Sunday, January 30: The A.D.D. Detective
PARAPROSDOKIA
by Leigh Lundin
I credit my friend Sharon with rescuing today’s column. While I edited another friend’s novella, I was debating a couple of dour topics when an eMail popped up with a circulated list of ‘paraprosdokians’.
What?
- paraprosdokian
- A figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part, frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax.
Motherlode
Ah, I see. Groucho Marx made a living from wry paraprosdokia and Dorothy Parker was no slouch, e.g,
"Men do make passes at girls who wear glasses… it depends on their frames."
The best of these paraprosdokian thingies come from a handful of famous people:
"He was at his best when the going was good."
— Alistair Cooke on the Duke of Windsor"There but for the grace of God– goes God."
— Winston Churchill"If I am reading this graph correctly– I’d be very surprised."
— Stephen Colbert"You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing– after they have tried everything else."
— Winston Churchill"If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised."
— Dorothy Parker"I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it."
— Groucho Marx"A modest man, who has much to be modest about."
— Winston Churchill"She looks as though she’s been poured into her clothes, and forgot to say ‘when’."
— P. G. Wodehouse"I like going to the park and watching the children run around because they don’t know I’m using blanks."
— Emo Phillips"I haven’t slept for two weeks, because that would be too long."
— Mitch Hedberg"I sleep eight hours a day and at least ten at night."
— Bill Hicks
Wikipedia attributes a good line to The Simpsons:
"If I could say a few words, I’d be a better public speaker."
— Homer Simpson
Load of Bull?
Researching the word brought me to a glossary put forth by the late Professor Ross Scaife of the University of Kentucky, Lexington, who credits Ernest Ament of Wayne State University. Finding a scholarly footing was almost the end of my research, but something about the word troubled me. I slouched through two years of Latin and don’t have enough Greek to fill a retsina amphora, but the word didn’t look like a noun. I turned to Google and …
I found William Gordon ‘Bill’ Casselman who appears to be the Larry Flynt of classical academic publishing: Scholars pretend to be offended by his colourful naked criticism but they can’t help peeking between their fingers. And, he’s almost certainly right, even if he laces his reasoning with personal (or antipersonnel) zingers and scatological descriptions. Also, like Larry Flynt, he heartfeltly digresses into social issues, asbestosis in particular. All in all, probably a guy we’d like.
Among his many books is Canadian Words which, I might indignantly mention, fails to credit my own Can-Am Dictionary. He also writes in English. I started reading his current book, which is witty and fun, the unhyphenatedly titled Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik, found in desperate bookstores everywhere.
I give Bill Casselman air time, not because he’s smart, well-read, and funny (he is), but because he reinforced my brilliantly ill-considered opinion that paraprosdokian doesn’t look like a noun, proper or improper. Omitting his language flourishes that might get us sued or rebuked by the Right Reverend Pontifician Wright, Mr. Casselman says:
The word (paraprosdokian) appears NOWHERE in ancient Greek literature. It could NEVER be an ancient Greek word with its Late Latin adjectival ending –ian! Nearly every standard term in classical rhetoric, Latin or Greek, takes the form of a noun. But this one, we are asked to believe, is not only adjectival in form, it consists of three Greek roots and then suddenly a Latin adjectival ending appears in a word describing process. By the way, that demands a noun. …
The word is unknown to ancient Greek or Latin rhetoric. It is unlisted in any dictionary of Medieval Greek or Medieval Latin. It is unmentioned in any early English glossary of rhetoric. It is unknown in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. It has never been listed in any edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. …
Certainly, there are sentences and phrases with surprise endings. Educated people call these: "sentences with surprise endings."
Cool. Stand-up comics call the technique "and then I got off the bus".
Unload
Now let’s have fun. Here are examples in circulation, some that you’ve heard and some new:
I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.
My father said, "I’ll miss you, son," because I’d broken the sights off his rifle.
If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.
We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
War does not determine who is right, only who is left.
The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, "If an emergency, notify:" I put "Doctor".
I didn’t say it was your fault. I said I was blaming you.
Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for President and fifty for Miss America?
Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
The voices in my head may not be real, but they have good ideas.
Some people hear voices. Some see invisible people. Others have no imagination whatsoever.
Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won’t expect it back.
Hospitality is making your guests feel like they’re at home, even if you wish they were.
I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not sure.
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember the fire department usually uses water.
You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and name whatever you hit the target.
Sometimes I wonder why that frisbee keeps getting bigger. Then it hits me.
I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.
A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it as when you are in it.
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
If you are supposed to learn from your mistakes, why do some people have more than one child?
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others, whenever they go.
I saw a woman wearing a sweat shirt with "Guess" on it, so I said, "36C?"
Finally, my own contribution: At the MWA banquet I attended, I was charmed by the feminine pulchritude and considerable expanse of skin.
I passed a woman who wore a badge upon her impressive bosom that said JUDGE, and I figured "8.9".
Wikipedia now has an entry titled ‘paraprosdokian‘. While Wikipedia claims to merely report, it also shapes, and I have little doubt the word is here to stay. A scholar should take the bull by the horns, drop the adjectival ending, and wrestle paraprosdokia into submission. After all,
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
Reload
After laboring over this article, I discovered our colleague at Murderati, Zoë Sharp, not only wrote an article last month about paraprosdokia and T-shirts, but also offered examples of semantic zeugmas, AKA syllepses. Read on!
I’m reminded of a line from a movie I saw awhile back: “I’m always frank and earnest, with women. In New York I’m Frank, and in Chicago I’m Ernest.”
John, I could see that as a story plot!
There is a good deal of misinformation above. “Para prosdokian” is a TWO WORD (ancient) Greek expression meaning “contrary to expectation”. The “-ian” ending is nothing to do with Latin adjectives, but merely the Greek accusative case needed by “para”.
This could get interesting, Robert, and you raise a good point. My Greek is limited to making out the names of saints on the walls of our local Greek Orthodox church, so case and declensions are well beyond me.
I think Bill Casselman agrees with you and Professors Scaife and Ament that the root words are Greek, but that paraprosdokian itself is a “monstrous” neologism that appeared after 1950 and still hasn’t made it into the OED. He writes “The phenomenon of surprise endings exists; the legitimacy of the word paraprosdokian as a figure in classical rhetoric does not.”
If we’re fortunate, Professor Casselman may weigh in on the topic.
I can see letters being pressed onto T-shirts!
Terry, let’s start our own T-shirt business. It’s another way to break into print!
The column received lots of mail from outside the US.
First, Zoë Sharp sent a kind note.
Bill Casselman did as well, adding that Dobdob is doing well in the US and far outselling Canada!
Another overseas contributor adds these examples:
Thank you for stretching my mind with a new word and my face with a wide grin.
A few more for your list:
Funny stuff!
This reminds me of what Stephen King likes to say when an interviewer asks him why he writes the kind of stories he writes:
(laughing) Good one, Yoshinori!
Robert is backed up by Liddell and Scott, or at least my copy of Little Liddell (the smallest of the three editions of L&S’s Greek-English Lexicon, the next one up being Middle Liddell and the complete version being Great Scott) since I was too lazy to lift my rather ponderous copy of Great Scott off the top shelf.
Anyway, even in Little Liddell, (I have transliterated the Greek letters into the Latin alphabet but kept the diacriticals) under the listing of prosdokía (“a looking for, expectation, anticipation, whether good or bad”), the following example is listed:
“pròs prosdokían according to expectation. ”
PRÒS is a preposition impying motion, as with the English from. If we substitute PARA, another Greek preposition implying motion, for PRÒS, we come up with the correct phrase. When used with the accusative, PARA can have the meaning of “contrary to, against.” Q.E.D.
On the other hand, “Paraprosdokian” is not listed in my Dupriez’s Dictionary of Literary Devices, which is usually pretty reliable on terms of rhetoric. This suggests to me that the phrase was originally probably used in Greek as a comment rather than as a term, then misunderstood by readers and adopted as a noun.
And this explains why it’s not in the OED. It isn’t a foreign word adopted into English, but a foreign phrase describing a phenomenon, mistakenly used as a noun by the ignorant.
P.S. Àpropos of nothing, the “Liddell” in “Liddell and Scott” was H. G. Liddell, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford and father to Alice Liddell of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland fame.
Josh’s quote isn’t from Stephen King, but from Robert Bloch.
Writhing in guilt after admitting to succumbing to the sin of sloth, since research is my life, I dragged down Great Scott and looked it up there. Sho’ ’nuff, there it is, para prosdokían, “which is freq. used as a kind of joke in Com.[comedic writing],” followed by a classical Greek joke of exactly the same character as those offered up by Leigh in English, and supported by no fewer than four classical references to its like application.
Score: Robert (1), Casselman (0).
As always, in that British note, dead wrong and devoid of any knowledge of ancient Greek declensions, but still wanting to pontificate.
Prosdokiana is NOT a Greek form.
First of all, prosdokia is the wrong word. I explained its use in Greek texts.
Prosdokia is a feminine noun. Yes, its accusative case is, in the singular, prosdokian. But why would an accusative case be used as a nominative presentation form? Why is EVERY OTHER GREEK NOUN used as a term in rhetoric in a nominative form: i.e. tmesis, syncope, litotes, etc. etc., but this one exception is in the accusative case?
Have your Brit explain that.
Notice that your Brithead did NOT dispute my findings that the term appears NOWHERE in any list of figures of speech: Greek, Roman or English.
As I stated, it is a clumsy neologism made up at the end of the 20th century.
There is no misinformation in my piece.
The little Britlet wrote that there are only 2 Greek roots in the word paraprosdokian.
Oh? Para (1), pros (2), dok (3) + ia (4).
By my Canadian count, that is 4 etyma. A noun’s suffixal case ending is an etymon too.
You might want to pass that on to the your Britlet expert whose email was so besooted and besotted with error.
This is perhaps some constipated academic who cannot abide “colonials” possessing a keen eye for lexical legerdemain.
One thing is certain: I outwrite that dowdy twit without even trying. He should extract his dick from that jar of Marmite, and . . .?
Bill Casselman
(1) I am not British. I am an American living in Los Angeles. I have no idea what nationality Robert is, but I suspect he is also not British.
(2) I concede that your knowledge of classical Greek is far more profound than mine, since all I have to go with is a dictionary and a grammar. I have never studied classical Greek formally, and my lips move when I read it. But the dictionary is pretty good, and so is the grammar.
(3) Robert said nothing about etyma, only that the expression is a two-word expression, which is supported by Liddell and Scott. Now, the Greek-English Lexicon has gone through several editions, so I have no idea when the listing was made, but the current edition was published in 1996 when a supplement was added; the main text, where the citation occurs, dates from 1940, so it can’t be later than that.
(4) I had already agreed that its use as a noun was ignorant so maybe less caffeine is in order. At issue was its form, which is categorically All Greek All the Time.
(5) Ad hominem attacks and crude words are not a sign of sophistication and erudition, so I will refrain from further comment on our relative merits as writers.
The assumption that Robert is a British scholar came from me. I’m afraid my knowledge of Greek is the least of anyone here. I can spell AMOÇ and not much more, so I wag my eyebrows and try not to look dense.
(At least I could spell it if the browser could display it! Ø?K, why will UTF-8 display phi and not sigma?)
NB, I came across a term for a sibling of syllepsis, zeugma, and paraprosdokian structures called ‘garden path‘ to which English is particularly susceptible. Such sentences appear misleading or even nonsensical as in,
Further nugatory argumenta:
I, Bill Casselman, am NOT a professor.
I did make an error in thinking that para prosdokian could not be an ancient Greek phrase. Indeed there it is in Liddel & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon. BUT it is NOT listed as a term in ancient Greek rhetoric, as the Texas professors stated. I humbly apologize for my hubris in not checking the dictionary.
To the nitpicker who suggested that paraprosdokian IS acceptable semantically, I would point out the same dictionary’s (Liddell & Scott) first sentence in its definition of prosdokia “looking for, expectation, whether in hope or fear, but more commonly in fear.”
And I would add one more time: using the accusative case as a noun or nominative is:illiterate.
Bill Casselman
That was one of the most entertaining pieces I’ve read in a long time–and the comments weren’t bad either. Let me add another example from the brilliant Robert Bloch. He once dedicated a book (approximately, this is from memory):
I admire the anecdotes from other authors.
First of all I should say I am not Robert.
Just wanted to add that the word may not go back to ancient Greece but it goes back at least to 1883. See http://tinyurl.com/4l89tna
Good catch, Rob. I love all this brainpower focused on the puzzle of this one word.
Its casual use suggests it wasn’t unknown at that date. While it could arguably still be a noun, it appears adjectivally.
Great discussion all round. I intended to buy Casselman’s book until I got to his potty-mouth response. I am a writer …and disappointed that he seems incapable of dealing with criticism in a mature manner.
Anyway, the word paraprosdokian is here to stay. English is, after all, a living language, and we can shape it as we will. Today’s neologisms are tomorrows’s OED’s entries
Seems to me we’re basically talking about one-liners..
And what this blog needs is a few quotes from Henny Youngman and Rodney Dangerfield. If I had them, I wouldn’t need to say that.
You almost created one here, Francesca.