10 January 2001 - diaporesis

The ancient Greeks still hold the world championship of making up words for figures of speech. Metaphor and simile and metonymy and synecdoche are a drop in the bucket of the dawn of the very start of the list. I mean, they had a word for distracting the teacher from your bad haircut by saying that the llama ate your homework.

My principle is to make everything as funny as possible, but not funnier. I wrestle daily with sinewy questions like, “What’s a bigger hoot, string cheese hysteria or nuclear brain fungus?” I want every Daily Whale to be like a chapter in a John Sladek novel. When you read it it’s funny, then when you think about it it’s funnier.

Let me explain what I’m explaining here. Diaporesis, from yesterday’s so-called clue, is pretended doubt.