up, take aim, pull the trigger, and kill a living creature you become a better person.Hypallage (hy-pal’-la-ge): Shifting the application of words. Mixing the order of which words should correspond with which others. Also, sometimes, a synonym for metonymy (see Quintilian).I slugged down a curled shot of vodka, spilling a little drop on my chin. This was going to be another flotsam night, sitting in my underwear, staring at the wall, getting drunk.I was already looking forward to going to work tomorrow. I work at a pie factory. I specialize in pumpkin. After 14 years at the mixing bowl and oven, I smell like pumpkin spice. I’ve tried everything I can think of to get the smell off, but it won’t go away. The up side is that it smells a little bit like the hypermanly after shave “Old Spice.” It attracts women like a flock of moths to a flame. That’s the down side too. I’ve started staying home and drinking because the women in pursuit of me and my smell are driving me crazy. I’d wake up in the morning with a beautiful woman and tell her I had to go to work soon. She would start to get dressed, and like all the rest, ask politely for a sniff before she left. If I said no, all hell would break loose—I would be chased around my apartment by a snorting begging woman until I locked myself in the bathroom. You don’t want to know the rest, believe me. I am so grateful that no women work at the pie factory. I make my pies in peace.Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).Hyperbaton (hy-per’-ba-ton): 1. An inversion of normal word order. A generic term for a variety of figures involving transposition, it is sometimes synonymous with anastrophe. 2. Adding a word or thought to a sentence that is already semantically complete, thus drawing emphasis to the addition.I went looking for trouble, everywhere. I was always off, a little. I found a handgun in the park when I was 15. It went off accidentally and killed a woodpecker, who was minding his own business pecking on the old wooden flagpole on the village green, blowing off its head. I tossed the handgun into the bushes and picked up the dead woodpecker, still warm. This is where my career as a mortician began—with amateur taxidermy on the accidentally shot bird. I brought the bird home and laid it on a piece of waxed paper on the desk in my room. As I opened the bird’s chest cavity with my X-acto knife, I felt jubilant as the woodpecker’s insides fell out in a shiny red lump. I picked them up and looked closely at them, holding them in the palm of my hand. After a good look, I threw them out my window. I didn’t know what to do next, so I put the bird in a shoebox and slid it under my bed.When my grandmother died two weeks later, we went to see her remains at the Burns Brothers funeral parlor. The place was like a church! Grandma looked amazing. She had on a nice dress, her hair was stylishly done, her cheeks looked like blood was pulsing through them. I wondered how big grandma’s guts were, but blocked the thought for fear of becoming a psychopath. I met Mr. Burns at the funeral parlor door as we were leaving. I asked him what it took to be a good mortician. He said, “Steady hands and a kind heart.” On that note, I knew I would be a mortician someday. As I became a practicing mortician, I learned, in addition to the steady hand and the kind heart, you have to feel no guilt at profiting from loved ones’ deaths. Eventually, I learned to bury my guilt by drinking expensive vodka and buying things I don’t want or need on Amazon.I still have the dead woodpecker in the cardboard box. When I take it out and view it’s headless remains and still shiny feathers, I smile.Hypozeuxis (hyp-o-zook’-sis): Opposite of zeugma. Every clause has its own verb.They said I was morally bankrupt. Actually, I bet on a losing concept of the good. Aristotle or Socrates, or some other philosopher (maybe Augustine), wrote that people do what they do because they think it’s good, not bad. Why else rob a convenience store unless you think it’ll benefit you? When we thwart a criminal we keep her or him from obtaining a hoped-for good—quick cash, drugs, a plasma TV, food. I think it was Stanley Fish, or somebody like him, who proclaimed “One person’s hope is another person’s fear.”By the way, this gun is WAY LOADED—17 rounds of sweet little 9mm hollow points. And I have a hope! I hope your toupee goes up in flames. Now, you’re going to stand still while I dribble this lighter fluid on your head, otherwise I’ll shoot you in the stomach and watch you squirm around and bleed on the floor. Ready?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.Hysterologia (his-ter-o-lo’-gi-a): A form of hyperbaton or parenthesis in which one interposes a phrase between a preposition and its object. Also, a synonym for hysteron proteron.I flew over —my feet were cold—the snow-white tundra. What had started as a spring break dare 50 years ago had ended with my transformation into an Arctic Man Bird. Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, that’s what I am. I have talons—they’re huge—protruding from my fingertips, making it difficult to write this account of my life’s adventures as a bird. I never recorded my experiences before because I was fearful somebody would hunt me down and blow me out of the sky. But I am old now. I will die soon anyway. I never found a mate. I never had and any progeny. My remains will be found in a block of ice, if at all. Scientists will argue, Nobel Prizes will be won. A soft shrieking fills the air. A winged shadow appears at my cave’s opening. It is an Arctic Woman Bird. She lands. She gleams. I love her. “You are old enough now to give me a little chick. Our age difference is necessary to assure a successful mating. After we mate, I will stay with you and help raise our chick” She said. Hysteron Proteron (his’-ter-on pro’-ter-on): Disorder of time. (What should be first, isn’t.)“Go! Get ready! Set!” Uncle Harvey yelled. Set what? Go where? Get Ready? Was it a riddle? It was very mixed up. Maybe it was because it was Labor Day and my wife’s family was drunkenly gathered “out at Camp” by the lake. In addition to eating gallons of “special” baked beans (laced with rum and mustard) crystallized “Sugar Bumps,” and a lot of meat—hamburgers, hot dogs, bratwurst, sausage patties, and kielbasa from the grill—every year they went crazy and pushed somebody into the lake to “cleanse” Camp and create a little extra entertainment. Nobody had drowned yet, but odds were that it would eventually happen. That’s why in the past couple of years only elderly family members had been pushed in, due to their existing proximity to death, and the family wager that they’d all die pretty soon anyway.Now I got it with Harvey’s fractured countdown! He was trying to disorient the elders, catch them off guard, and push one of them in the lake! Too bad it didn’t work. Grampy picked up a rock and threw it at Harvey, missing him and shattering one of Camp’s storm windows. My brother-in-law, a former college football star, ran toward Grampy, tackling him and dragging him to the lake’s edge. Then, he and Harvey hoisted Grampy up, swung him back and forth a couple of times, and threw him into the lake—all in good order, 1, 2, 3. Unfortunately, there was a 4 that should’ve been a 1. They should’ve paid attention to the notorious giant catfish hanging out under the dock: Blimpy. Every Labor Day a few pounds of spoiled ground beef and a gallon of pig’s blood were thrown under the dock to appease him. Blimpy was known to snatch the occasional kitten or puppy off the dock, but he never attacked a person in the water. Was Grampy going to be the first? The meat and blood had been forgotten this year. Danger lurked. As Blimpy headed for Grampy, we all dashed into the water, splashing and yelling. Blimpy got the message and retreated back under the dock. Grampy’s pacemaker started to malfunction, so we carried him back to camp, gave him a double Bloody Mary, and put him in the most comfortable lawn chair to dry out in the sun.Everybody agreed: this was the best Labor Day family gathering ever! Well, everybody but Grampy—he wasn’t all that enthusiastic about the family’s consensus. Given that he almost died, we could understand, although Aunt Kay did call him a spoilsport, and Uncle Lowell told him all he had to do was “punch the damn fish in the nose, and it probably would’ve died.”Inopinatum (in-o-pi-na’-tum): The expression of one’s inability to believe or conceive of something; a type of faux wondering. As such, this kind of paradox is much like aporia and functions much like a rhetorical question or erotema. [A paradox is] a statement that is self-contradictory on the surface, yet seems to evoke a truth nonetheless [can include oxymoron].What? Where is this going? To hell in a hand basket? Out the window? Over the rainbow? Or, as usual, to hell and back? You are so predictably unpredictable. Predictable: Endless crackbrained schemes. Unpredictable: Your latest scheme’s intent.If you think I, or anybody else, will invest in your oatmeal cement, you’re nuts. The catchphrase “Pour a nutritious foundation“ won’t get you anywhere. Why do you keep this up? Mom’s at her wits end with the smells coming from the basement and the pounding. 30 years is long enough for Mom to support you and lie to you about how smart you are—Thomas Edison’s doppelgänger. Mom should win a Nobel Prize for tolerance. I wonder when you’ll win your Nobel Prize? When you’ll be world-famous? When you’ll go out of the house? Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added by Gorgias.Inter se pugnantia (in’-ter-say-pug-nan’-ti-a): Using direct address to reprove someone before an audience, pointing out the contradictions in that person’s character, often between what a person does and says.I am taking part in this commission to get to the truth, knowing full well that the truth does not speak for itself and that it must be effectively expressed in order for it to induce belief. You have been as effective as Satan himself at making lies appear true and entrenching them in America’s narrative and circulating them as if they are rock-solid bulwarks of honesty and compassion, but they are not!Unlike Fox News where you can knowingly spout your lies and walk out the door to a standing ovation, here you are under oath and your assertions and statements will be fact-checked. Lying may earn you the praise of your co-conspirators, but it will also earn you time in jail.You say you want freedom to ring—that you stand for and protect American democracy, when in fact, you stand for and protect autocracy—a dictatorship that would undermine and supplant 244 years of our democracy’s ever-expanding franchise. That said, we need your help constructing the back-story of what happened on January 6. In sum, we want to bring the perpetrators to justice for planning and inciting a coordinated attack on America’s electoral process. You know, when somebody tromps around the house in dirty rubber boots, somebody has to clean it up. Depending on what Mr. Dirty Boots brings through the door, it can take a long time to clean the floor or carpet and may even require toxic chemicals to remove. Breathing chemicals’ fumes can harm a toddler, like that one over there in the playpen—our little Eddie. I read an article in Guilt-Free Parenting about removing footwear at the door. It made a lot of sense. Start doing it or Eddie and I will go visit my mother forever. Isocolon (i-so-co’-lon): A series of similarly structured elements having the same length. A kind of parallelism.He was drunk. He was angry. He was driving. His pants were wet and he was yelling out the car’s window: “I am the eight ball. You are the wallpaper. Coo coo. Hoo hoo.” He ran over a stop sign, stopped and got out of the car. The stop sign had snapped off at the base and he picked it up. Holding it in front of him he staggered down the sidewalk singing “Stop in the name of love before you burn my tart.” His wet pants fell down, he tripped, and his head made a hollow thudding sound as it hit the concrete. He looked dead. Kategoria (ka-te-go’-ri-a): Opening the secret wickedness of one’s adversary before his [or her] face.Ever since we’ve been political opponents, I’ve had this sneaking feeling that you’ve been pushing legislation for personal gain. Now I know it’s true. Your chain of ice cream stands (Frozen Assets) is riding on the coattails of your bill to make vanilla ice cream our state flavor. The connection between the bill and your potential to make a huge profit is incontrovertible. You will be arrested and charged this afternoon. Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added by Gorgias.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).I don’t deserve these socks! It’s not like it’s my retirement dinner! Ha ha! 25 years of towing the line isn’t enough for these genuine wool gems. Get the pun—towing? And they are emblazoned with the company logo. It’s too much! “Mel’s Lawnmower Repair” was my life. Now that I’m retiring with no pension or benefits, it could be the end of my life. Ha ha! Martyria (mar-tir’-i-a): Confirming something by referring to one’s own experience.I have been lied to. I have been cheated. I have been slandered. I have felt the gap between what is and what isn’t narrow into nothingness and throw me into an abyss that took years to claw my way out of: first with alcohol; then with opioids, and finally, with lithium and a caring therapist. Please understand: I have zero tolerance for liars. Zero. That’s it.Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.“Too much prudence makes you a prude.” Loosen up. Chill out. Tell a joke. Make a silly face. Chuck a moon.Medela (me-de’-la): When you can’t deny or defend friends’ faults and seek to heal them with good words.Look, nobody’s perfect. Twelve minor traffic accidents in twelve months. Nobody got killed. That’s a blessing. It’s probably not a record either. The traffic around here is crazy anyway. I’m surprised everybody doesn’t have more accidents. Chin up! Everything will be ok. While you’re waiting to hear whether your license is revoked, consider Uber. It’ll make things way easier. Why not let somebody else drive you around? You can work on your laptop in the back seat!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.You can take your engagement ring and shove it. It’s a cigar band for bozos. After what you did to me, I’m outta here.Stogle Bridge has been falling down for the past three months. It is unconscionable for the town council to let this happen. If that crack widens a little more, and we keep the bridge open, plain and simple, people will die. Please close the bridge, allocate the funding to repair it, and REPAIR it! I need your help. We need your help. Please do the right thing. Thank-you.Rep. Greene’s trustworthiness can be divided into three parts: (1) Liar; (2) Prevaricator; and (3) Mythomaniac. Yep, she’s three times as full of crap as a mentally stable person. Mesarchia (mes-ar’-chi-a): The repetition of the same word or words at the beginning and middle of successive sentences.I am lost and struggling to find my way. I am lost and hoping to find the trail. I am lost and I look toward the sky to find the North Star. I look, I seek, I hunt, I struggle, all to no avail. Now, I will make a bed of pine boughs and wait for dawn. It is a warm summer night. I will be ok . In the morning I will walk toward the rising sun, eat some berries, and drink from the crystal clear creek. I will survive.Mesodiplosis (mes-o-dip-lo’-sis): Repetition of the same word or words in the middle of successive sentences.I got myself a new set of cookware. Yep, I got a new set of pots and pans. I’m gonna use that new set to make the most magnificent meals. First: canned bean soup with just the right amount of water dumped in. Second: scrambled eggs with milk and sardines. Third: pimentos and prunes. The list goes on! Please stop by and try one of my creative recipes. Tonight, we’re having kale and mashed potatoes with fish sauce, gnocchi, and snappy grillers. Mmmmm!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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