paraprosdokian love

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek παρά (para, "against") + προσδοκία (prosdokia, "expectation").

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Examples

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  • (n.) A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected causing one to reframe or reinterpret the first part.

    An especially clever paraprosdokian not only changes the meaning of an early phrase, but also plays on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a syllepsis.

    (etymology) from Greek "πα�?α-", meaning "beyond" and "π�?οσδοκία", meaning "expectation"

    (examples)

    "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat." — Will Rogers

    "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." — Groucho Marx

    "I want to die like my father, quietly, in his sleep—not screaming and terrified like his passengers." — Bob Monkhouse

    "I like going to the park and watching the children run and jump around, because you see, they don't know I'm using blanks." — Emo Philips

    May 21, 2009

  • A garden path sentence that messes with expected word senses (semantics) instead of syntactic relations. One of my favorites: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."

    June 11, 2010