I have something fascinating to tell you. This isn’t it.
One thing to remember about English is that not all the words are in the dictionary. Unlike some languages (not many, but at least a few), English has no central authority. English grammar is not prescriptive; it’s descriptive — grammarians essentially just listen to and read the ways the language is used and figure out what the patterns are. In many cases they go on to recommend the patterns they like better and call them “rules.” But the language itself came first. And so do the words; dictionaries look backwards in time and list words that are already in use. There are quite a few words, and dictionaries miss some of them.
That’s the case with “paraprosdokian.” It’s a real word, and it’s been in (occasional) use since the 1800s, but it doesn’t appear in most dictionaries; they’ve simply missed it. Even though it’s not in the dictionary, though, it has both a meaning and a derivation. Some people, of course, don’t agree. Bill Casselman is a broadcaster and writer (sometimes about etymology) who wrote “The word paraprosdokian was made up by some semiliterate doofus late in the 20th century”. He didn’t think anyone could find a citation including the word from any time before 1950. In the era of the Internet, though, it can be dangerous to issue a challenge like that. For example:
“The humourous incongruity and unconscious cynicism of their utterance, and the paraprosdokian of their dialogue, with their perilous approach to caricature, all seem to show that Mrs. Craigie is developing a talent all her own for rendering bucolic character.”
That’s from a newspaper called “The Echo”, November 10, 1896. It’s from a book review of “The Herb Moon”, a novel by John Oliver Hobbes, who was in reality Pearl Mary-Teresa Craigie (and the reviewer evidently knew it).
“Paraprosdokian” also appeared in the “Illustrated London News” on July 18, 1931:
“It is long since I have sat at the feet of this minstrel; and I quote from memory; but I think another verse of the same poem thus illustrated the same paraprosdokian or concluding jerk of disappointment.”
“Paraprosdokian” comes from two Greek words, “para” (against) and “prosdokia” (expectation) — it means an unexpected ending. The “n” at the end is just an English convention added so the word conforms to…well, to a “rule”. A paraprosdokian is most often a quotation with a funny or ironic ending. It’s the form taken by many one-liner jokes. There are lots of famous ones:
“Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.” (anonymous)
“Mary had a little lamb; the midwife was surprised.” (anonymous)
“If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.” (Winston Churchill)
“I haven’t slept for 10 days, because that would be too long.” (Mitch Hedberg)
An internet search for “paraprosdokian” will turn up quite a few instances, including numerous lists of clever one-liners as examples (which is where those ones above came from, of course). My guess is that it’s going to appear in more dictionaries before long. And after at least 122 years, it’s about time. Because remember, time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
