A figure of speech that uses an unexpected ending to a series or phrase. For example:
“The car stopped on a dime, which unfortunately was in a pedestrian’s pocket.”
“Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.”
Where there's a will, I want to be in it. "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 "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." — Groucho Marx "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my father, not screaming and terrified like his passengers." — Bob Monkhouse "A modest man, who has much to be modest about." — Winston Churchill (of Clement Atlee) "If you are going through hell, keep going." — Winston Churchill "I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long." — Mitch Hedberg "Take my wife—please." — Henny Youngman " It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." Winston Churchill "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." Winston Churchill This also includes the “humourous triple”, where two or more leading things in a sequence establish a pattern, with the last item being something unexpected.
Comments
I quite like this! Give me more examples and teach me the ways of it.
Also, how the hell do you go about pronouncing this thing nonchalantly?
I’m not sure it’s possible to pronounce nonchalantly. :) It’s Greek in origin if that helps anyone.
I’ve been trying to recall some good examples to add to the description. Wikipedia’s entry offered “He was at his best when the going was good,” which subtly funny, as well as “It was a beautiful day in March when I was hit by a bus.”
I’ve noticed that Stephen Colbert uses them rather a lot too, usually using intonation to really sell the first half of the sentence. “Violence never solves anything except conflicts” is the only one of his I can think of off the top of my head.
Not a word I’ve ever come across before! It looks a perfect candidate for one of the crosswords I do.
Here’s an example from Frasier, where Niles is talking about Martin (can’t run it to ground, so it may not be exact):
“Underneath that gruff exterior, Dad’s just one giant… spike."
Ah.
Couldn’t find it in Chambers, so I hunted a bit more. It’s originally a Classical Greek phrase, para prosdokian, which can be translated contrary to expectation.
I think the accent’s on the
dosyllable, but I’ll check on that.Not a very euphonious word!
Hey… what happened? Have I just found a formatting style I didn’t know about?
- do -
doI’m with it now. I tried to emphasise the – do – syllable and accidentally found ‘strikethrough’.
Excuse my rambling!
Got it.
Prosdokao means to expect (pro- means forward and dokeuo means watch or look); Prosdokian means expectation
The next question is: so, why is there an ’s’ in it? I can’t answer that. Yet.
I got the accent wrong: pronounce it “para pross dok EE an”
Or “para prozz dok EE an”
I was certain the accent is on the “do”: para-prose-DOKE-ian. Although it does sound Greek-er with the accent on the “i”. Hmm.
The more I think about it, the more I want a figure of speech that’s just a “prosdokian” to be its opposite. But I suppose that would just be an ordinary sentence.
?
I don’t get that at all, Bailey!
Is it pronounced doke or dock?
Indeed, Stephen Colbert does use this a lot!
Now I think I have it cleared up, thanks to Finrod’s scrutinization of the word. I thank you!
I hope I can do this in one go, after yesterday’s debacle…
Dock or doke? I think the answer must be ‘as you please’, NM. The second ‘o’ seems to be an omicron and not an omega, which indicates ‘dock’ as the more accurate. But it’s not gospel.
I found myself saying the ‘dock’ version automatically once I found the stress was on the EE
You’re welcome, NM! It was fun tracking it down… unlike ‘epithernia’ which is a mysterious ‘Greek word’ that fellow member boomstam posted… I can’t find that anywhere except one website. And the post I put up in the forums.
I still don’t know where the ’s’ in paraprosdokian comes from, though.
Ah yes, I see why you chose “dock” over “doke”.
But I still cannot find a way for it to slip off the tongue fairly lightly. I must practice.
The combination of ’s’ and ‘d’ is what makes it difficult to trip off the tongue. It looks remarkably un-Greek.
But I’ve established its pedigree, so I’ll keep digging for more info on it.
Author/editor/rhetorician Jay Heinrichs seems to think it’s para-prose-DOKE-ian. Greek roots aside, this seems to me like the sanest way to pronounce it English. I may be biased, though, as it’s the way I’ve been saying it for a few years.
Regarding my previously cofusing comment: if a “paraprosdokian” is a phrase with an unexpected ending, a “prosdokian” sounds like it should be the opposite—a paraprosdokian without the twist. But of course, that would be a fairly useless word. I was just being silly. :)
Oh, I see, Bailey!
Oh, the perils of communicating through the written word alone!
Still can’t find justification for the ’s’.
I recognise that name Heinrichs – I found that trawling round the Net (curious form of words!) this morning.
Mr. Heinrichs doesn’t give pronunciation guides to all his words… antistrophe (four syllables) can be stressed on the second OR third syllable.
The defence rests.
In fact I might even go for a lie down.
Well, the prosecution alleges that any pronunciation with four unstressed syllables followed by an iamb is going to be painfully wrong-sounding sounding no matter how many times you say it. Ergo, para-prose-DOKE-ian > para-prose-do-KEY-an. :)
Meanwhile, I found another one already on Bestuff!
The defence raises its weary, pain-wracked body to its feet and lunges sharply – but patiently – at m’learned friend prosecuting, with the observation that I pointed out that the Greek was a penultimately-stressed two-word expression, not a six-syllable word.
And (as he twisted the anapaestic knife in the wound)
- I think you’ll find (unless it’s changed since I taught myself this stuff) that a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one is called a trochee.
Not an iamb.
Nor a dactyl, for that matter.
Your turn!
Who would have thought you could get so much fun out of a word! ;-)
Damn! The formatting hasn’t turned out right!
Well, who cares? It’s legible… I think!
Here’s a less ambitious version:
The defence raises its weary, pain-wracked body to its feet and lunges sharply – but patiently – at m’learned friend prosecuting, with the observation that I* pointed out that the Greek was a penultimately-stressed two-word expression, not a six-syllable word.
And (as he twisted the anapaestic knife in the wound)
- I think you’ll find (unless it’s changed since I taught myself this stuff) that a *stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one is called a trochee.
Not an iamb.
Nor a dactyl, for that matter.
Your turn!
Who would have thought you could get so much fun out of a word! ;-)
It’s still not come out right! Oh, it’s cursed, this page!
It’s still not come out right! Oh, it’s cursed, this page!
Damnit! I meant trochee. My brain was off. Oh, the pain.
Regardless of the original Greek, paraprosdokian is a single, six-syllable word in English now. Like it or not, when you ram two words together into one word, there are metrical conseqences. One of them is me putting the stress on the fourth beat of para-prose-DOKE-ian, as I am not in ancient Greece!
Oh, Calamity!
Now I’ve done a Bailey and printed it twice! How?
Wait a minute! How did double posting get to be named after me?
“One of them me is putting the stress on the fourth beat of para-prose-DOKE-ian, as I am not in ancient Greece!”
Can we have a translation of that into English, please?
I would have posted sooner, but I was handicapped by the fact that I was convulsed with laughter.
Excuse me while I go look for a spondee.
*one of them is me putting the stress on the fourth beat of para-prose-DOKE-ian, as I am not in ancient Greece.
If you need me, I’ll be under a train.
Oh, I’m well-informed. I’ve been here.
Have I mentioned that I’ve been described as “dangerous”?
I’m my own undoing. You get none of the credit.
Oh me… I’ve never laughed so much since I read a book by Tom Sharpe.
We should save all this and publish it. It’s funnier than what’s on my TV 80 % of the time.
Make sure that’s not a British train… you’ll be waiting a long time!
“I’m my own undoing.”
?
Interesting syntax! Is it US usage generally, or confined to the NY area?
Sorry I’m not quicker on the uptake… but I keep getting attacks of uncontrollable mirth and I can’t see my keyboard for tears.
Nor the screen, for that matter.
My syntax is always weird. Unfortuately, I’m also a careless typist. The combined effect guarantees that my comments are incomprehensible at least 65% of the time.
Forunately, the trains are quite prompt in New York.
“Well, the prosecution alleges that any pronunication...”
I missed that one.
Consider yourself lucky!
“Forunately”
Indeed.
How come we decide to type at the same time so much? ;)
Did I say I’m a careless typist? I meant to say “catastrophically awful”.
At this point I’m just killing time until the crosstown local shows up.
Oh, dear God, I wish I could stop laughing…
I presume a ‘crosstown local’ is a train. Seriously. I don’t know the phrase.
No, Bailey,...[adopts Darth Vader tone]... your destiny lies with me
Excuse me, but I have to go outside for a while.
Before anybody asks, the picture’s of my grandfather.
About 1897.
My personal favorites are, “a penny saved is a penny adjusted for inflation,” and “great minds think like me.”
Would this word accept the line from The Philadelphia Story “The course of true love gathers no moss”?
Ooh, that’s a good one. :)
To return to the duel (now that I can type again without helpless laughter hindering every keystroke)... I don't count it as a six-syllable English word; It's not in Chambers Dictionary (yet!); it's essentially a two-word Classical Greek expression.
As Lincoln said in a discussion where someone argued that slavery was a form of protection, "Calling a cow a horse doesn't make it a horse."
And the first 'o' is short; I don't agree with Mr. Heinrichs.Hey, I like the new look!
Very swish!
And we can edit, too! Well, That takes half the fun out of it...
Was the crosstown local on time?
The crosstown local is always on time. I've only decided not to be under it just yet because I've realised I deserve to continue suffering.
I will split the difference with you on paraprosdokian; if you wish to write it as a two word Greek phrase, I won't argue with the correctness of that, and you can say it in whatever manner the Greeks deem fit. But as long as it's a single word in English, it's got the stress on the 4th beat, it has a long "O", and it has a mysterious "s" in it, which is not my fault, but the way it is. The stress on the 4th beat is the most reasonable pronunciation of it as a single word in English, the most common, and the most accepted. It may not be in the dictionary at present, but it can be considered a neologism in English, and one that is ever so much more likely to enjoy increasing popularity if people can pronounce it without looking like an idiot. I like the word, damnit. I don't want to cripple it at the starting gate by insisting on unpronounceable pronunciations or that it isn't a word at all. Stop fighting my word!
Yes - we all deserve to suffer like we did yesterday. I don't know about you, but your wit, repartee (and the occasional typing slip) yesterday certainly had me in stitches such as are rarely seen on this side of the Atlantic these days. But how can you accuse me of fighting your word when I Bested it? I'm merely trying to unwrap its mystery - and as we've seen with its mystery 's', sometimes the origins of words lie hidden beyond the powers of a crystal ball.
In the best traditions of the old song "You say potato, I say.." let's put down our fearsome verbal weapons and call the whole thing off. I hereby grant you full feudal rights to a six-syllable and fully English word, accented on the antepenultimate. Pax!
("Eppure si muove...")
PS Having thrown 'antisyzygy' your way I'm busy looking for other linguistic savouries for us to sample.
An interesting discussion to catch up on. Now, just one, totally boring question: has anyone actually managed to find a reliable (read: printed) reference for this word anywhere? And claims on the Wikipedia talk page that those exist don't count (couldn't verify those for lack of JSTOR access).
A-HA! At LAST!
I've found a (murky) reference to the 's'.
Pro-- is listed in one lexicon as basically meaning before; in the same listing I have found pros-- glossed as a 'strengthened form' of pro--.
You live and learn!
Oh, the satisfaction...
PS I've had to edit this 'cos I can't figure out how to insert a link to the page! How's it done?
This is great, I looked this up on wiki-. This is funny stuff!
Behind every dark cloud, there's even a darker cloud!
Is that one?
Thank you kind sir, I thought so. I never knew these had a name. Your research on this is appreciated.
The two-word phrase is well-established; I'm somewhat surprised it's not in Chambers Dictionary.
As a Greek phrase, I mean.