Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to The New Coffee Room. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Paraprosdokians
Topic Started: Jul 27 2011, 02:41 PM (190 Views)
Larry
Member Avatar
Mmmmmmm, pie!
A paraprosdokian is 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. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but they also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a form of syllepsis.


Here are some examples:

I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

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.

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Some people hear voices. Some see invisible people. Others have no imagination whatsoever.

A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it as when you are in it.
Of the Pokatwat Tribe

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
apple
one of the angels
i came across this word recently but I didn't know what it meant.
it behooves me to behold
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
apple
Jul 27 2011, 03:56 PM
i came across this word recently but I didn't know what it meant.
that's not one I would have gotten on the vocab quiz.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
apple
one of the angels
i think it was recently the word of the day on dictionary.com.. Merriam Webster dictionary.com
it behooves me to behold
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
apple
one of the angels
•Where there's a will, I want to be in it.
it behooves me to behold
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
Posted Image
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
A classic form of humor with many examples:

Take my wife... please. (Henny Youngman)

When I'm good, I'm really good. But when I'm bad, I'm better. (Mae West)

My psychiatrist said I was crazy. I told him I wanted a second opinion. He said, okay, you're ugly too. (Rodney Dangerfield)




Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
« Previous Topic · The New Coffee Room · Next Topic »
Add Reply