I thought I remembered having seen this word in AWADtalk,
but Search didn't find it. From O.Henry "The Coming Out of Maggie":
"But to-night the pumpkin had turned to a coach and six. Terry O'Sullivan was a victorious Prince Charming, and Maggie Toole winged her first butterfly flight. And though our tropes of fairyland be mixed with those of entomology they shall not spill one drop of ambrosia from the rose-crowned melody of Maggie's one perfect night."

trope [trəʊp]
noun
1 (Rhetoric) a word or expression used in a figurative sense

2 an interpolation of words or music into the plainsong settings of the Roman Catholic liturgy
[ETYMOLOGY: 16th Century: from Latin tropus figurative use of a word, from Greek tropos style, turn; related to trepein to turn]

Trope, how I just love that word. Something about it. Rhetorical terms are a lot of fun: Greek topos, Latin locus, English Commonplace. Lieutenants in the loo at Waterloo station.

Dear jheem: I can't remember the rhetoric words ten
minutes. I have to look them up every time I see them.
And I have to admit that tomorrow, I won't remember
what trope means.

Edit: maybe this example from Silva Rhetoricae will
stay with me:
"If we don't hang together, we'll hang separately —Benjamin Franklin Note: This is also a trope of repetition. Paranomasia Using words that sound alike but that differ in meaning (punning). Example ...
http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/Groupings/of%20Wordplay.htm - 3k - 2002-04-28 "

Bill. I picked up a nice little book a couple of years ago by Warren Taylor called Tudor Figures of Rhetoric that's still in print:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/ref=s_sf_b_as/102-3552399-0616950

There's also Quintillian available in the Loeb addition that most good college bookstores will have or can order, and Cicero's Rhetorica ad Herrenium.

i only know trope in the scientific sense--which retains the meaning.. (to turn)
phototropism is what causes a sun flower to turn its head, and follow the sun..
(geotropism causes roots to respond to gravity, and dig into the earth--an imporant function of a rootlet of an emerging seedling) there a hundreds of 'trope/tropism' in biology.

Dr Bill, maybe the connection of turning sunflowers will help you remember trope's turning characteristics!

Dear jheem: I found a site giving Warren Taylor's rhetoric
terms. I plan to use some of them here.

Dear of troy: In the quote from O.Henry I missed his allusion to Cindarella's coach and horses "turning" into
a pumpkin, etc.

Don't forget the tropics -- the region of the earth between the tropic of Capricorn and the tropic of Cancer, which is where the sun appears to reach its northernmost and southernmost point in its annual cycle and turns back.

Bingley

And the troposphere in the atmosphere. Very high up.
I can't remember why it is important.

troposphere
Noun 1. troposphere - the lowest atmospheric layer; from 4 to 11 miles high (depending on latitude)
layer - a relatively thin sheetlike expanse or region lying over or under another
atmosphere - the envelope of gases surrounding any celestial body
tropopause - the region of discontinuity between the troposphere and the stratosphere

I too love the word. It's probably in my top-ten list (which changes every day, because I, like Dr Bill, have my senior moments).

Heliotrope -- isn't that just beautiful?

Heliotrope -- isn't that just beautiful?

turns me on.

Here's a dandy new trope from O.Henry. I'm amazed that
I could remember the name of the device:

"Gabriel had played his trump; and those of us who could not follow suit were arraigned for examination. "

It's probably in my top-ten list (which changes every day, because I, like Dr Bill, have my senior moments).

Mine changes daily, too, but because I can't stand to play favorites and leave some deserving word out of the list.

Heliotrope -- isn't that just beautiful?

And how do you feel about metempsychosis?

I am happily reconciled to the fact that there is no
evidence for existence of souls. I have no desire to
find myself condemned to spend millions of years in any
form of protracted existence. I'm not far from the exit.

O.Henry does it again! Once more, I think this is a form of
trope: "pace"( = Latin for peace) used to remind us of "peace" which would be expected in the original cliché.

"the belief that in occupying the highest seat in a Rubberneck auto they were travelling the pace that passes all understanding.

Me, too. I said it was a nice word. As Santayana supposedly said of religion: it's beautiful, just don't ask it to be true. In Spanish, natch.

jheem, pardon my dull wit this morning, but what's the connection between heliotropes (of any kind, any definition) and metempsychosis?

> the connection

the sound of both words turns him on ;)

Thanks, mav', for the clarification.

Now I get to chew on why metempsychosis as a sound would turn anyone on...

Sorry for the vagary. As Maverick suggest, I just like the sound of metempsychosis. Never though much of the meaning of the word which I know mainly from the discussion of it in Ulysses. I'll try to be less free association from now on.

> less free association

Doncha dare!

Oh, please do free associate to your metempsychotic delight. I've just learned how not to read you.

Speaking of Joyce: Freddie Malins might have said,

Valetudinariously yours,
WW